Such collaborations can enable quicker recognition of the complexities of interlinked development and climate challenges
In an era marked by the unrelenting incursion of climate change, with worsening floods, droughts, cyclones, and wildfires, the need for bold and innovative solutions has never been more pressing. While diverse stakeholders rise to answer this need—governments, corporations, and civil society—philanthropy is emerging as the force that can galvanise and bind these actors together.
Past giving trends to traditional development sectors like education, healthcare, and gender indicate a preference for project-based funding, yet our evolving understanding of climate change signals the need for giving that recognises that, as a systemic issue, climate change cannot be solved by one actor alone.
Characterised by the collective action of individuals and organisations pooling resources and expertise to address a specific societal issue, collective philanthropy offers incredible potential for climate action. Climate change is no longer a siloed sector but a lens spanning India’s development challenges and aspirations, and so philanthropy needs to partner with actors having different expertise and perspectives.
While collective philanthropy can herald innovative collaborations across sectors, we are already seeing its success in one promising area. India’s AFOLU sector (agriculture, forestry, and land use) presents huge potential for emissions reduction. However, while protecting forests or restoring these lands, it is critical that solutions account for the needs of communities in this sector.
For example, more than 700 million people in India depend on forests and agriculture for their sustenance. The recently launched Harit Bharat Fund (or Green India Fund) offers one compelling way to inspire collective action that makes progress on mitigation while enhancing the quality of life of communities.
With the aim to create a landscape restoration-based economy in India, this fund supports capital, capacity-building, and policy improvements to scale the efforts of local restoration champions in Central India. The ‘collective’ is built into the fund’s genesis, bringing together six diverse partners to share knowledge and pool resources.
This includes research organisations like WRI India, impact-driven and climate-focused family offices and venture funds like Spectrum Impact and Sangam Ventures, collaborative and grassroots non-profits like the India Climate Collaborative and Transform Rural India, as well as government-supported science and technology organisations like the Pune Knowledge Cluster.
The partners’ perspectives complement each other, contributing to a holistic end goal that isn’t focused on climate alone but on the interconnections with development and nature as well. This incentivises local actors to pursue sustainable restoration opportunities that mitigate climate risks, sequester carbon long-term, strengthen livelihoods to boost resilience, improve food and nutritional security, and ensure healthier natural ecosystems.
The fund’s diverse composition has also enabled new giving approaches. For example, an impact-driven philanthropist has provided debt to scale environmentally responsible non-profits and startups, signalling rising flexibility with types of capital and an appreciation for blended finance.
A key takeaway is that successful collective philanthropy is as focused on the process as the outcomes, prioritising the need to include multiple voices, skillsets, and needs while formulating our responses to climate change. We can see this in another recent initiative, the Bharat Agroecology Fund.
This aims to transform India’s food systems by supporting approximately 20 million small and marginal farmers in India, with the potential to sequester 27 million tonnes of CO2 per year, reduce emissions from fertilisers and pesticides, increase financial security, secure groundwater, and address biodiversity loss, therefore building climate resilience for small and marginal farmers and our food systems.
Incubated by the Agroecology Fund, this fund's'secret sauce’ is its reliance on diverse regional partners—advisors who are deeply embedded in India’s grassroots communities, as well as a mix of donors (including the India Climate Collaborative).
While we have a long way to go, such collaborations can enable quicker recognition of the complexities of interlinked development and climate challenges and how to frame holistic, community-first solutions.
While the shape and form can vary, collective philanthropy is the need of the hour across climate priorities; it can foster innovation, promote knowledge-sharing, and build collective capacity.
(Amitabh Jaipuria, CEO, Accelerate Indian Philanthropy and Keya Madhvani Singh, Head of Engagement, Strategy and Operations, ICC.)