By Dan Chu, Executive Director, Sierra Club Foundation
2022 was a year of exciting breakthroughs in combating the climate and extinction crises we all face. In our 2022 annual report, we are pleased to share inspiring stories of the Sierra Club Foundation’s catalytic impact on creating a world where people and nature thrive.
Years of public education, organizing, and advocacy - through the Sierra Club charitable programs that we fiscally sponsor and fund, and through collaboration with strategic partner organizations that share our goals and values - resulted in a transformational federal commitment in 2022 of more than $700 billion in grants, tax credits, and other public investments for frontline communities, consumers, and investors. The money is starting to flow in 2023 and will advance clean energy projects, energy efficiency, climate-resilient infrastructure, and the deployment of public and private capital into underserved communities.
By Dan Chu, executive director
We are excited to welcome Pedro Henriques da Silva as our new director, Shifting Trillions. Pedro joined our staff on May 1st and will leverage the Foundation’s roles as an active asset owner, shareholder advocate, and impact investor to move banks, asset managers, and other companies to transform the extractive fossil fuel economy to a restorative, renewable energy economy.
Address:
Sierra Club Foundation
2101 Webster St Suite 1250
Oakland, CA 94612
Phone: (415) 995-1780
Email: foundation@sierraclubfoundation.org
As a public charity, the Sierra Club Foundation cannot provide Sierra Club membership in exchange for your donation. Please see our FAQs page for more details.
For Sierra Club membership inquiries, please call (415) 977-5653 or email member.care@sierraclub.org.
This past year, we welcomed four new board members: Christian Okoye, Peter Liu, Sanjay Ranchod and Jodi Archambault! All four directors bring a wealth of knowledge and experience in clean energy, impact investing, philanthropy, public policy, and more. We look forward to their leadership in helping guide the Sierra Club Foundation’s work as the public charity fiscal sponsor of the Sierra Club’s charitable programs and grantor to partner organizations, expanding our networks and relationships as influencers to mobilize resources and action on climate change, and in stewarding the Foundation’s assets to lead the shift of trillions in capital toward environmental solutions, justice, and land/water/wildlife protection.
About Christian Okoye:
The Sierra Club Foundation (SCF) recently approved two new catalytic capital impact investments, bringing the total number of new investments in 2022 to three. When combined with our existing investments (2018 to present), SCF now has a total of eight catalytic capital investees, including a mix of investments in Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) led renewable energy initiatives and companies, a clean technology fund, and intermediary organizations that provide innovative financing for clean energy solutions that serve BIPOC communities. SCF’s primary investment objective for the Catalytic Capital Portfolio is to provide catalytic capital for projects and funds that advance climate solutions, social equity, and justice while striving for return of capital over the long term so that the funds can be redeployed into future catalytic investment opportunities.
The Sierra Club Foundation owns and operates the historic Shasta Alpine Hut, a climbers’ hut located on 720 acres that has long been a popular base camp for climbers and hikers on Mount Shasta at the south end of the Cascade Range in Northern California. The property is popularly known as "Horse Camp," a reference to the days when climbers left the town of Mt. Shasta and rode to the hut to start their climb up the mountain.
To appreciate nature is to fundamentally appreciate the interconnected web of life and all its diversity. As climate disruption and the feedback loops from climate change intensify, touching literally every place and all living things on the planet, more people are coming to realize that the root causes of climate change and environmental degradation are connected. So are the solutions. By bringing an intersectional approach to our work and explicitly addressing the connections between the human and natural environment, and the need for social, economic, and environmental justice and a healthy, functioning democracy, we are seeing the power of transformative change.
Over the past two decades, the U.S. has seen significant investments into clean and renewable energy technology and infrastructure. However, many of these investments have excluded those most at risk for the negative impacts of climate change, including low-income households, communities of color, rural and Indigenous communities, and small businesses.
