Philanthropic foundations are stepping into pivotal roles in addressing climate and environmental challenges. With their flexibility, catalytic capital, and ability to convene diverse actors, they are uniquely positioned to drive systemic impact. This article distills five strategic calls to action from Dalberg’s experience advising foundations at the nexus of climate, health, and development.

Ensure Climate Action Is Connected to Immediate Needs of Communities

For climate action to gain broad traction, it must resonate beyond environmental metrics. Grounding climate work in related human priorities—such as public health, economic inclusion, and food security—can unlock more durable and widespread engagement. Strategic entry points include:

• Cross-cutting programs linking climate with health systems, regenerative agriculture or nature-based solutions that deliver co-benefits for livelihoods, resilience, and biodiversity.
• Narrative development that frames climate impacts through relatable lenses.
• Shared advocacy agendas aligned with global convenings like COP.

The Climate x Health Advocacy Coalition, co-led by Wellcome Trust and The Rockefeller Foundation and supported by Dalberg, exemplifies this approach. Dalberg conducted the funding landscape analysis, led regional focus groups in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and supported narrative alignment for over 50 organizations ahead of COP28.

Catalyze Innovation through Capital: Beyond Grant-Making

Philanthropy has the capacity to serve as a risk-taker and early mover, helping to seed new models, technologies, and financial structures. This role becomes especially powerful when paired with:

• De-risking mechanisms such as blended finance that mobilize private capital and create enabling environments for climate action.
• Thematic pooled or challenge funds.
• Investment in early-stage, community-aligned initiatives that lack traditional financing.

Dalberg supported this ecosystem-building approach. As a design and mobilization advisor to USAID’s CFDA program, Dalberg helped create the Climate Finance Investment Network (CFIN). We conducted an ecosystem consultation, designed the Climate Finance Ecosystem Maturity Model, tested it in four countries, and advised USAID on its strategic deployment.

Invest in Ecosystems, Not Just Projects

Building resilient and scalable climate solutions requires going beyond isolated interventions and adopting a systems lens, recognizing that climate action must be embedded in robust institutions, coordinated governance, and field-wide learning loops. Foundations can play a pivotal role in strengthening the underlying systems—from technical infrastructure and governance mechanisms to narrative-shaping and coalition-building—that allow innovations to take root and thrive.

Individual projects often depend on the strength of the broader ecosystem to scale and sustain impact. Supporting these enabling conditions involves:

• Funding climate data infrastructure and risk tools.
• Strengthening local institutions and implementation partners.
• Supporting knowledge-sharing platforms and policy alignment.

Two recent examples from Dalberg’s work illustrate how this ecosystem-building approach can unlock broader transformation.

Dalberg supported the Adaptation and Resilience Funder Collaborative, a collective of 60+ global funders committed to advancing people-centered solutions for climate adaptation. Together, we co-developed investment solutions to address systemic challenges that undermine the resilience of people and their communities. In India, Dalberg co-authored the Physical Risk Assessment Playbook with CPI and The Rockefeller Foundation, providing financial institutions with tools to integrate climate risk, in partnership with the Reserve Bank of India.

Center Equity and Local Leadership

Equity and inclusion have long been acknowledged as critical dimensions of climate justice, but in practice, many climate strategies still fall short of meaningfully centering them. Too often, climate interventions are designed top-down, without the leadership or lived insights of the communities most affected. There is now growing recognition that this approach undermines both legitimacy and impact.

Leading philanthropic strategies are beginning to shift this paradigm by:

• Prioritizing flexible, long-term support to locally embedded organizations.
• Centering underrepresented voices in governance and design.
• Incorporating inclusive metrics and participatory approaches.

Emerging philanthropic strategies in adaptation and resilience have demonstrated the benefits of grounding efforts in community-led governance and locally defined priorities. These shifts have not only increased the legitimacy and responsiveness of climate initiatives, but also strengthened their legitimacy, showing that equity is not only a moral imperative, but also a strategic enabler.

Dalberg supported this shift through its work on the Climate x Health Coalition, where we facilitated regional listening sessions across Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Community priorities—such as interoperable data and locally adapted health systems—were integrated into the coalition’s shared advocacy agenda, demonstrating how structured engagement can redistribute influence and ensure global platforms reflect regional realities.

Measure What Matters and Share What Works

Measuring what matters is both a persistent gap and a critical frontier in climate philanthropy. Many foundations continue to rely on project-level reporting that fails to capture systemic progress or highlight overlooked risks. Yet, as funders deepen their engagement in complex, interconnected climate issues, robust impact measurement must evolve from a compliance exercise to a strategic asset.

Foundations can take the lead by:

• Conducting climate and equity assessments across their portfolios.
• Supporting shared learning platforms to surface patterns, challenges, and emerging best practices.
• Investing in open metrics frameworks that strengthen transparency and collaboration across the ecosystem.

To support such systems-level measurement, Dalberg developed the Climate Finance Ecosystem (CFE) Maturity Model for USAID’s CFDA program, a practical tool to help funders assess country-level readiness, benchmark progress, and prioritize investments to unlock climate finance at a systems level. The model enables decision-makers to move beyond outputs toward diagnosing structural enablers and bottlenecks, setting a precedent for more strategic, transparent, and adaptive measurement practices.

Conclusion

As global momentum for climate action accelerates, philanthropic actors are increasingly seen not just as funders, but as shapers of systems, mobilizers of coalitions, and drivers of innovation. These five calls to action offer a strategic foundation for deepening impact across the climate–development spectrum.

What’s Next: Emerging Frontiers and Blind Spots in Climate Philanthropy

Even as philanthropic strategies mature, several frontiers remain underexplored, and blind spots continue to hinder progress. Foundations ready to lead the next wave of innovation should consider the following:

• Tackling the ‘hard-to-abate’ sectors: While energy and transport get attention, sectors like aviation, steel, and agriculture remain underfunded and politically sensitive. Philanthropy can break new ground by funding narrative change, R&D, and cross-sector convening.
• Investing in transition infrastructure: Many Global South countries lack the institutional, financial, and policy infrastructure to absorb climate finance effectively. Philanthropy should focus not just on funding interventions, but on building absorptive capacity.
• Shifting from project-level to system-level metrics: There is an overreliance on project indicators. More support is needed for impact measurement frameworks that track systemic change and co-benefits across portfolios.
• Funding collective governance and voice: Field-wide alignment efforts are chronically underfunded, including shared advocacy platforms, funder collaboratives, and Southern-led coalitions.
• Normalizing flexible capital for high-risk, high-reward spaces: Many foundations still hesitate to provide unrestricted or early-stage support. Embracing failure as a pathway to innovation can unlock new solutions.
• Strengthening climate learning and capacity across the ecosystem: Many funders and implementers lack the climate fluency and strategic confidence to act effectively. Philanthropy can help close this gap by investing in organizational learning journeys, peer learning platforms, and targeted support for grantees.

While no single actor can address these emerging frontiers alone, foundations can play a catalytic role in surfacing questions, testing new ideas, and building collective infrastructure for climate impact. Addressing these frontiers will require humility, collaboration, and bold experimentation.