SPEAKER_00 0:12

You're listening to the Philanthropisms podcast with Rodri Davis. Hello, you're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast. This is the podcast where we try to put philanthropy in context. I'm your host, Rodri Davis, and this week I am in conversation with Emily Titesworth. Now, Emily is the executive director of the Honold Foundation. So it's an exciting one for me as I'm a big climbing fan, and the Honold Foundation, as the name suggests, is the foundation that was started by the climber Alex Honold, who uh became famous for his free soloing attempts. So he free soloed El Capitan and then more recently free soloed his way up the Taipei 101 sky uh scraper in uh in Taipei. Um and the the Honel Foundation is an organization that focuses on uh climate issues, particularly around low-cost uh solar power. Um so I talked to Emily uh well very recently, um recording this just after finishing that conversation. Uh, we talked about how Honnell Foundation came about, what the organization does, what it focuses on, why the focus on low-cost solar energy had come about, and sort of why that was felt to be particularly effective. Um we also talked about the wider climate philanthropy space, kind of why so little philanthropy is still focused on climate issues. Um, we also talked about whether uh the idea that kind of climate uh and the needs of climate are in um competition with the needs of humanity needs to be challenged because uh Honnell Foundation takes a sort of community-centred approach to funding climate issues. Um we also talked a bit about whether we need to stop seeing climate as a cause area uh and instead see it as a cross-cutting issue that all funders and and organizations within civil society should be thinking about. Um we also talked uh about taking a trust-based approach to grant making because Honnell Foundation uh kind of identifies as a trust-based funder and what that looks like in practice and why it's um you know, why it's so important. Um, we also talked about what it actually looks like to work with grassroots organizations and community-led solutions, um, what sort of models you need to play there, and what role funders can play alongside the money they give, you know, in terms of conferring legitimacy and and kind of amplifying the work of the organizations on the ground. Um, linked to that, we talked about the importance of narrative and storytelling, the role that they play, particularly around climate, in kind of shifting climate narratives and highlighting the work of organizations that that are doing things on the ground. Uh, we also talked about scaling um and the ways in which scaling can happen. And is it the kind of the idea that scaling is all about taking a single organization and making them bigger and expanding the work they do? Or actually, is there a more kind of distributed form of scaling which is about expanding the wider ecosystem as a whole, even if the organizations within it uh remain relatively small and locally focused? Um, and we also touched uh a number of times on the kind of political challenges, particularly in the US and particularly around climate at the moment, um, under the second Trump administration, uh and what this looks like for organizations like the Honald Foundation that are focusing on this area. Um, so without further ado, let's get into the conversation. I really enjoyed it, um, and I hope you will too. And then I will be back at the end for a bit of housekeeping. Okay, great. Well, I'm here with Emily Tittsworth. Hi there, Emily.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Hi, great to be here.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Yeah, great to have you on the podcast. Um, and as everyone will know from the intro, Emily is the executive director of the Honnold Foundation. Really interested to talk to you about the work that the foundation does, particularly around climate and low-cost solar energy, which I know is a big area of focus for you. Maybe the best place to start, though, is just if you could tell everybody listening a bit about what the Honnold Foundation is, what you guys do, how it came about, and what your kind of areas of core focus are.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

So the Honnold Foundation has a bit of a unique origin story. Uh, we were founded in 2012 by the rock climber Alex Honnold, known for his free solo or ropeless ascents around the world, and recently back in the news, uh climbing Taipei 101 in January. So he climbed around the world, you know, starting in his early 20s and got to see what energy poverty looked like firsthand in places like Borneo and Chad. And as he was doing research about how he could potentially contribute to addressing this, came across solar. And I think at that point, the transition to renewables was not inevitable in the way that it can feel now. And so he decided to focus his philanthropy from that early time on solar. And so the organization has grown and evolved over time since then. Uh, we became an independent 501c3, which is a US nonprofit. Um, in 2018, I joined in 2021, and we have kept that sort of core focus on solar and really evolved the approach to be community-centered and community first. And so as an intermediary organization, we provide, in some ways, sort of a translation function for big philanthropy corporate partners and individuals that want to reach grassroots and last mile communities with renewable energy. Uh, and we build those relationships from the ground up to enable communities to really take the reins and to use renewable energy and solar specifically to develop and to conserve the local environment in the ways that they think best.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

And so you see there you're um an intermediary. So in a in a way, you're kind of you're working with funders as well as with organizations on the ground and trying to sort of bring the two together. Is is that kind of the whole of the model, or do you have kind of resources of your own that sit alongside those, or are you kind of solely working in between in between funders and funders?

SPEAKER_01 6:28

So one of the things that m makes the Honnold Foundation unique is the fact that Alex has continued to be involved in the organization as a board member. And since those early days, he's contributed a third of his income towards the uh foundation. And so that offsets our operations and administration costs. And then we work with a network of donors and philanthropists to resource the work. And so that enables our partners to know that their funding is going directly to our grant making and capacity building and storytelling work. And it's pretty amazing that, you know, Alex, I think, would call himself a dirtbag climber still. But from those early days, you know, when he was making like $50 or $100,000, he was still contributing a third of his income to get the foundation off the ground. And so cool to see that that's continued. Um he's now you know, scaled up his giving, but supports around 10 to 15% in a given year of our operating budget.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

And and alongside that, kind of monetary support, you know, obviously when you've got an organization that's got a relatively high profile founder, I mean, one can see that there are kind of upsides and downsides to that sometimes. How have you how do you find it as an organization to have a high profile founder still heavily involved? And kind of how do you make sure that you make the best possible use of that?

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Yeah, I mean, I've told Alex this, but I when I joined, you know, my background is in public health and community development, and I was not seeking an opportunity to work with somebody who's high profile. And so that, well, if this turns out to be a celebrity vanity project, like it's not gonna last. I'm coming up on five years as the executive director, and so, you know, obviously my experience has been anything but that. I think Alex is the definition of a specialist, right? Like he climbs every day, he loves it, he wants to be the best at what he does, and I think he brings that same focus to solar and to the work of the Honnold Foundation. And so he's a great thought partner and ambassador, and really hands off and lets me manage and develop the organization and our strategies in the way that I think is best. And so it's worked out really well. It's great to have him as an ambassador. And I think that ties into some of the sort of storytelling and amplification work that we do in a really neat and unique way because a lot of the organizations that we're working with, we might be the first international funder or certainly the first renewable energy or climate funder in a lot of cases for these local grassroots organizations. And so we do grant making directly to the organizations. We provide a lot of capacity support around marketing, financials, executive coaching, all of those sort of things. But then having the relationship ongoing with Alex and having him do a fireside chat with one of our grantee partners at a major conference, um, help promote short films that we do with them. That really is taking their work to a much broader audience that than we could reach on our own. And I think that's a huge plus for our grantee partners to be able to reach that kind of audience organically.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah, and I guess it gives them a sort of platform that they would really struggle to find otherwise and get some, as you say, in front of audiences that they might otherwise never be able to get in front of. That's really interesting. Um I wanted to ask about the sort of particular focus on solar and low cost. You mentioned there that kind of Alex had seen through his experience of climbing and places around the world, the the challenges that face around climate and around kind of um energy usage. What was it particularly about solar that that appealed and became a sort of core part of what the foundation does? Is it is it that you'd kind of already seen things happening around solar and thought, you know, this is an area we want to get into? Or is it that you kind of had identified a problem and were looking for a solution and got to it that way?

SPEAKER_01 10:09

I think it's more the latter. It was really thinking about the looming problems of climate and energy access, how those were interrelated, and then realizing that if you don't put humans first, most technology solutions are not going to succeed. And so solar at that time, and I think still is the most flexible, adaptable, and you know, low-cost solution in the renewable energy toolkit. And it works in rural Brazil, it works in Alaska, here in the US, it works in deserts and jungle conditions. And so for the kind of partners that we have ended up working with, it's just always been the best solution. Um, it continuing to get cheaper. And in some cases, our partners are pairing that with wind or hydro. And so there is some integration of other technologies, but ultimately for us, it's about what's going to be most adaptable and long-lasting for our partners, and not necessarily like what is the next most cutting-edge technology that we can try out. We do sometimes get asked why we don't support nuclear, which I always find pretty funny. Um we're definitely not operating at that scale. Um, but I I I would say ultimately we're technology agnostic. If something else that is better and more suited to our partners comes along, then we would try that. But so far, solar has been the most relevant.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Yeah, absolutely. Um, and as an organization that's kind of operating in the climate philanthropy space. How do you view that space at the moment? Do you think you know it's a healthy area? Do you think there's kind of plenty of climate philanthropy going on? Or do you think actually, you know, your sense of it is that within the overall space of philanthropy, there's still quite a small proportion focused on climate?

SPEAKER_01 11:54

So I think even before last year, it was a challenging space, somewhere in the neighborhood of 2% or a bit uh below that of philanthropy overall goes to climate. And it really is the generational challenge that we're facing. And so the overall volume of philanthropy going to climate is already an issue. And then when you drill down and think about what's actually ending up in the hands of communities on the front lines of climate change and local organizations that are helping people adapt, mitigate climate on local scales, that is really a fraction, even of that, of that 2%. And so it's already a challenge. And then in the US, with the uh re-emergence of the Trump administration at the beginning of last year, um, a lot of through USAID and um, you know, other sort of federal-level funding that had been going to solar, climate, and renewables more broadly, a lot of that was just cut off abruptly. And so I think in some cases, philanthropy, at least here in the US, has has endeavored to respond. But many times that means upping your payout rate from 5% to 6%. And when you're thinking about the scale of the problem that was already there and how much worse it's been made by the current administration and the political climate, um, it's just really not sufficient. And so while we're not funding at the level of the US federal government, unfortunately, I think philanthropy does have a really critical role to play, both in terms of being able to be a risk-tolerant funding mechanism, and then, you know, to stick with partners who are going through challenging times because of federal disinvestment. We have been working with a partner uh in West Virginia here in the U.S. called Coal Field Development for six years now. And they are doing amazing work to transition abandoned coal infrastructure to solar and to other renewables and to build a workforce around renewables from out-of-work coal miners and their families. And, you know, they had kind of graduated from the Honnold Foundation a few years ago. They got a huge investment from the previous Biden administration, um, and they were scaling up across the state. And then that was all frozen last year. And so they came back to us and we decided to reinvest and to support them through this challenging time to help them maintain the work while they wait for the political headwinds to shift. And then we're also working on a short film to tell their story and hopefully reach new audiences and new funders. And so I think this is just one example of the role that I think philanthropy can play. Obviously, there's a lot of advocacy and activism that has to happen as well. But sticking with partners in the nonprofit field that are going through a challenging time, I think is a hugely important piece right now. And then, you know, just staying the course long term, thinking in the you know, five to ten year time horizon instead of the you know, 12 to 18 month funding window that often happens in the in the philanthropy space.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Yeah, that's that's really interesting what you say there in that example. Because I I guess the point there is the strength of philanthropy is that it can, as you say, take those longer time horizons, and particularly when political cycles are increasingly short and turbulent. Actually, that's that's very important. Do you with where you're saying with the the grantee organization that you're working with there, and they'd kind of found their situation had changed uh dramatically. I know lots of other funders and and philanthropists have been sort of struggling with the response to that, um, and kind of what they've done in the case of funding being withdrawn by USAID and federal funding, because there's a concern that sort of, you know, if you try and step in and plug those gaps, you're never going to be able to do it at scale, and also there's a danger that you're kind of making life easier in a way for the government. But is your sense that actually the role of funders is, you know, you've you've got to support the organizations that you believe in in on the basis that at some point things will change again?

SPEAKER_01 15:52

I think that's that's true. And I would say I got some great advice a couple years ago, which was to not think about how you can support every one of your grantee partners indefinitely, but to think about in a given ecosystem or issue area, what are the 10 to 15 most essential organizations? And in difficult times like this, how can you ensure that those organizations at the very least continue to do their work and to hopefully thrive for the long term? And so I think we try to take an ecosystem approach and think about what are the sort of foundational organizations working in the space that aren't getting the support that they need where the Honnald Foundation can can step in. And I think that does tie into this idea of risk taking in philanthropy. And there is a lot of, in my opinion, uh sort of navel gazing that happens in philanthropy around risk and um this idea that philanthropy is the tip of the spear in some sense in funding and that we're gonna try new things and fund early stage and take those risks to support nonprofits that might be struggling or social enterprises that are having a difficult time. And I think in practice we take our idea of risk a little bit too seriously. Um when we think about grassroots communities, they're facing these existential risks, right? Like sea level is rising, storms are getting worse, heat waves are making daily life almost unbearable in a lot of places. And so when we think about the risks that they're facing, um, and that's not to even mention activists who are being targeted for their work and the sort of personal security risks that a lot of the organizations and leaders that we support are facing. It feels like the bare minimum to take these sort of risks with capital. Um, and to even call them risks, I think is is maybe problematic. And so we are known partially because of Alex's uh profile and partially because of the way that we fund as a less risk-averse funder. But I I like to challenge the idea of risk in philanthropy because a little bit of red on your balance sheet is not the same as standing up knowing that you might be personally targeted for your views. And so I think we owe it to our grassroots partners and to their communities to be able to take those safer risks, let's say, so that they feel comfortable risking it all um to make their communities thrive in the long term.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yeah, I think that's really interesting what you say there. And I know it's something I've I've read, you've written about before, that that actually you suggest that the Alex's own background as a climber, you know, and the kind of what that's done for the culture of the organization as it's grown, means that the understanding of risk is perhaps more nuanced and a bit more sophisticated. Because it's not, I mean, I think people from the outside would assume that if you do free soloing and something, it's all about just taking ridiculous risks all the time. And it absolutely isn't. It's about understanding and calculating those risks and minimising them wherever possible. And actually, you know, d does that filter you think through into the approach to philanthropy that the organization takes, that actually, as you say, it's not about just kind of taking more risks, it's about having a more sophisticated understanding of what risk actually is, so that you are able to do things that other organizations might just kind of shy away from.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

I I think that's a great point. And from the Alex perspective, I think he would say, you know, if you're physically physically able and you're not active at all, you're risking, you know, heart disease or stroke or all of these things that we don't necessarily talk about or perceive as risks at a more intense level, potentially, then he is risking his life climbing after he's done a lot of groundwork and prepared for something. And I think when he free solars, for example, he's climbing um much below his sort of threshold of of skill. And so, you know, I think there are some lessons to take there. And one of those is to think about what risk really is, and it's not necessarily like the flashy thing that you think of when you think of risk. It's sometimes these underlying structural issues that might be more risky. And so I think like when we think about, okay, well, philanthropy is paying out five or six percent of their endowments, at least here in the US, um is that not risky because we're risking the future of the human race, right? Like that is that is a risk. And I think that holding back resources is riskier than than investing at this point, and and we we don't really think about it in those terms. So I do think that there is like frame shift that can happen. Um the other thing that I do think in some ways ties into Alex's climbing is this idea that you prepare a lot. You do a lot of due diligence before you climb with someone, you do a lot of preparation climbing with ropes before you free solo, for example. And that does translate to the way that we think about our partnership. So we are a trust-based funder and we do a lot of upfront due diligence. We cast as wide a net as we can through an open call for applications. And we use that sort of as a letter of interest. It's a very short pitch that organizations can do that does not take them very much time, and um enables them to get on our radar and for us to review that. And so finalists that pass our first round of due diligence then go through phone calls, reference checks, media screenings, uh a whole range of work that we do on the back end. And then once we fund them, we really trust them to do what's best. And so our funding is flexible. We offer technical support along the way. Um, we try to fund them for as as long a time horizon as possible as an intermediary. And so um I always think in in that case that like the measure of a trust-based relationship or that you know you're taking appropriate risk is if a grantee will come back to you and tell you that something's not working or that they need to try something different. Because I've done nonprofit work for 25 years at this point, and there's not many funders that I've worked with where I really felt that I could honestly say, oh, like we made a mistake or we need to try something different. And so I think being able to dislodge that power imbalance a little bit is is a big part of how we're thinking about both the trust-based side of things and what it means to take a risk. Because I think not spending the time and resources to build that trusting relationship actually is riskier because when you know the rubber hits the road, when things go wrong, like partners are gonna be honest with you and you can actually fix what's going wrong. Um and I think that's a conversation that I'd like to see more of in philanthropy.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Yeah, and it it actually touches on something I've talked to other people, but I should just love to get your sense of, which is this that the flip side of the conversation about risk is the one about failure and success. It's got a part of the problem, is that the narratives that we have about what it means to be successful as a funder are all tied up with kind of making the right calls and everything going right in some sense. And actually, we don't have a very good way of talking about failures that happen, not because you've done anything wrong, but because you were taking necessary or kind of well, you know, well thought through risks. And as you say, actually, when you've got that relationship between a funder and a grantee, maybe it's easier for that to happen because you can talk about failure, but in a way where you're not worried that the the money is going to stop coming or that you know the relationship is going to end. Do you how do you kind of think internally within Honolulu Foundation about you know what it means to have a success? How do you look at you know the successes in your funding and how do you then kind of convey that to others that you're working with?

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Yeah, I think for me, really thinking about like success as a long-term sort of generational thing versus like, did we hit our metrics this you know, six-month period? I think is a big part of it. Generally, when we think about impact uh measurement, for example, like it's an iterative conversation with our grantees. So we have a core group of metrics that we want to measure. And some of those are very straightforward, like how much solar did you install? And you know, is it still there a year later, and those kind of things. But then because solar is used for so many different things, whether it's mangrove conservation or river transportation or workforce development, um, what impact means for a given organization and community really looks different depending on the context. And so those kind of conversations where we can hopefully build evaluation and learning capacity within local organizations, but also listen to them and understand what's important to their community in the long term and how might we measure that and leave it open-ended enough so that unexpected things, you know, are gonna come up and we can capture those and learn from them. So I think that's that's a big picture, you know, piece of how we think about impact measurement. I also, you know, I think the failure thing that is really an important piece of the conversation as well, because, you know, I'm you can probably imagine I'm not a huge proponent of like nonprofits need to act like businesses. Um, but one of the pieces that I think we can actually take from, let's say, the venture capital community is this idea that if you never fail, uh you're not taking enough risk. Um and in the VC world, failure is a matter of course. And in some cases, it's kind of a badge of honor. It's like, oh, I invested in this many, and you know, not everything worked, but these two or three, you know, ended up being big bets, and those succeeded. And so, you know, not to not to start a nonprofit hunger games, but I do think like we need to we need to cast a wide net. We need to try new things. And I think like reframing failure in that way, that it truly is a learning experience. And, you know, it's a lot more complicated than selling a product, right? It is like figuring out how we mitigate climate change, how we adapt, how we provide sustainable energy to communities and help them use that for education and healthcare and economic serenity and all of these things is really, you know, wicked interlocking problems. And so the idea that we're going to be solving these complicated problems with fewer resources and do it without failing is just not realistic. I think that is the bedrock when we think about impact long-term is really about reframing failure. And then in practice, it's a lot of um iterative conversations with our local partners to understand where they want to get to and how we can be the best partner for them.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I just wanted to dig in a little bit more to the, you know, you sort of said that you take a trust-based approach to uh grant making funding. And I think, you know, there's obviously a kind of wider world of organizations now engaging with what it means to take a trust-based approach. For you, what does that look like at Honnell Foundation? I mean, is it, you know, presumably you're kind of focusing on unrestricted funding and core cost funding. Is there any element of it that also is in terms of the distribution? You know, do you kind of engage with grantees on in sort of participatory ways or other things? I'd be really interested just to hear kind of how it works.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Well, the Honnell Foundation is growing pretty quickly and definitely in a phase of evolution at the moment. And so historically, we've been very lean. Um over 90% of our funding has gone directly to grantee partners in the form of capacity building support or grants. And so that's kept our team fairly small. And as we've grown, we've worked to kind of try and to find a balance between making sure that as many resources reach our partners as quickly as possible and the human capacity needed to really sustain those relationships and provide the wraparound support that our partners need outside of just the direct grant funding. And so participatory grant making is actually one of those ongoing conversations for us internally because there's so much to recommend it and it's very time-intensive for both the funder and the grantee. And the thing that is the at the biggest premium for most of our grantee partners is time alongside money. And so we have been in some conversations about what that would look like. We've talked about a pilot in a couple of the regions where we work globally. Um, but it has been something that as an intermediary funder, we have felt a bit constrained to try so far. And so I'm hoping that that's something that we can pilot in the coming years. But I just to be transparent, it's one of those things that comes down to human capacity. And to do it well, it requires a lot of time and intention on both sides. And so it's something when I think of capacity building, it's also a balancing act. Like there's many capacity building offerings that ultimately just end up being like one more thing that a really stressed-out executive director has to do at one of our grantee partner organizations. And so we want to offer capacity building and participation opportunities in ways that are actually additive to our partners and not just, you know, yet another thing that they have to do or something that's taking time away from like the vital work that they're doing with their local communities. And so something that we're in a phase of learning about. Um I think that there's amazing opportunities for that kind of um and examples out there for that kind of work. But it's something that, yeah, we have not done directly yet. Um I do think, you know, not necessarily as an alternative, but a both and is also thinking about like governance a bit differently, who's on your board, do you have advisory structures in place, who's on your staff team, and what those connections to local partners are? And that's also something that's been a bit of an evolution for the foundation. I mean, as you can imagine, when Alex first started it, the people that he worked with or that were on the board were connected to the outdoor and climbing world in some way, and um, maybe came to the work first because of him. And so that's evolved quite a bit over the last five years, um, bringing in more of like the direct experts and and leaders in the space um as allies and advocates for the organization. And then also thinking about, you know, building local and regional advisory boards, um, building a pipeline of former grantees who can serve on governance uh committees and those sort of things. And so as a relatively young organization, it's something that we're talking about constantly. But I don't think that we've reached our like perfect balance yet in terms of trying to remain lean, but also being as participatory as possible.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Yeah, which as you say, I mean, uh you know, is a challenging balance for any organization. And and it's I think it's an important as part of the conversation around participatory approaches, not to pretend that they're cost-free and either in terms of kind of time or financial resources, because they that does need to be paid for, and that is you know a challenge, as you say, when you're kind of uh trying to remain lean or when you're dealing with organizations that don't have a lot of time or resources. Um I wanted to ask actually, just because I kind of wasn't clear, you've mentioned in terms of the examples that you know, some that you funded uh within the US, and you've also mentioned others outside. What's the overall balance of the the work that you you're doing with partners? What does it kind of look like geographically? And is that just kind of happened organically, or do you have kind of particular aims in terms of how much you're doing in different parts of the world?

SPEAKER_01 31:33

So around, you know, now we're probably about 20% uh focused on the US and beyond that Latin America, Caribbean, island nations, and then a bit in South and Southeast Asia. And when I joined the foundation, we were funding anywhere in the world with a smaller grant budget per year. And we realized pretty quickly that we would need to um focus in to be able to have a kind of more additive impact for our partners and to also help them connect regionally with each other. And so in 2022, we created a funding landscape with uh one of our partners looking at, especially in the community renewable space, where funding was going, where it was not, and where we could potentially have a catalytic difference. And so we settled on funding in those regions. Um, we primarily support um indigenous and black majority communities and women-led work. And um, while that's not exclusive, um, it has maintained a significant focus for us over the last five years, just because those tend to be the demographics that are least funded. And so we're always thinking about as a relatively small funder, where could we potentially make a catalytic difference? And so that's sort of where we've landed both demographically and geographically, and and with that overlap, that's meant that we support a lot of like US tribal work, quite a bit in Central America and the Amazon basin in in uh South America, and then a growing portfolio on island nations um from Madagascar to Vanuatu. And that's really um, you know, thinking about where climate change is most intense, where funding is least, and where we could potentially build up those cohorts.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Yeah, it's really interesting. I want to come back afterwards to that point around funding kind of women-led and indigenous-led organizations, because that's something I'd like to ask about. But actually, just I wanted to ask a question about scaling. Because one of the things I was struck by when I was reading uh through your annual report, I really liked you had a graph in there that showed the cumulative funding that you've awarded, but at the same time, in comparison to the volume of good applications that you've had, which I think really clearly made the point that I've heard from so many foundations over the years, which is actually the job of a you know foundation professional ends up being not saying yes to things, but saying no to things. So there's always so many more things that you could fund that you're not able to than you are. Is your goal sort of in making that point partly, you know, as well as the work that you're able to do with the resources you have at Honnold Foundation to try and highlight to others how much more there is out there that could be funded in this space and to try and get some of them to kind of step in to fill those gaps as well?

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Absolutely. While we have grown quite a bit and we are able to start chipping away at that pipeline, um it's also about mobilizing others in philanthropy and hopefully bigger actors and funders to fund in this space. And there are a few larger philanthropies that are thinking about community-led renewable energy and climate solutions, but it's still kind of a drop in the bucket compared to the more technocratic utility-scale approaches that are getting funded. And so I think that a lot of this does come down to the conversation around scale within philanthropy. One of the sort of criticisms that we get is like, oh, well, this is like all sort of small-scale work. It's not a huge like solar install per or per community. And when are you really going to scale up? And so I think that that conversation is ongoing in philanthropy. It's one of the things that I'd love to see shift a little bit. Because on the one hand, scale is great, but not everything that's good has to scale, right? So I think that it can be worthwhile even if it stays small. And then also thinking a little bit differently about what scale looks like, right? Because if you think about our network in aggregate and all of the work that we've supported, in many ways it's more stable because it's this distributed network. Um it distributes risk for funders because each project or organization or community is relatively small. Then when you take it in aggregate, it's actually like quite significant how much renewable energy capacity and battery storage capacity there is and how much work is happening. Um it's really about, I think, decentering the idea that like scale means we pour a ton of resources into one organization and they get huge and they do it all. I think what's more sustainable, especially in the in the current context, is something that's more distributed. And so that's sort of how we're thinking about it, but also very agnostic in terms of how the funding gets to these partners and who's doing it. We have quite a few partners who are not necessarily able to invest the time and resources into building those local, like trust-based relationships with partners. It makes sense for them to fund through the Honnold Foundation. Um, but we are also doing what we can through the impact report, um, through engagements with Alex, through our own work at places like New York Climate Week to really highlight our partners and connect them to other funders. And so I always think like one of our measures of success is if a grantee can kind of graduate and even become bigger than the Honnold Foundation. Like we want to see them succeed, and that will require them to get funding directly from other partners. So I think that's a big piece of it. Um I was at a conference a couple weeks ago in New York, and um during the Q ⁇ A, sort of unexpectedly, this uh man stood up and shared that he had helped start one of our partner organizations, Anombus, in uh Indonesia. And it's a really incredible model where they are using solar to power e-waste recycling, uh, which is a huge issue on islands, just waste in general. And so he shared that we were their first international funder, and they were able to take what we funded and to kind of market that to other foundations. And the fact that we had supported them was this like sort of felt like you know, a funder was vouching for them and supporting the validity of what they were doing. And it enabled them to just really rapidly scale because they had this proof of concept. And after five years, they're now in something like 70 locations across Indonesia. Um, and they have transferred all of their ownership and leadership to uh local women's groups. And so it was this sort of like unexpected moment where we got to reflect back on both what's possible when you start small and trust an organization to do what they think is best, but then also the role that philanthropies like the Honold Foundation can play in seeding innovation, helping proof of concept happen, and then also providing that sort of like outside support that other funders might look to to say, okay, well, the Honold Foundation supports them, like maybe we should think about it as well. Um, because even though philanthropy is meant to be that kind of risk-tolerant financial mechanism, very often funders don't want to be the very first.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I guess it goes back to that question of risk and trust as well. Because trust as well, I suppose, is sort of transitive and often like where does trust start? You trust somebody because somebody else that you know seems to trust them and it gets sort of passed on. And if if you as a funder have a sufficient kind of tolerance of risk that you're at you are willing to be the first one to fund these organizations, actually the knock-on effect can be quite sort of uh powerful if other funders then look and think, oh, actually this isn't as risky as we thought because the Honor Foundation's already already there funding them. So it's really interesting. Um I wanted to just uh circle back to what we were saying before about the the approach that you take and particularly kind of funding uh around um indigenous uh and kind of women-led organizations, which ties into something I wanted to ask, which is when we were talking about climate philanthropy earlier, one of the things I've sort of seen at times over the years is that there's sometimes this kind of framing around climate philanthropy that you can either choose the needs of the planet and the climate, or you can choose the needs of people and communities, but you can't kind of do both at the same time because they're in competition. Clearly, that you know, given the approach that you take, that's not something that you believe. But sort of how do you try to balance those things and to kind of make that case that actually you know you can support the needs of communities and climate at the same time?

SPEAKER_01 40:07

I think it's you know natural, really, in a lot of ways, for us as people to look at a really daunting and kind of scary problem like climate and to look for the silver bullet or the magic thing that's gonna fix it and make make the problem go away because chipping away at it from all sides just like doesn't feel like it's maybe gonna be as effective. Um, and and so I think that like some of this is a little bit of from like the psychological side where I think about like climate, the energy transition, all of these feel like huge problems on a global scale. It's hard to know how to attack them. And so I think that that's kind of where this like technocratic savior complex can come in. And it's like, okay, well, we're gonna find the technology that's gonna like fix it all and it'll be fine. And you know, it's possible that there is going to be technology innovation that that really does like fix it all. But ultimately, climate change is a human-caused problem, and uh it's gonna need human solutions. And so I think that like, yes, it's important for us to fund tech innovation and to try new sort of large-scale ways of tackling the problem. Ultimately, solutions are gonna come from a lot of different directions, and I think a lot of local organizations in action can add up pretty quickly over time. And so when I think about what's sustainable in the long term, it always comes back to how humans are using technology. Um, and if you've traveled and done development work around the world, you've probably seen like, you know, a well that was dug and then filled in and used for grain storage, because like nobody really thought about how it was going to be used by the community or a school building that's falling down because nobody was around to maintain it after it was built, and no one thought about the pipeline of teachers uh who are going to actually come and teach students in there. So I think in solar and renewables, it's absolutely the same. There's always this idea that you can kind of like parachute in technology and that's gonna solve problems. But ultimately it's the organizations and the communities around it that are gonna determine whether it succeeds or fails. And so for us, one of the ways that we think about that is making sure that we're funding through locally embedded organizations and then also providing long-term technical support, making sure that there are local people who can fix or expand this the uh you know installation over time and making sure that technology is both locally relevant and sustainable for the long term. And I think that's really how I think about technology. Like ultimately it's gonna be used by humans, and whether it succeeds or fails is gonna be determined by all of us. And so if we start there and then think about what technology is gonna be appropriate and useful, I think we would get further than thinking about, well, this technology is gonna save us all. How do we get humans to use it?

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Given that approach, um and obviously you are working in an area that kind of clearly um, you know, the starting point is climate and kind of climate concerns. But given you've got that kind of focus on working with communities, and then there's a kind of you know, economic empowerment side to it if there's job creation and that kind of thing. Do you think the work that you do appeals to some other partners or funders in different ways? And do you kind of try sometimes to frame it or describe the work that you do in different ways, sort of just to acknowledge that then you're broadening the pool of people that might be interested in it?

SPEAKER_01 43:39

I think so. And you know, hopefully we're starting to see climate as really this cross cutting issue that impacts health and gender and everything in between. And it's really what drew me to the work originally. Like my background is in gender equity and and public health, and we were, you know, 10 or 15 years ago talking about these. Issues and not at all integrating ideas around what climate was going to do long term to girls and women. And so I decided to, you know, try to move into this direction of integrating these two conversations. And I think a lot of people are thinking more about that. How do we holistically think about whatever issue area we're most passionate about, climate is going to impact it. And so for us right now, Indigenous leadership and climate is a huge conversation, gender and climate, and then emerging more as well, especially in the US, is health and climate. And the idea that place-based investments are health interventions, right? Like people can stay and thrive in the places that they call home. They're going to be healthier long term. There's a lot of research to kind of bears that out. And so I think it is really rethinking about climate as this sort of vertical where we're just funding climate solutions and integrating climate into philanthropy as a lens that we take when we're thinking about investments, regardless of the issue area where we're funding.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

And that ties into something actually wanted to ask about narrative and storytelling, the role that plays in your work. You kind of touched on this a bit earlier and talking about the fact that having a high-profile founder can be useful there. But I was I was at a conference just a couple of weeks ago, and there's a couple of panels on climate philanthropy and storytelling. And one of the examples somebody was giving there was how, in you know, a case in which a local politician, I think, had been very um successful, basically in kind of reframing concerns, as you say, in terms of healthcare and air quality and and you know things that affect people's kids, in a way that they traditionally been very resistant to any kind of climate-focused messaging. And actually, when it was the same issue was reframed in a different way, they were very kind of open to it, and and it resulted in quite a sort of big change electorally. What you know, what role do you kind of see for storytelling and narrative when it comes to climate work and how do you try and support that through Honnold Foundation?

SPEAKER_01 46:02

I I think there's a few different channels, and something that you mentioned is is really key, and that's sort of the messaging and what works for different audiences. And interestingly, I think what the Trump administration is doing in the Middle East right now has drastically shifted a lot of public interest back towards renewables. Um there is more of a conversation now in the US, at least, and hopefully elsewhere, around renewables as the lowest cost, safest, most secure form of energy and and understanding that investing in renewables is um is a stabilizing strategy in a way that it it wasn't necessarily before. And so can we tell stories that highlight the fact that this is affordable and secure and really change the narrative from, oh, this is like expensive and risky, and and a lot of the things that have been the criticisms that have been lobbed at renewables in the past. And so the film that I mentioned earlier um with coal field development in West Virginia talking about transitioning coal to solar infrastructure, that really is sort of the message like how can you talk about solar energy in a way that lands with out-of-work coal miners? And that is not necessarily using the lens of climate. Um and so I think some funders have taken that to be like, let's not talk about climate at all, or let's not use the word climate. But I think it's it's not shying away from the fact that that is an integral part of the issue, but really like meeting people where they are and having those conversations and language that they can understand. And I think that really is the power of things like film and storytelling. One other very different example that that we worked on a couple years ago, we supported uh a feature-length film with a partner of ours, Caro Solar, and the Ecuadorian Amazon. And they have built this network of solar-powered boats. It's an indigenous-led organization. And um, you know, the boats themselves have all sorts of benefits in terms of economic development, pollution on the river. They have shifted public opinion away from uh road building and towards using the rivers as the main forms of transportation. And so a lot of direct benefits, but then the the conversation became well, how do we share this in a really decentralized place where there's not a lot of like communication channels for for these remote communities? And so they come up with the idea of a floating film festival where they will take films, um, and they made a film about their work. They'll take these films by solar-powered boat to isolated communities and then use the films as a way to spark conversation around local advocacy priorities and um to build consensus around renewable energy. And so I think that's a role that we can play is really supporting the stories that our partners want to tell in the ways that they want to tell them. And so, you know, if you look at the film that we made with Carcelar, it is a lot dreamier, it is a lot less linear, maybe, than something that would have been made by a US-based filmmaker or what the Coalfield Development uh film will turn into. But that's really about making sure that the film speaks directly to the people who it needs to.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

And I often feel it's kind of one of the places in which genuinely taking a trust-based approach is most important because I think people who might be good at the sort of technocratic side of funding often aren't very good at at storytelling, and you have to kind of trust that people for whom that's what they do, they know how to do it, and you kind of have to let them do it in the the way that they think it's gonna work. Um I'm aware that we're we're coming up on the the time uh that we that we had. Um it's been absolutely great to kind of hear about all the work. I just before I let you go, Emily, just wanted to um uh ask, you know, kind of what are your key priorities at the moment and and what are the things that make you sort of most optimistic and what do you see as kind of the biggest challenges over the coming year or so?

SPEAKER_01 50:02

I'm lucky to be working on the side of solutions, so I actually get to feel optimistic about climate and energy transitions uh every day at work. And so I think that part of that is about the stories we tell and the fact that I get to see and work with all of these incredible leaders and organizations around the world. I mean, we're supporting over 100 partners at the moment in over 30 countries, and they're all chipping away in these incredibly innovative and powerful ways at these global issues. And so that's really what keeps me optimistic. Um and I think that that optimism is a challenge. Like, how do we how do we share that optimism and that idea that these are issues that can be fixed and that we can't do it? And so I think that narrative and storytelling has a big role to play in that, and then also, you know, conversations within philanthropy. Like we have scaled up our giving. We uh five years ago we're giving out about a million a year, and this year we'll we'll grant over five million US to our partners. And so relatively that's quite a bit. But when we think about the scale of the problem and just the need in philanthropy to invest more deeply in climate and to into locally led climate solutions, that to me is the biggest piece of the conversation that we need to focus in on and our biggest challenge. Like the pipeline is there, the amazing work is there, the leaders are there, um, but the funding has not followed in the way that it it needs to. And so that's really our priority and the biggest challenge we're working on at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 51:36

Yeah, absolutely. I think anyone else I've spoken to kind of working in and around the climate philanthropy space would say, you know, the same thing, that there's just just a lot more is needed and pretty quickly as well. Um just remains to say thanks ever so much, Emily, for finding time to come on the podcast. Um really great to hear all about the the work that you're doing uh and all of these kind of uh wider issues, and just wish you all the best for the that work in the future.

SPEAKER_01 52:00

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 52:11

Okay, great. Well, my thanks again to Emily for coming on the podcast. Really great to uh hear about the work that she's doing, uh, and also got one degree of separation from Alex Honnold, which is exciting for me as a uh middle-aged climbing geek. Um I'll put links in the show notes to places where you can find out more about the work of Honnold Foundation and some of the things that Emily has written about the work they do and about kind of wider issues in philanthropy. I'll also put links to some bits and pieces that I've written that might be of interest as well. If you're interested more broadly in philanthropy and civil society issues, do check out the website at whyphilanthropymatters.com. Uh you can also sign up for the newsletter that comes out once a month if I get round to it, uh, and is a kind of curated look at what's been going on in the weird and wonderful world of uh global philanthropy. You can also follow me on social media uh at best places linkedin. I'm also there on Blue Sky, although a bit quieter on there. If you've got ideas for people that I could talk to on the podcast or topics you'd like to see us cover, do drop me a line. Um I promise that I do read all of those. I do my best to respond to all of them, although I will say I get quite a lot of approaches these days, which is a nice problem to have. So if I take my time uh getting back to you, please don't be offended. I'm not being rude, I'm just uh not very capable of managing my own time effectively uh all the time. Um other than that, just remains to say like, subscribe, uh share with your friends. If you know somebody that you think would uh enjoy the podcast or find it interesting, please do uh spread it by word of mouth, that always helps. Uh and I will see you next time. Bye.