What we learned about climate giving

7 min read • Sep 23, 2026, 7:44:42 PM

The Climatics has closed but people still want to know how to support climate action. We’ve put together some thoughts for anyone trying to figure out how to give well: the short-on-time version, and the want-to-go-deeper version.

Since we announced that The Climatics is closing, we’ve been fielding questions from our donors about where to put their money now.

This question takes us right back to why we started this thing. Climate giving can feel like an impossible maze to navigate. Overwhelming statistics, hundreds of organisations, no easy way to know where your funds will have the best ‘bang for buck’. We built The Climatics because we wanted giving into climate to feel easy and joyful, not like a research project you need a science degree to complete. That part of the mission doesn't end just because we're closing the doors.

So here's our answer - the quick version, and the longer version.

The short on time version

So you don’t have a heap of time or you’re feeling overwhelmed? We’ve got you. We can confidently suggest which organisations to support as of September 2026: our pre-selected, expert vetted grantees.

Your funds will have impact with any one of The Climatics seven grantees. We did the due diligence on them at the outset, and our rockstar curation team of climate folks deliberated on them to make the final decisions. We continue to stand by these organisations.

Check out the list of our grantees and links to their websites at the bottom of this blog.

How did we choose?

A reminder of what guided which organisations made our lineup in the first place: we were looking for organisations with track records of systemic approaches to preventing climate change and where the annual turnover was less than $1M. Specifically, our four focus areas were: Elevate the Story, Build the Movement, Support Māori-led Action, and Transform the Politics.

That might not be your jam. If not, read on for how to go deeper to find your own sweet spot.

The deeper dive version: where to start

Make it personal

Research shows that if people feel good about giving they’re more likely to keep doing it. So the best thing you can do for the climate in all of this is find something you enjoy supporting. Whether that’s something super local you can see or something national that gives you a sense of scale; whether that’s something that links to your professional expertise or something that links to your values and passions. Whatever it is - making it personal is a great place to start.

For us, it was important that we brought joy to what we funded. That didn’t mean The Climatics looked for playful grantees, rather it shaped how we went about the process.

Think about size

There is no gift size too small, and even a $10 donation can punch well above its weight (we’ve seen it!). At the same time, different donation sizes suit different types of work.

With the Climatics, we were looking for the most impactful use of donations between $10k-$35k. Looking at our seven grantees - they were all able to absorb the amount we were looking at AND they’re all great options for even the smallest donation sizes.

There are larger, well-resourced climate organisations doing important work across New Zealand, and nothing about this blog is a knock against them. They're playing a different and necessary role, often with the scale and infrastructure to take on projects a small grassroots group simply can't.

In smaller organisations, smaller gifts can have outsized impact. It could be the difference between a project happening or stalling; a role being filled or left vacant; a campaign reaching people or going quiet.

Go beyond symptoms: systemic approaches

There are no quick wins or low hanging fruit when it comes to climate change. As we're watching storms intensify, sea levels creep and rainfall patterns turn more unpredictable each year, it’s pretty clear that tinkering at the edges isn't going to cut it. The good news is that there are places where funding can shift the underlying conditions holding the challenge of climate change in place, rather than dealing with the symptoms of it. This is what we mean when we talk about systemic approaches. A growing body of evidence is pointing towards this type of systemic approach being able to achieve far greater impact per dollar invested in direct delivery climate charities.

We selected our four focus areas after researching the types of systemic approaches that match the Aotearoa context. We called them “people-powered levers” because that’s the best fit for philanthropy specifically (as opposed to government or commercial interventions). Storytelling shapes what people see as possible, necessary, desirable. Movement-building turns individual concern into collective power. Māori-led action grounds climate responses in mātauranga and long-term relationship with the whenua. Political transformation aims to ensure the rules work for everyone.

Systemic approaches are where we start to see a real difference, and it's still the lens we'd encourage you to bring to your own giving, wherever you decide to direct it.

The wider ecosystem

Our seven grantees are wonderful, and we know they're not the whole picture. We've built a map of the broader climate funding ecosystem in New Zealand, though right now it lives as an unwieldy spreadsheet that's no fun for anyone outside our team to view. We're hoping to turn it into something more palatable: a proper resource for people wanting to look beyond our own roster. When that lands, it will come with a caveat - we won't have done the same due diligence on those organisations that we did on our own grantees. Use it as a starting point for your own research.

Why now matters

The funding environment for climate work has gone from difficult to way more difficult. Government support has been cut or redirected in places that used to be reliable. Cost of living pressure has changed how everyday donors give, and understandably so, when people are watching their own budgets closely. Add in the wider political and global uncertainty, and less money is reaching the organisations doing this work than at almost any point in the last few years. Small organisations are often the first to feel that squeeze, and they don't have the reserves that larger institutions can lean on while things stabilise.

Which is why timing is so important too. A dollar given now, while an organisation still has room to plan and act, does more than the same dollar given once a project has already stalled or a role has already gone. Climate work compounds. Early funding lets these teams get ahead of a problem rather than scramble to respond to it once it's worse and more expensive to fix. If you've got funds sitting aside and you've been waiting for the right moment, we'd gently suggest that moment is now, not in a year or two when the gap has widened further.

Where to from here

We'll have more to share on this over the coming months, including that ecosystem map when it's ready. For now, if you're looking to direct funds today, we'd point you straight to our own grantees. We know them, we trust them, and we know your support will help them enormously to achieve their goals.