Conservation philanthropy: Growing the field of research and practice

We have entered “a new green era of giving” (Greenfield, 2021). While the share of overall philanthropic giving directed to the environment remains small—an estimated 3% of total giving in the United States and <2% in the European Union, for example—environmental philanthropy is among the fastest growing philanthropic sectors (Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network, 2022; IUPUI Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, 2021). Biodiversity conservation is a primary focus of investment within the broader field of environmental philanthropy, making conservation philanthropy a rapidly growing field of research and practice (Taylor & Blondell, 2023). We define conservation philanthropy as voluntary contributions of monetary value (e.g., cash, property, or time) to biodiversity conservation (Ramutsindela et al., 2013). Conceptualized in this way, conservation philanthropists may include foundations, environmental NGOs, private individuals, corporations, and other private sector actors. Though conservation philanthropy has a long history, its current pace and scale are unprecedented (Beer, 2022). Conservation pledges in the last few years dwarf historic figures, like the record-breaking $5 billion private donors committed to advance the “30 × 30” global biodiversity targets in the Convention on Biological Diversity's 2030 Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework (Convention on Biological Diversity, 2022). The Bezos Earth Fund alone committed $10 billion in 2020 to “nature” and “climate.” In some sectors, like ocean conservation, philanthropic grants are comparable to public finance grants from official development assistance1 (California Environmental Associates, 2021). Although the term “philanthropy” is often associated with the ultrarich (Holmes, 2012), small donors are also important. In the United States, they contribute “the overwhelming majority” of philanthropic giving (Reich, 2020, p. 10) and crowdfunding is an increasingly important conservation finance mechanism (Gallo-Cajiao et al., 2018; Takashina et al., 2023). This surge in philanthropic spending will have ripple effects throughout the funding ‘ecosystem’ for biodiversity conservation by supplementing, catalyzing, and influencing public sector spending (Beer, 2022). This special issue is motivated by these major changes. It showcases new research to help understand and inform the boom in conservation philanthropy in the oceans (Gruby et al., 2021), on land (Opel & Titze, 2022; Waldron et al., 2013), and relating to freshwater (Gilson & Garrick, 2021). In so doing, it seeks to define and nurture the nascent field of research in conservation philanthropy. In addition to increased funding levels, conservation philanthropy is also evolving in form and function. There are new funding modes and mechanisms in what some scholars have termed “the new philanthropy” (Rogers, 2015)—from the hands-off, “trust-based philanthropy” model preferred by billionaire Mackenzie Scott to the “dollars for policy” approach, where international foundations leverage funding commitments to gain influence in state-led conservation governance (Beer, 2022; Kavate, 2022). Equally notable are patterns that have remained the same. Despite several high-profile, high-dollar commitments to Indigenous-led conservation in recent years (United Nations, 2021), philanthropic funding for justice-related issues and organizations led by people of color remains sparse (IUPUI Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, 2021; Jones, 2021; Taylor & Blondell, 2023).2 The recent upwelling in conservation philanthropy responds to the urgent need for funding to address the global biodiversity crisis. Adequate investment is a critical determinant of conservation outcomes (Gill et al., 2017; Waldron et al., 2013) and its lack is a key reason the world has failed to meet previous global conservation goals (Xu et al., 2021). However, relative to public donors, philanthropic funders have unique and understudied characteristics that can make them particularly helpful or problematic (Betsill et al., 2022). Philanthropic foundations, for example, operate with a “hyperagency” (Jung & Harrow, 2015) that can promote risk-taking, nimbleness, and long-term investment that can theoretically foster innovation and adaptive creativity necessary to address the most challenging conservation problems (Reich, 2016). But this autonomy is a double-edged sword: lack of transparency, obligation, and accountability can lead to funding practices that create more problems than they solve (Villanueva 2021). Ultimately, philanthropic donors must be recognized as diverse and influential governance actors that require rigorous analysis by scholars and better links between research and practice (Betsill et al., 2022; Blackwatters et al., 2023; Breeze, 2021). Yet, answers to even the most basic questions about conservation philanthropy—who is giving, how they are giving to whom and for what, and with what consequences and impacts—remain elusive. This lack of evidence makes it difficult to have informed discussion and debate about the more profound questions around what conservation philanthropy can and should be doing, and how private donors may leverage their unique positions to advance just transformations while avoiding harm. We offer two related explanations for this knowledge gap—and a way forward. First, conservation philanthropy has largely remained under the scholarly radar: the field of philanthropic studies has devoted little attention to conservation, while conservation scientists have paid little attention to philanthropy. The limited body of existing research on conservation philanthropy can be found scattered across diverse fields and literatures (e.g., neoliberal natures, philanthrocapitalism, conservation finance, conservation governance, etc.), making it difficult for scholars and practitioners to find it, engage with it, and build on one another's work in a systematic way. Second, elite members of the philanthropic sector (e.g., high net-worth individuals and foundations) are notoriously opaque, making empirical research on these actors a significant challenge—though creative scholars and a growing transparency movement are beginning to change that (Breeze, 2023; Gilson & Garrick, 2021). A diverse, interdisciplinary yet broadly coherent body of research on and for conservation philanthropy—as a subfield within conservation science—is clearly needed. Such research is needed to inform conservation science and practice as well as a larger “science of philanthropy” (Fiennes, 2017). This special issue advances these goals by bringing together nine articles that individually make unique conceptual, empirical, and/or methodological contributions, and collectively contribute to the growth of the field of conservation philanthropy. These papers reflect a diversity of theoretical orientations, questions, methods, philanthropic actors, and contexts while, together, building knowledge in three key themes that are ripe for continued work: funding flows, funder roles, and best practices. Six of the papers analyze funding flows across geographies, funders, projects, recipients, and topics. They demonstrate how empirical research on historical and current funding patterns can inform reflection and future decision-making about allocating funding. Willse (2023) uses a national dataset to track the distribution of “support nonprofits” in the United States, which aims to supplement inadequate public funding for parks and land conservation. She finds that their distribution is uneven: counties in metropolitan areas with well-educated, more liberal residents are more likely to have support nonprofits, and those counties with support nonprofits are also more likely to pass ballot initiatives funding conservation on public land (Willse, 2023). She argues that it is imperative for policy makers and conservation activists to consider how this dynamic may impact equity and access to public land nationally. In their study of the role foundations are playing in tuna fisheries governance, Schiller et al. (2023) analyze philanthropic funding flows to tuna sustainability initiatives from three of the largest marine conservation foundations, including funding amounts ($28.65 million between 2012 and 2021), priority issues (market leverage and policy advocacy), and grantees (60% of funding was allocated to three NGOs). They found a “clear level of transparency” already in the work and priorities of US foundations supporting sustainable seafood but also show how vague descriptions of grants still pose a barrier to more nuanced understanding of funding objectives and end recipients (Schiller et al., 2023). Sauls and López Illescas (2023) describe how the Ford Foundation shifted their strategy over time to center Indigenous Peoples and local communities in grant-making for rights-based conservation in Mexico and Central America. As support for Indigenous-led conservation gains traction within mainstream conservation philanthropy globally, this article—coauthored by a current Ford Foundation program officer—provides a detailed example of how one foundation actually made this change in practice. The study by Takashina et al. (2023) is unique in the collection in exploring funding flows from individuals rather than organizations, focusing on the role of information sharing on social media and how that shapes social norms for conservation donations. Drawing on a mathematical model, they argue that “soft-cooperators” who share information on social media—even without actively donating—play an important role in generating greater and more stable funding for conservation by influencing norms about charitable giving (Takashina et al., 2023). Two of the papers take a larger spatial and thematic view. Devkota et al. (2023) trace funding flows across diverse donor types for biodiversity conservation in Bhutan, while Grimm et al. (2023) analyze funding for mangrove restoration in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Bhutan study shows an example of a country that has achieved widely recognized conservation success despite relatively limited funding. Devkota et al. (2023) explore the unique sociopolitical factors that contribute to this dynamic, including strong proenvironmental norms and cultural foundation for conservation, prioritization of conservation in national policy, and higher selectivity in accepting external funding that is well matched to local agendas and culture. The study on mangrove restoration funding by Grimm et al. (2023) teases apart relationships among funder type and the kinds of organizations, landscapes, projects, and stakeholder engagement they support. They develop specific recommendations for grantee organizations about where and how to seek funding, and for donors about how to better target their funding to support intended social–ecological outcomes. Two articles focus on the roles philanthropic foundations play in marine conservation and governance, underscoring the need to think more systematically and strategically about the varied roles of philanthropic actors beyond providing funding. Blackwatters et al. (2023) conduct an in-depth case study of The David and Lucile Packard Foundation's two decades of support for marine conservation in Fiji and Palau. They describe and analyze six governance roles that the foundation contributed to: funding, influencing agendas, capacity building, convening and coordinating, facilitating knowledge, and rule-making and regulation. This study demonstrates how concepts from the field of environmental governance can help scholars and practitioners develop a shared understanding of what foundations are doing in practice, which can help inform discussions and decisions about the “right” roles and responsibilities of philanthropic funders in conservation. Schiller et al. (2023) likewise consider the varied roles that foundations play, in this case in the context of tuna fisheries governance. They focus on foundation-supported work of NGO grantees as a vehicle for philanthropic influence in international tuna policy-making (via regional fisheries management organizations), and projects designed to support tuna certification (via fishery improvement projects). This research underscores the prominent role of large, US-based philanthropic foundations as agenda-setters in the global sustainable seafood movement. Finally, two of the papers in the collection draw on the experiences and practical knowledge of funders and practitioners to derive applied best practices for grant-making in the context of donor exits (Le Cornu et al., 2023) and collaborative conservation (Sanderson et al., 2023). Le Cornu et al. (2023) address a gap in research on exits—that is, the ending of funding relationships—by developing a conceptual framework of exit types and best practices for conducting responsible exits. In the context of unprecedented growth in conservation philanthropy, they argue that “now is the time to think seriously not only about the beginning of new funding relationships, initiatives, and partnerships—but also their end” (Le Cornu et al., 2023, p. 2). They provide a roadmap for funders interested in doing so. Finally, recognizing the need for more open dialogue between funders and practitioners, Sanderson et al. (2023) convened 16 funders and practitioners to co-produce best practices for collaborative conservation philanthropy. The best practices identified are diverse and practical, focusing on donor–practitioner relationships, investment priorities, and administrative processes that can help donors and practitioners achieve shared conservation goals. In summary, the papers in this special issue demonstrate the value of empirical research on conservation philanthropy. Conservation philanthropy is indeed “too important to ignore” (Gruby et al., 2021, p. 9). Our ambition is that, as the philanthropic field of practice continues to grow, we will see similar growth in a field of research that can constructively engage, challenge, and inform it. The authors thank Michele Betsill and Jeffrey Blackwatters for their feedback on an earlier draft. Rebecca L. Gruby and Ash Enrici acknowledge funding from The David and Lucile Packard Foundation (grant nos. 2017-66579 and 2018-68274) and Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies (grant number 1810-05974). Daniel C. Miller acknowledges funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (grant no. 18-1802-152800-CSD). Rebecca L. Gruby, Daniel C. Miller, and Ash Enrici work with external research advisory committees to help manage any conflicts of interest that arise from their funding sources.