First Reads

Here are selected overviews and “first reads” for funders making or considering investments in climate, health, and equity work, recommended by philanthropy-serving organizations sponsoring this toolkit.

Overviews of climate, health, and equity grantmaking

• Climate Change, Health, and Equity Survey Findings:  Gaps, Needs, and Opportunities, Health and Environmental Funders Network and cosponsors (March 2020).   For pointers to respondents of that survey, see also Philanthropic Funders of Climate, Health, and Equity and Nonprofits Addressing Climate, Health, and Equity 

• Health and Climate Change, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Climate Central assessment of funding and research at the nexus of health and climate change (2017)

Targeted Recommendations

Climate and Energy Funders Group (CEFG) also recommends:

• How Philanthropy Can Save our Democracy AND Protect the Climate, Paige Brown blog response to the Center for Effective Philanthropy report, Much Alarm, Less Action:  Foundations and Climate Change (2022) 

Grantmakers In Health (GIH) also recommends:

• American Public Health Association's Center for Climate, Health, and Equity  

• Climate Change is Killing Americans. Health Departments Aren't Equipped to Respond, Center for Public Integrity expansive investigation (2020)

• Health and Climate Change, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Climate Central assessment of funding and research at the nexus of health and climate change (2017)

• Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance, prepared by American Psychological Association, Climate for Health, and ecoAmerica  

• World Health Organization Special Report on Health and Climate Change

Health and Environmental Funders Network (HEFN) also recommends:

• The Federal Whiplash on Climate Is a Wake-up Call for Better Grant Making," Ansje Miller opinion piece in The Chronicle of Philanthropy (2022)

• Lancet Countdown Report 2020 and the companion Lancet Countdown Policy Brief for the U.S., Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change (2020)

• Bridging Climate, Health, and Equity: A Growing Imperative, Jalonne L. White-Newsome, Phyllis Meadows, Chris Kabel, “Bridging Climate, Health, and Equity: A Growing Imperative”, American Journal of Public Health 108, no. S2 (2018)

• Achieving a Climate for Health: Philanthropy to Promote Health and Justice through the Challenges of Climate Change, funder primer by ecoAmerica and the Health and Environmental Funders Network (2015)