Linden Trust for Conservation
OVERVIEW: The Linden Trust for Conservation focuses on market-based approaches that can provide long-term financing for policy work in climate change and conservation.
IP TAKE: While Linden offers six-figure grants to a number of climate and conservation groups, it has been particularly effective as a rainmaker through its role in brokering huge investments from other financial institutions and foundations. This is become an excellent ally of climate work to know in this space
It does not accept unsolicited proposals; however, offering a unique approach to conservation, LTC provides both grants (often unrestricted) and financing for long-term support of large-scale conservation projects. This funder is open to contact if you want to learn more about how it chooses who to fund through its proactive approach.
PROFILE: Founded in 2006, the Linden Trust for Conservation was created by Larry Linden, formerly a Partner at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs, and Roger Ullman, formerly a Managing Director at Merrill Lynch, is led and staffed by a team of ex-businesspeople with deep experience in finance and management. Linden received his Ph.D. from MIT and a B.S.E. from Princeton. He started his family foundation in 1993, which changed its name in 2005 to the Linden Trust for Conservation. Linden and Ullman’s background in consulting and finance inform’s LTC’s commitment to “seeking bipartisan and economically sound approaches to addressing critical conservation challenges.” The foundation ultimately seeks to “identify practical, efficient, and non-partisan solutions that allow people to find common ground and move forward.” LTC’s priorities include environmental markets, conservation finance, institutions, and two climate policy initiatives.
Grants for Environmental Conservation and Climate
LTC’s efforts are entirely dedicated to conservation, largely through finance approaches to various challenges facing conservation. The organization promotes two climate policy initiatives: the inclusion of carbon dioxide removal efforts in U.S. policy and a carbon tax initiative. Additionally, the foundation funds programs in environmental markets, conservation finance and support for institutions whose goals are aligned with the Linden Trust. While programs have contracted in recent years that is because work has evolved to become more focused on its goals.
The aim of Linden’s carbon dioxide removal policy program is “for the U.S. government to put in place a robust enough set of policies and programs to ensure that carbon dioxide removal (CDR) has a reasonable chance of closing the gap between actual and desired net emission levels in the U.S. by the middle of this century.”
The foundation’s work in this area has included education, policy analysis, and advocacy and program design. Some past grantees are the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Carbon Capture Coalition, the Rhodium Group and the Energy Futures Initiative.
In recent years, the Linden Trust has “been deeply involved in policymaker education across the range of needed CDR policies, including those enacted in the Energy Act of 2020, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021, and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.”
Linden’s geothermal power initiative supports development of policy work that proves out the” technologies, bring down the cost, and realize the scale potential of geothermal.”
The largest recipients of Linden Trust grants include Resources for the Future and the WWF. The former has received as much as $600,000 in one recent year, and the latter closer to $1 million. This is pretty significant, considering that the Linden Trust usually only grants around $2 million a year. But it does give smaller, though still significant, amounts to other environmental groups, including World Resources Institute, the EDF, the NRDC, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
Important Grant Details:
Given its narrow, but deep support, Linden does not accept unsolicited proposals. However, grants range from a few thousand dollars to $2 million.
PEOPLE:
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