Energy Efficiency Grants for Nonprofits

Mission

It is our mission to support our customers, colleagues and communities by helping them achieve their aspirations and helping their communities thrive. This shapes our work as a responsible corporate citizen. We deliver high-impact funding and initiatives that support people, businesses and non-profit partners so that together, we can make a meaningful difference in the world.

Note: If you have thoroughly reviewed the Foundation’s priorities and grantmaking activity on the website and you believe your organization is a good match for our mission, you can fill out an information form here. Please be aware that the Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals or formal letters of inquiry and rarely makes grants to organizations that we first learn about through the information form—so we urge you to carefully review your fit with our organization’s priorities before investing time in filling out our information form. Full applications may be submitted by invitation only.

Laird Norton Family Foundation

The Laird Norton Family Foundation (LNFF) is a private family foundation in Seattle, Washington, with a mission to 1) honor and reflect the family’s shared values through giving and 2) engage the family in philanthropy as a platform for strengthening family connections. 

The Laird Norton Family

The Laird and Norton families, related to each other from their pioneer origins in Pennsylvania, settled in Winona, Minnesota, in the mid-1850s. There, William Harris Laird and his cousins, Matthew G. Norton and James Laird Norton, formed the Laird Norton Company.

The pioneer logging and lumberyard operation was the first of several family-owned companies, first in the Midwest, later in the Pacific Northwest, and finally all over the West, including Alaska. Today, Laird Norton Company, LLC is still a privately owned and operated family business, committed to contributing value to its family and community.

A seventh-generation family, the Laird Norton family now includes approximately 500 living family members. Family members live throughout the world and occupy a wide array of professions. We come together every year to share skills and interests, and strengthen our connection to each other and our shared history.

Programs

Arts in Education

Goals and Strategies

The goal of the Arts in Education program is to increase arts education and to improve pre-K through grade 12 student learning through the arts. Funding will be directed toward programs that seek to enhance students’ educational outcomes rather than to simply increase participation in, or appreciation for, the arts.

Approach

The Arts in Education program will consider funding programs that:

Encourage the adoption and/or growth of arts integration within a public school or school district. We will prioritize programs that integrate the arts as a tool within greater, diverse curriculum content areas over arts enrichment or direct arts instruction programs.

Advocate systemic change within schools, districts, or at the state level to encourage arts in education, and

Utilize the arts as a tool to reduce the educational achievement gap.

Why Take This Approach?

There is clear evidence to suggest that arts-integrated curricula and/or arts-rich environments are beneficial to student learning. Although we value the arts as a stand-alone experience, programs are most successful when:

• They have the support of an entire district and in-school leadership
• Teacher professional development is included in the program
• Partnerships with high-quality arts organizations are created and nourished
• Arts lessons are aligned with other student learning goals, and
• Student progress is effectively monitored

Guidelines

With the above lessons in mind, we have established the following guiding principles. ​

• K-12 public schools (or pre-K programs that receive public funding) must already have traction in arts programs (i.e. some arts education has already been established in the school, policies are in place to support arts in education, principals want a more robust arts program, and schools have support from parent groups (PTAs) to strengthen their arts programs). 
• Programs must focus on positively impacting students’ learning.  
• Programs must focus on students “doing” art, as opposed to observing art. Programs should enhance comprehensive, sequential delivery of arts instruction and can include all arts: performing, music, visual, theater, literary (poetry & writing), folk, media, and emerging art fields. 
• Applicants should be able to demonstrate their program has been designed and is managed with an understanding of cultural competencies appropriate to their student demographic. 

Climate Change

Goals and Strategies

Climate change poses a significant global threat, one which we are addressing by striving to ensure an equitable, resilient, habitable, and enjoyable world for current and future generations. While our work is focused on climate change, we believe in the value of ecosystems services and in the stability and resiliency of healthy natural systems. We also believe it is essential that the cost of externalities be incorporated into lifestyle, policy, and business considerations.

Approach

As a small funder addressing an enormous issue, we aim to make grants that offer potential for leverage and scalability — as well as “opportunistic” grants where our ability to move quickly may positively impact a project’s outcome. We are particularly interested in policy and research work, demonstration projects, and finding ways to address critical gaps. We are also interested in expanding our own learning (we are not experts, nor do we aspire to be).

Why Take This Approach?

We believe in persistence and prefer to invest in ongoing work with a long-term focus. Although our grants operate on a one-year cycle, we take a partnership approach to our grantmaking and prefer to support organizations and projects that take a long-term view and can demonstrate progress toward goals each year. We are also interested in projects that have the potential to be self-sustaining in the long run.

Guidelines

Currently, our grantmaking is focused on efforts to hasten the demise of coal, and on work that increases the abilities of the forests, agricultural lands, and estuaries of the Pacific Northwest to sequester carbon. We are looking to support leverageable, measurable work focused on:

• Regenerative biological systems that influence the carbon cycle (“biocarbon”)
• ​Reducing dependency on fossil fuels, and promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency.  

Human Services

Goals and Strategies

The goal of the Human Services program is to support, empower, uplift, and create opportunities for long-term success and a brighter future for unaccompanied youth and young adults (age 12-24) who are in crisis, have experienced trauma, or are aging out of the foster care system. We want to support these youth and young adults in their journey from surviving to thriving.

Approach

We will consider funding organizations or programs that provide support for youth/young adults suffering from trauma, mental illness, or addiction, with priority given to homeless youth and those impacted by the foster care system. While the full spectrum of services for youth in crisis is essential, we expect to do the bulk of our grantmaking in two areas:

Prevention and early intervention work to keep young people from sleeping in unsafe situations — or at a minimum make that a very brief and one-time occurrence, and

Support for long-term stability support services.

Why Take This Approach?

We believe treatment and support for mental health issues and trauma can help prevent homelessness and addiction later in life. We also believe supporting youth/young adults as they transition out of foster care and into independent living increases their odds for a positive future.

Guidelines

Organizations must meet at least one of the following criteria in order to be considered:

• Have leaders and/or staff that are representative of the community they serve. We believe that the best programs will have mentors and leaders that truly understand and can identify with those they serve (e.g., staff that have been homeless or in foster care or are open about their own mental health, trauma, or addiction struggles). We value organizations or programs that emphasize connection to and even emanate from the communities they seek to serve; those that embrace the mantra "nothing about us without us” in all aspects of their work.
• Organizations or programs that include or connect to wrap-around services for youth/young adults. For example: organizations that identify and connect youth to community resources, offer job/skills training and/or provide case management. We value organizations that partner with others in the community to ensure all of a young person’s needs are met.

Sapling Fund

Goals and Strategies

The Laird Norton family continually promotes the advancement of intellectual growth, business experience, and philanthropic focus in order to ensure the excellence of its youngest generations. Through the Sapling Fund, young Laird Norton family members (ages 14–21) come together to learn about grantmaking, the nonprofit sector, and family philanthropy. The Sapling Fund provides young family members a chance to identify and support causes that resonate with them, and endows future family leaders with a sense of fiscal and social responsibility.

Approach

Sapling Fund grants are guided by a “for kids, from kids” philosophy. Grants support programs and organizations that cater specifically to youth and specific priorities change each year as new cohorts of Sapling members collectively identify shared priorities for the year’s grantmaking.

Why Take This Approach?

Sapling Fund committee members gain valuable experience by organizing an annual campaign to raise money for their grantmaking activities through contributions from Laird Norton family members. The annual budget supports three to five grant awards each year and an all-family service project organized by members of the committee.

Watershed Stewardship

Goals and Strategies

Watersheds have social, ecological, and economic significance. The goal of the Watershed Stewardship program is to create enabling conditions for long-term social and ecological health and resilience in places of importance to the Laird Norton Family.

Approach

We take a long-term view on healthy watersheds and invest in organizational capacity with an eye to future resilience. We encourage our partners to focus not on single-species recovery or restoration to historical conditions as a primary end-goal, but to also consider the potential value of significantly altered — but functioning — ecosystems as we continue to face the impacts of climate change and other natural and human-caused changes into the future.

​We seek to add value not just by making financial investments in organizations advancing place-based ecological and social outcomes, but also by building relationships in watershed communities, spending time listening and gaining experience in the watersheds in which we invest, and fostering partnerships, convenings, and additional investment from other funders.

Why Take This Approach?

We believe the wellbeing of the people who live in a place must be considered alongside ecological goals; understanding the diverse interests and values of a watershed’s human inhabitants is an important component of long-term success. ​

Guidelines

Organizations or programs we partner with should:

• Possess the organizational capacity and skills to be well-positioned to secure much more significant funding for projects than we would ever be able to provide.
• Be open to the Foundation removing barriers to entry for public funding and get projects to a shovel ready position.
• Provide us with opportunities to invest in their abilities to develop strong governance structures, collaborate, mediate, facilitate, tackle sticky challenges, get paperwork in order, maintain momentum on big projects, and otherwise lay the groundwork for success.

While we don’t specifically commit to a set term of investment in any watershed, we believe that investing in a place long enough to really understand the work is important, and we believe that sustained and flexible funding enables greater long-term success for our partners. Although we make grants on a one-year cycle, we take a partnership approach to our grantmaking and hold a long-term view on the work being done in the watersheds we prioritize, but we do move on when we no longer have a necessary role to play.

NOTE:

• We are a small foundation, and since we leverage our funds by investing time in some way with most of our fund recipients, we consider only funding proposals that we have solicited, as either grant applications or requests for contribution.
• To make initial contact, please e-mail the Managing Director as described here.

The Leighty Foundation is a family foundation incorporated under Iowa law. Directors and advisors live in Colorado, Alaska, California, and Washington. We award charitable funds to tax-exempt nonprofit organizations. Distributions may be by a formal grant application process or by a contribution.

• Grants proceed from an invited, written application, on our form. Grants are usually made for one year or one project. A written evaluation of the project is required from each grantee. The majority of grants are $4,000 – $10,000.

• Contributions proceed from an invitation and do not require a formal application. Opportunities are researched by a Board member or advisor who then requests consideration by the Board. Contributions are made each year. The majority of contributions are $500 – $4,000.

Mission

To carry on the Leighty family legacy of service and stewardship by leveraging our time and talents, as well as our financial resources, primarily in the areas of Earth Protection, Education, Philanthropy, and Strategic Volunteer Engagement.Focus AreasEarth Protection“Environmental” has become trite, and does not convey the profound, urgent, and necessary changes in the way our species perceives and relates to our fellow species on Earth, and to its wonderful physical systems. The Leighty Foundation is especially interested in accelerating humanity’s transition to a sustainable, equitable, benign, affordable global energy system based entirely upon renewable energy sources — driven by radiant energy from our local star, the Sun, and by geothermal. Our earliest, most rewarding investments will be energy conservation and efficiency, while we invent and invest to “run the world on renewables.” We assist science education, so that we will better understand who and what and where we humans are, and to better understand Earth and our options for cooperation within its context and limits. Thus, we intend to invest wisely in Earth Protection, with both Foundation funds and with our personal involvement.An urgent Grand Challenge is transforming the world’s largest industry from about 80% fossil to nearly 100% renewable, CO2-emission-free energy sources, as quickly as we prudently and profitably can. Prudently: with acceptable social and economic disruption. Profitably: the huge amount of capital needed will flow only to attractive opportunities for returns. Electricity systems may be inadequate or technically and economically suboptimal for this transformation. Therefore, we now need to think beyond electricity, to comprehensively consider alternatives. Hydrogen (H2) and Anhydrous Ammonia (NH3) are attractive, energy carriers, storage media, and fuels – as complete renewable energy systems. The Leighty Foundation Earth Protection program focuses on the Big Three challenges of time-variable renewable generation:

• Gathering and transmission;
• Low-cost, annual-scale, firming storage;
• Distribution, integration, and end-use of energy services.

Volunteer EngagementOur nation finds itself faced with a perfect storm with shrinking resources and escalating needs. Meeting these needs will require a dramatic increase in the number of people willing to give their time and skills as well as their financial resources. However, the challenge may be less about increasing the number of people who volunteer, and more about building infrastructures which connect people with worthy opportunities, and empower them to make a meaningful difference.There is a growing awareness that even if Americans respond to the myriad of calls for service, many charities are not prepared to effectively engage them. A recent survey found that more than 30% of charities do not currently have the infrastructure to effectively deploy volunteers. Now is the time for us as funders to seize this unique opportunity to financially support nonprofits in building their capacity.

Rockefeller Family Fund is a U.S.-based, family-led public charity that initiates, cultivates, and funds strategic efforts to promote a sustainable, just, free, and participatory society.  The Rockefeller Family Fund is a tax-exempt not-for-profit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS tax code.

Since 2006, RFF has focused its Environment program almost exclusively on climate change. Our program emphasizes public education on the risks of global warming and implementation of sound solutions. RFF is interested in the development of initiatives designed to enact aggressive policies at the state and national levels to reduce carbon emissions; disrupt the coal life cycle from mining and burning to ash disposal and exporting; bring diverse and compelling new voices into the climate debate; and examine how special interests are distorting science and delaying constructive steps to deal with this impending global crisis.

Initiatives

Climate Policy

This program aims to advance state and federal policies capable of addressing the magnitude of the nation’s contribution to the climate crisis.  Breaking through the resistance to meaningful climate progress requires the following elements: an engaged and energized electorate demanding change, public recognition of the climate disruption now unfolding, an unmasking of the forces working to prevent climate progress, and policies that, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, benefit the public, as opposed to the polluters, and have the potential for bipartisan appeal.  

Among numerous milestones, this work has led to:  

• a ground-breaking report issued by senior U.S. military advisors that climate change is a national security risk;
• U.S. House and Senate introduction of a straightforward climate bill that would dramatically reduce carbon while economically benefitting a majority of Americans;
• passage of the most aggressive state-based energy efficiency bill in the nation;
• creation of an organization committed to the fulltime defense of climate science and scientists; and
• authoritative analyses of how advocates can best advance climate policies in the current political environment.  

National Coal Campaign

When the coal industry announced plans to build more than 150 plants across the country in 2005, RFF recognized that the construction of even one new plant would commit the U.S.  to long-term, high levels of carbon dioxide emissions, effectively preventing the nation from reaching future climate goals. The National Coal Campaign was first launched to help stop this coal rush. Its scope was later expanded to address the entire coal life cycle including mining, transporting, and disposal of coal.  Since then, RFF’s work with and support of advocates has helped defeat proposed coal plants in Florida, Iowa, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, South Carolina and Georgia, and coal ports in the Pacific Northwest and in the Gulf of Mexico.  In addition to engaging national and local anti-coal advocates on the ground, RFF assembled a team of financial experts to analyze –and expose the flaws in–the financing behind the construction of new plants and coal-related activities. This pilot project started at RFF in 2007 and has since become its own non-profit organization, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. The Institute’s reports, which have prompted federal and state investigations of coal activities, and its training sessions for advocates have added a new dimension to the fight against coal.

National Environment

Program goals: to mitigate climate change; make communities more resilient to climate change; protect public health from the hazards of toxic chemicals and pollutants; and preserve biological diversity.

Grants are made to promote more environmentally sustainable, resilient, and just communities that:

• Mitigate climate change by:
• promoting energy efficiency and alternative sources of energy for buildings;
• shifting to electric or low-emission vehicles and greater use of mass transit;
• promoting a smarter, more resilient grid and distributed (on site) generation;
• reducing emissions from existing fossil fuel-powered facilities and extraction activities; and
• establishing regional programs, performance standards, and regulations that help reduce emissions.
• Make communities, especially the most disadvantaged, more resilient to a changing climate by:
• creating infrastructure that reduces storm-water run-off and absorbs storm surges;
• protecting shoreline communities by conserving or enhancing natural barriers;
• encouraging more sustainable building design and land use through policy reforms; and
• better planning and preparation for weather-related emergencies, especially for low-income and other vulnerable residents.
• Protect public health from the hazards of toxic pollutants by:
• supporting targeted scientific research that can be used to develop policy;
• promoting safer chemical and heavy metal policies and practices, especially for infants, children and other vulnerable people;
• eliminating toxic chemicals from products through market campaigns focused on retailers and manufacturers;
• enhancing protections for low-income communities near polluting facilities; and
• minimizing the hazards of new and expanded fossil fuel extraction on nearby communities.
• Preserve biological diversity through habitat conservation by:
• establishing, enhancing, and monitoring wildlife migration corridors; and
• supporting functional connectivity between fragmented habitat that enables species to move and live safely.

We encourage initiatives that cut across these program areas, especially those focused on smart growth, sustainable agriculture and regional food systems, and sustainable production.

International Environment

Each year, we make only two or three international grants to U.S. organizations that are building the capacity of government, academic institutions, private sector entities, and nonprofits to:

• Protect biodiversity;
• Improve environmental health; and
• Reduce greenhouse gases around the world.

This Water and Energy Efficiency Grants Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) provides funding for projects that result in quantifiable water savings, implement renewable energy components, and support broader sustainability benefits. These projects conserve and use water more efficiently; increase the production of renewable energy; mitigate conflict risk in areas at a high risk of future water conflict; and accomplish other benefits that contribute to sustainability in the Western United States.

Category A: States, Indian Tribes, irrigation districts, and water districts; any state, regional, or local authority whose members include one or more organizations with water or power delivery authority; and other organizations with water or power delivery authority.  All Category A applicants must be located in the Western United States or United States Territories, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.

Category B: Nonprofit conservation organizations that are acting in partnership and with the agreement of an entity described in Category A. All Category B applicants must be located in the United States, or the specific Territories identified above.