A climate equity non-profit received $43M in funding from The Bezos Earth Fund. Then, he turned his back on them and other climate grantees

Climate equity was once a priority of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez. What happened?

In 2020, Jeff Bezos reached out to The Solutions Project, a funding intermediary that directs resources to front-line communities who are implementing climate solutions. Most of the grantees in their network are grassroots organizations led by women of color.

The Solutions Project CEO Gloria Walton was invited to submit a proposal to the Bezos Earth Fund. At the time, the country had just experienced Black Lives Matter and a racial uprising, and people were interested in uplifting communities of color. (Although The Solutions Project, which is co-founded by Mark Ruffalo and counts Don Cheadle on its Board, confirmed that this was never mentioned by Bezos or staff at Earth Fund, according to those with knowledge of his motivations, he was potentially allured by the proximity of celebrity.)

Bezos Earth Fund first offered $2 million grants to equity groups The Solutions Project and Van Jones’ Green For All. Around the same time, Bezos Earth Fund also offered $100 million to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and other larger, more traditional environmental groups.

The $2 million to The Solutions Project would have funded ten groups over three years at best, according to their publicly stated average grant size. And there was such a glaring disparity in the other grant offering that it was important to come back to Bezos with a more serious grant number, especially if The Solutions Project was going to attach their brand reputation to Amazon’s.

So Walton and Jacqueline Patterson formerly of the NAACP educated Bezos and his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez on the potential for systemic and long-lasting change in grassroots communities of color. Making this case, Walton advocated that Bezos fund The Solutions Project with $50 million.

Instead of “tech bro” or Hollywood actors coming together to decide how resources would be disseminated, the money would be in the hands of the people experiencing the flooding, fires, and pollution firsthand. Equity–arming people in marginalized communities with resources to address climate change–would be at the center of this philanthropic strategy.

Brooke Harrington, a Dartmouth professor of sociology who studies wealth managers and oligarchy, told me in an interview that “there's a lot of research that shows that philanthropy by billionaires is an exercise in reputation-washing more than anything else.” But Bezos and Sanchez, according to several people familiar with funding conversations, seemed genuinely interested in hearing from communities, deferring to experts when necessary.

Walton and Patterson convinced Bezos and Sanchez to prioritize grassroots investing–and The Solutions Project landed on $43 million over three years. In addition, Walton made the case for the Bezos Earth Fund to provide similar levels of funding to other equity intermediaries, equalling $141 million total.

Through their negotiation and advocacy, Walton and Patterson had doubled the total amount of all U.S. climate philanthropy going to equity based on ClimateWorks baseline data. The Solutions Project went on to partner with grantees across the country–groups that deployed affordable solar and battery systems to Indigenous families without electricity, won a $550M settlement from Chevron, and protected Gulf Coast communities from cancer-causing pollution from the plastics industry.

According to The Solution Project’s impact report, during the period of Bezos funding, The Solutions Project distributed $42 million to more than 300 grassroots community groups. Across these groups, more than one million people received direct services in green affordable housing and disaster preparedness and response–as well as affordable access to renewable energy, food, or water programs. The Solutions Project funding and programs contributed to 53 documented policy or campaign wins that improved the lives of more than 100 million people through clean air, energy, water, and land benefits and significantly reduced carbon pollution.

But in 2023, the mood shifted. According to people familiar with the Greening Cities Initiative, The Solutions Project was invited by Bezos Earth Fund to submit a proposal for $8 million. The Bezos Earth Fund increased that to $16 million, and then reduced it to $250,000–at which point The Solutions Project decided not to pursue the grant. Instead, they advocated for a couple of their grassroots partners to be considered for direct funding.

Since 2022, Bezos Earth Fund has provided no additional grants to The Solutions Project–or to the other equity regranting groups they previously funded, such as the Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund and the Hive Fund. The Bezos Earth Fund, when asked for comment, shared that “The Bezos Earth Fund supported The Solutions Project from November 2020 to March 2024.” A spokesperson later added that “the Earth Fund remains fully committed to our mission.”

Mark Ruffalo, co-founder of The Solutions Project, told Hard Reset: “Extreme wealth and influence, when concentrated in just a few hands, is a dangerous thing. And it’s not just about individual billionaires who prioritize profit over justice and humanity–it’s about the structures that allow wealth and power to accumulate without the necessary checks and balances.”

When equity and science are stripped from the equation, many are left wondering what is left for Earth Fund to tackle. One person familiar with philanthropy in the climate space told me that community needs to be at the center of science, business, and cultural power. There is an inherent view in philanthropy around bootstrapping, not wanting to create a dependency on philanthropists. But according to this person, the obsession with “innovation” is not always the answer, and there is a false narrative that you have to be a scientist or technologist to solve problems on the ground.

Dr. Andrew Steer, who was then the CEO of The Bezos Earth Fund, appeared to agree with this sentiment even after March 2024, stating in a press release in May of 2024: “The Bezos Earth Fund has a foundational belief that climate and justice issues are inextricably linked. Those least responsible for causing damage, suffer most from it. And these same communities are often the best equipped to find and implement solutions.”

But Steer has since resigned as CEO of The Bezos Earth Fund–and two weeks ago it was revealed that Bezos was ending his support for the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which evaluated whether and how companies were decarbonizing. SBTi was majority-funded by Bezos Earth Fund and the Ikea Foundation.

“Charity can be judged by how easily they're changed by their core missions,” said Harrington, invoking Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s decision to stop funding DEI initiatives. “The oligarchs were not sending money to young people who throw cans of soup at the Mona Lisa, but to straight-and-arrow heavily vetted normie objects of charitable donation. It’s a real measure of how radical Trumpism is.”

The Solutions Project continues to attract new funders and philanthropic funds to support equity–in fact in 2024 MacKenzie Scott invested $1-2 million grants in at least five of The Solutions Project’s grassroots partners through its Lever for Change. And their work lasts far beyond the time money was granted to local groups. In New York, local environmental justice groups’ work around “Asthma Alley” in Western Queens transformed an oil and gas dinosaur into a hub for renewable energy distribution, providing clean energy to more than 2 million homes. In Los Angeles, grantees’ work to phase out the Inglewood Oil Field will prevent wells spewing out harmful pollutants that reduce lung capacity among low income communities.

But should the political winds blow the other way and climate equity become zeitgeisty again, Ruffalo is still wary of the increasing concentration of power and wealth among only a few decision-makers.

“I used to believe people like Bezos and Musk would step in like heroes and save the world,” said Ruffalo. “This kind of benevolent billionaire. I was naive. Now I know they will not. To address our greatest societal challenges, including the climate crisis, we need a revitalized democracy–one built on strong financial regulations, fair taxation, robust public services, reliable institutions, worker and civil rights protections, and a thriving middle class. Billionaires won’t save us–but the power of the people can.”

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