Sustainable Development Program is sponsored by Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The Sustainable Development program supports charitable causes aiming to combat climate change and build a clean energy economy at federal, state, and local levels in the United States, as well as targeted international efforts. It focuses on effective climate policies and does not fund capital expenses for sustainable energy projects.

Sustainable Development | Rockefeller Brothers Fund Photo by Gertrude Hubbard, courtesy of YCFA. The Youth Climate Finance Alliance (YCFA) empowers the next generation to fight for climate justice. Human activity is causing climate change and rapid loss of biodiversity, and accelerating degradation of Earth’s life support systems.

These developments threaten the livelihoods, health, and security of people in all nations and cultures as well as the well-being of the greater community of life. The RBF’s sustainable development grantmaking endeavors to address these challenges by supporting development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

The program supports global stewardship that is ecologically based, economically sound, socially just, culturally appropriate, and consistent with intergenerational equity. The Fund encourages government, business, and civil society to work collaboratively on climate change, to acknowledge the moral and ethical consequences of inaction, and to make it an integral part of all development planning and activity.

Recognizing the global nature of many environmental problems, the Fund also promotes international cooperation in addressing these challenges. The Sustainable Development program maintains a significant focus on the United States in light of its disproportionate impact on the global economy, politics, and the environment.

The program’s work is also advanced in collaboration with the Fund’s “pivotal place” programs—Central America, China, and the Western Balkans—and with the Democratic Practice program’s Global Challenges portfolio. Pivotal Place programs support work in specific countries or regions to build the knowledge, policies, organizational capacity, and leadership needed to advance sustainable development in locally appropriate ways.

The Fund’s Democratic Practice–Global Challenges portfolio supports broad participation in forging the international agreements and institutional arrangements needed to encourage investment in sustainable development. Fund staff work to ensure that global developments inform work in specific places and that locally grounded efforts generate lessons and innovations needed for global impact.

With the recognition that the impact of unchecked climate change threatens all other conservation efforts, the Sustainable Development program focuses its U.S. grantmaking on building a green economy at the federal, state, and local levels.

The Sustainable Development program is focused on efforts to promote effective climate policies in the United States through support for high-leverage opportunities at the federal, state, and municipal levels (including New York City, the Fund’s home). In addition, the program provides support for select international efforts to advance global climate negotiations.

Goal: Advance Solutions to Climate Change Building public and policymaker understanding and support for a range of actions to address the threat of climate change. Supporting implementation efforts to build a clean energy economy at the federal, state, and local levels. Supporting efforts to reduce reliance on carbon-intensive energy sources.

Supporting targeted efforts to advance international progress on climate change. Urban Sustainability Directors Network Climate Jobs National Resource Center, Inc. See All Recent Sustainable Development Grants Environmental Grantmakers Association Biodiversity Funders Group | Climate and Energy Funders Group