A Progressive Environmentalist Fires Back at Trump Populism

Lindsay Metivier

The philanthropic establishment — Hewlett, Packard, MacArthur, Moore, Bloomberg, and the rest — has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the fight against climate change since the early 2000s. Most of the grants flow to Washington-based, brand-name environmental groups like the Nature Conservancy, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the Natural Resources Defense Council in an effort to influence government and corporate decision makers.

It hasn’t turned out well. President Trump has been unwinding U.S. climate policies, and the Paris global climate accord, as written, won’t keep global warming below 2° C, the target set by scientists and governments to prevent the worst consequences of climate change.

The philanthropist Farhad Ebrahimi, founder of the Chorus Foundation, takes a radically different approach. He’s working not with Washington policy makers, corporate executives, or Wall Street investors but with grass-roots organizers in the coal fields of eastern Kentucky, the wilds of Alaska, and the working-class precincts of Richmond, Calif., and Buffalo, N.Y. His ultimate goal is to help build a climate movement from the bottom up — one that delivers economic justice and invigorates democracy while saving the planet.

“We’re in a populist moment,” Mr. Ebrahimi says. “Trump’s approach was right-wing populism. It was about nostalgia and scapegoating. Ours is a progressive populism that’s about real democracy and inclusivity.”

Mr. Ebrahimi is an activist for as well as a donor to environmental and social-justice movements. He has joined protests to shut coal plants and stop the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines, and he has joined demonstrations organized by Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and groups protesting the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants.

What’s largely been missing from climate philanthropy, he says, is “any sense of building political power, any sense of a social movement, and the intersectionality of climate justice and other social-justice movements.”

In its approach to grant making as well as its politics, Chorus stands apart. The foundation gives unrestricted funds, makes commitments lasting as long as 10 years to its most trusted grantees, and promises to distribute all of its assets by 2024. Those practices are designed to empower community leaders and challenge the dynamic between donors and recipients.

“Funders are often the biggest obstacle to transformational work,” Mr. Ebrahimi says. “Many funders seem to want to grant the money … while keeping the power.”

That said, Chorus is not a wealthy philanthropy: It expects to distribute $40 million to $50 million over its lifetime and made about $5 million in grants last year. To have the impact he seeks, Mr. Ebrahimi will have to bring other philanthropists along, so he spends close to half of his time working with other grant makers. He collaborates with small and midsize foundations, notably the Solutions Project and the Fund for Democratic Communities, and he co-chaired the annual gathering of the Environmental Grantmakers Association in 2015, inviting Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza to speak.

Rachel Leon, executive director of the environmental grant makers’ group, describes Chorus as a “small but mighty funder in our big tent of environmental philanthropy.” It fills “a need for smaller and more nimble foundations who aren’t afraid to take risks.”

Finding His Voice

A 39-year-old Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate with degrees in math and computer science, Mr. Ebrahimi is an unlikely rebel. His father, Farhad “Fred” Ebrahimi, was formerly chief executive of Quark, a publishing-software firm based in Denver. The elder Mr. Ebrahimi worked hand-in-hand with Tim Gill, Quark’s founder, whose Gill Foundation has been a major philanthropic supporter of the marriage-equality movement.

The younger Mr. Ebrahimi grew up in comfortable surroundings with an Iranian-American father and a Cuban-American mother whose lives had been roiled by turmoil and who loved to talk politics around the dinner table. “Revolutions that didn’t go well were part of the family history on both sides,” he says.

Mr. Ebrahimi’s father gave him about $40 million when he was still a teenager. He decided to commit almost all of it to Chorus, which he started in 2006.

On Bolder Giving, a website aimed at encouraging philanthropy among wealthy donors, Mr. Ebrahimi once wrote: “Somewhere along the way, I started to think of my father as an industrious squirrel who continued to collect nuts — despite the fact that we already had more than enough for winter. And so I made a promise to myself that by the time I hit 30, I would get into the nut redistribution business.”

He first thought music might be his medium for change. He played bass with an indie-rock trio called Night Rally, performed with a “noise band” called Neptune that made its instruments out of scrap metal and for a time ran a recording studio. The name Chorus Foundation came from his love of music, and it has become “about people working together, about how if the choir doesn’t sing well, then nobody’s going to come into the church,” he says.

Chorus needed time to find focus. The foundation began by supporting an array of environmental nonprofits, most in New England, including a start-up to promote energy-efficient-retrofits in Cambridge, Mass., and an attempt by chefs to chart the climate footprint of food service. Those efforts fizzled.

Chorus found its voice after Mr. Ebrahimi and Cuong Hoang, the director of programs at consulting firm Mott Philanthropic and an adviser to the foundation, traveled to eastern Kentucky in 2010 after being urged to do so by another grant maker. There, Mr. Ebrahimi discovered an ecosystem of nonprofits working to create economic opportunity in a region that has been distressed for decades by the decline of coal mining.

Foremost among them was the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, a community-development finance institution, and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a grass-roots organization. Others included Appalshop, which creates media, arts, and educational programs, and the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, a nonprofit law firm that, among other things, inspired the John Grisham novel Gray Mountain.

Mr. Ebrahimi was impressed. The Kentucky nonprofits were working together to build the political, economic, and cultural power needed to prepare their region for a future beyond coal — a goal often described as a “just transition.”

“What we saw in Kentucky, which was unique, was this partnership between the political organizers and economic development,” Mr. Ebrahimi says.

John Flavell/The Independent/AP Images

While Mr. Ebrahimi supports campaigns against coal by the likes of the Sierra Club and 350.org, he is more excited by the opportunity to put forward alternatives. “Just to say no to something is never going to be as powerful as if you are going to say yes to something else at the same time,” he says. The Kentucky nonprofits envision a new, diversified economy built on clean energy, energy efficiency, local food systems, tourism, and environmental remediation, among other things.

The Kentuckians bonded with Mr. Ebrahimi and Mr. Hoang, who has become a trusted adviser to Chorus. “They are the antithesis of smarty-pants philanthropists. They don’t pretend to have the answers,” says Justin Maxson, a former head of the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development. He is now executive director of the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, an early supporter of just-transition work in Appalachia.

Peter Hille, who succeeded Mr. Maxson at the community-development group, concurs. “A lot of funders come in and say, We’re going to solve the problem, and here’s a chunk of money for the next three years. Whatever you come up with has to be self-sustaining after that,” he says. By contrast, Mr. Ebrahimi and Mr. Hoang “understand how complicated and nuanced the work is and how a bunch of different things have to happen to move the just transition forward.”

Social Movements Key

Mr. Ebrahimi began making grants in eastern Kentucky in 2011 and returned to the region often. He came away with three valuable lessons, he says. First, large-scale social change is driven by social movements, not by elites. Second, systemic problems require systemic solutions; the climate crisis is intertwined with an inequitable economy and a government that serves monied interests, all of which must be addressed. Third, local communities are where the crises are felt most strongly and where solutions will emerge.

“We’re buying into somebody else’s expertise and vision,” Mr. Ebrahimi says. “That’s what our job is.”

In 2013, Chorus promised to spend $10 million in eastern Kentucky over the following 10 years.

It is providing general operating support for Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, which it calls “anchor organizations.” To allow for flexibility, it will conduct an annual grant-making process to fund allied groups.

Long-term, unrestricted funding is what the region needs, local leaders say.

“It’s a complicated landscape, and the problems are historic,” says Mr. Maxson. “The solutions aren’t going to be quick.”

Two years later, Chorus took that template and applied it to groups working for a just transition in Alaska, Buffalo, and Richmond. In each locality, Chorus has promised to provide general support to two to four key nonprofits for eight years, along with flexible funding for other groups or projects.

While all of this unfolded before last fall’s election, the timing feels right: With President Trump in the White House, the fight against climate change is likely to move to the state and local levels.

Still, Chorus encourages its nonprofits to forge ties with one another and build a national movement for climate justice.

It has supported such groups as the Center for Story-Based Strategy, the Climate Justice Alliance, and Movement Generation to help its grantees as well as other nonprofits with strategy, messaging, and political education. Those groups have also advised other philanthropists, with Mr. Ebrahimi’s enthusiastic backing.

Never Fossil Fuels

Unlike most foundations that support environmental causes, Chorus never had to decide whether to divest its fossil-fuel holdings because it avoided shares of coal, oil, and gas companies from the start. (That’s easier for a small foundation, and one that intends to spend all of its assets by 2024.) Its major holdings have included Seventh Generation, a company that makes environmentally friendly household products and CleanChoice Energy, a renewable-energy firm.

Chorus has also made investments in the communities where it makes grants, “but not at the scale we’d like to,” Mr. Ebrahimi says.

It’s too soon to judge Chorus’s climate strategy a success or a failure. For that matter, it’s hard to know what success will look like. Can Chorus help spark an economic recovery in its target areas? Will it help fuel a grass-roots climate movement? Will it influence other funds?

Mr. Ebrahimi says his work will ultimately be judged by others: “This is about our grantees, not about us.”

Hands Across America: A Snapshot of Major Foundation Efforts to Help Rural Areas

By Rebecca Koenig

Like the Chorus Foundation, which pays special attention to parts of eastern Kentucky hit hard by the decline of coal, these grant makers have focused on the needs of regions that have seen relatively little philanthropic support.

MIDWEST: Helmsley Charitable Trust

Focus: Improving rural health care by financing the spread of technology that allows doctors and others to diagnose patients from afar, paying for cancer and cardiac screening and treatment, and training health-care workers in sparsely populated cities and towns.

Where: Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming

How Much: The trust was the top grant-making institution to nonprofits in South Dakota ($11.8 million), North Dakota ($6.8 million), and Wyoming ($3.8 million) in 2012, according to the most recent Foundation Center data. In April, it announced $16 million in new grants to 41 rural hospitals to purchase new CT scanners.

SOUTHEAST: Walton Family Foundation

Focus: Much of the foundation’s giving is concentrated in cities and towns in Arkansas, the birthplace of Walmart, and the neighboring Mississippi Delta. Its grants pay for public and charter schools, efforts to reduce crime and enhance public safety, and programs that create jobs by attracting tourism and business.

Where: Arkansas and the Mississippi Delta

How Much: The foundation gave more than $35 million to those geographic areas in 2015, according to its annual report, and plans to give a total of more than $300 million by 2020.

APPALACHIA: Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation

Focus: Revitalizing rural communities by financing teacher training, arts in the schools, and access to affordable housing and health care.

Where: West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania

How Much: $17 million annually. The foundation gives more money to nonprofits in West Virginia than any other grant maker.

NORTHWEST: Ford Family Foundation

Focus: Improving the well-being of kids and families in rural areas through child care, education, and abuse-prevention programs. The foundation also seeks to strengthen the places rural families live by paying for new facilities, like community centers, and financing job training.

Where: Small communities in Oregon and Northern California

How Much: The majority of the foundation’s $40 million annual grant-making budget goes to rural programs.