Oceans

From MacKenzie Scott to the Packard Foundation: Ocean Philanthropy Is Rising

Global philanthropic funding to marine conservation has more than doubled since 2010, reaching $1 billion in 2022, according to a new report.

By Kay Dervishi

February 16, 2024

A coral reef — Support is growing, but marine conservation still accounts for less than 1 percent of global philanthropic funding. Above, a coral reef off of Bunaken Island marine protected national park in Manado, Indonesia.

Protecting the oceans has become a far more popular cause in the past decade, as grant makers like MacKenzie Scott join longtime funders such as the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Funding from grant makers worldwide reached $1 billion in 2022, double what it was a decade earlier, with the fastest growth in giving going to combat climate change.

Jim Simon, president and general counsel of advocacy group Oceana, says philanthropists understand that the oceans aren’t just a victim of climate change; they can be a source for potential solutions.

“You want to maintain small-scale coastal communities, the ocean is your solution,” he says. “You want to get nutrition to kids, the ocean can be part of the solution.”

While the growth in funding is welcome news for ocean-focused organizations, marine conservation still accounts for less than 1 percent of global philanthropic funding, according to the report published by CEA Consulting, which advises environmental foundations and nonprofits. Funding for climate philanthropy is similarly sparse: Donations to climate groups also made up less than 2 percent of overall philanthropic giving in 2022, according to the ClimateWorks Foundation.

Sarah Humphries, the Ocean Conservancy’s chief development officer, says she hopes more grant makers will start doing more to focus on ocean health.

“Philanthropically, the ocean remains treated like a niche issue when it is anything but,” Humphries says. “It’s 70 percent of the planet; it is responsible for every other breath we take.”

The increase in philanthropic funding — and advocacy— played a crucial role in passage of new international agreements to protect oceans.

A whale surfaces near a research vessel in British Columbia, Canada. Earlier this year, the United Nations adopted its first-ever international treaty to protect marine life in international waters.

In late 2020, about 190 countries approved a United Nations deal that is designed to protect 30 percent of the world’s land and oceans by 2030, a target often referred to as “30x30.”

In June, the United Nations adopted its first-ever international treaty to protect marine life in international waters, which have largely been left out of conservation efforts despite risks from over-fishing and rising temperatures from climate change.

Forrest Lewis, one of the report’s authors and an associate at CEA Consulting, says philanthropy played a vital role in pushing countries to adopt the 30x30 goal and in accelerating conservation projects that aim to achieve that goal.

In 2021, nine grant makers, including the Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and Arcadia, a London-based environmental grant maker, pledged to collectively give $5 billion over the next 10 years to protect land and seas to advance the 2030 goal. The aim of the collaboration, dubbed the Protecting Our Planet Challenge, is to spend at least $1 billion to create, expand, and manage marine-protected areas, like Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Philanthropy’s Push for 30x30

What Is 30x30?

30x30 is a conservation goal to protect at least 30 percent of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030. The idea, which was inspired by biologist E.O. Wilson’s proposal to conserve half the planet to protect wildlife and species, has gained momentum in the past six years, culminating in a 2022 United Nations deal that approved the 30x30 target.

Currently, 17 percent of land and 8 percent of oceans are protected, according to Protected Planet, a project created by the United Nations Environment Programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Philanthropic Contributions

Rebecca Gruby, a professor at the University of Miami who researches ocean philanthropy, says some of the largest philanthropic commitments in recent years have been explicitly tied to the 30x30 goal.

In 2018, Swiss philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss pledged to spend $1 billion over the next decade to protect 30 percent of the planet’s surface by 2030. As part of that effort, he funded the launch of the Campaign for Nature, an advocacy group pushing governments to adopt and work toward the 30x30 target.

The Protecting Our Planet Challenge, launched by nine grant makers in 2021, pledged to give $5 billion over the next decade to protect land and oceans to reach the 30x30 goal. Three of those foundations — the Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and Rainforest Trust — pledged $3 million in 2022 to the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, an intergovernmental group of 117 countries launched in 2021 to advance 30x30.

Much of the Bezos Earth Fund’s grants have also been pegged to the 2030 goal. In 2021, it announced that it had awarded $261 million toward 30x30 efforts.

“30x30 is the big one where international policy and philanthropy are working hand-in-hand because of how near-term that goal is,” Lewis says.

The report examines data from foundations, individuals, and other grant-making entities across the globe, although the analysis is predominantly of grant makers in the United States and Europe.

Among the longtime contributors to marine philanthropy named in the study are the David and Lucile Packard, Gordon and Betty Moore, and Walton Family foundations. Giving from the three philanthropies accounted for nearly 30 percent of the total marine philanthropic funding from 2010 to 2022. (The Walton Foundation is a financial supporter of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.)

Meanwhile, the number of ocean grant makers awarding at least $5 million increased from 11 organizations in 2010 to 38 in 2022, according to the report. That includes Oceankind, a grant-making limited liability company founded by Lucy Southworth, wife of Google co-founder Larry Page, in 2018 that ranked as the second biggest grant maker for marine philanthropy in 2022.

MacKenzie Scott also made the newcomer list. Last year, she gave $15 million to Global Fishing Watch, a nonprofit tracking fisheries and other human activities in the seas. The previous year, Scott provided $20 million to Blue Ventures, an organization helping small-scale fishers, and $6 million to Micronesia Conservation Trust, which promotes biodiversity conservation in Micronesia.

The Bezos Earth Fund has become a big ocean supporter as well, pledging up to $100 million in December to restore coastal ecosystems and support local fisheries in the Pacific Islands.

Lewis says it is unclear whether marine funding will increase or plateau. But there are signs that ocean philanthropists aren’t slowing down.

Another coalition of grant makers launched the Ocean Resilience and Climate Alliance in December, pledging more than $250 million over five years to curb climate change by supporting oceans. The coalition, which includes Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the Builders Initiative, an environmental grant maker founded by billionaire Lukas Walton, will fund organizations working on issues such as ocean carbon research and offshore wind development.

Reporting for this article was underwritten by a Lilly Endowment grant to enhance public understanding of philanthropy. The Chronicle is solely responsible for the content. See more about the Chronicle, the grant, how our foundation-supported journalism works, and our gift-acceptance policy.