A note to our community from our President, David Beckman
The past several months have brought meaningful opportunities for connection with many of you and our friends in the public interest sector as we all navigate the unprecedented challenges of this moment. Our connections are fortifying, a reminder of the strength of our community’s collective work, and the values, experiences, and common motivations that make us passionate about work in the public interest.
And that is what you, our partners, do: work passionately in the public’s interest.
So it goes without saying that all of us at the Pisces Foundation are committed to standing with the organizations and fields we support and using the resources we have to advance the change we all seek. We will continue to invest in the leaders and collective efforts that will bring us closer to thriving communities and nature. Indeed, our strategic direction, which I wrote about here, is a commitment to supporting the collaborative action that has always been needed—and is certainly needed now.
In the short term, we are expanding our grantmaking to help meet this moment. I am appreciative of our board’s recent decision to increase our 2025 environment and climate grantmaking by about 50%, resulting in our largest annual budget. Our intention with these additional grants is to invest in shared capacity and movement infrastructure that enables organizations to act at scale in response to today’s challenges and opportunities, as well as those to come.
As critical as it is for philanthropy to move more money into the field, this moment is also an opportunity to recognize that how foundations deploy resources also matters. I recently wrote about how we can ensure philanthropic practices aren’t a mismatch with today’s needs in Stanford Social Innovation Review (An Opportunity to Build, In the Crisis), and on my LinkedIn. I welcome your reflections on these ideas.
One place where we’ve seen the power of collective action over the past ten years has been in the fight to mitigate super pollutants–a proven, yet underfunded approach to rapidly reduce global warming. This month, on our blog, Perspectives, we are sharing reflections from our partners on the past, present, and future of super pollutant mitigation. Their reflections are a reminder of the inspiring efforts of our community to act against the odds and over the long-haul to advance our common interest.
Thank you for all you do to create a more vibrant, thriving world.
