How can we measure our impact and become as effective as possible? One way is by benchmarking our performance against peers:
All of these organizations sell carbon offsets. We sell them to households and businesses as a fundraiser.
This is critical because Indiana is one of just ten states producing half of all US greenhouse gas emissions. Amazingly, if national climate philanthropy was distributed by population, Indiana would receive $25,000,000 annually for climate education and advocacy. Instead the state receives perhaps 5% of that support.
Our mission is for Indiana to become carbon neutral as soon as possible. How are we working on this? By taking a holistic, systems approach -- growing community and incubating high impact climate projects like internship programs, advocacy, climate journalism.
We're not aware of any organization working in this context or with this approach. Still, it's informative to compare our finances against two other non-profits that sell carbon offsets.
Data below come from IRS Form 990s on the Pro Publica website.
Cool Effect
Legal status:
501c3
Founded:
2015
Headquartered:
Greenbrae, CA
Summary:
Sells carbon offsets to individuals and businesses.
Notes:
Cool Effect leveraged $34,000,000 in seed philanthropy over five years to achieve $6,000,000 in carbon offset sales in 2019. This initial boost of philanthropy got their flywheel running.
Carbon Fund
Legal status:
501c3
Founded:
2003
Headquartered:
East Aurora, NY
Summary:
Sells carbon offsets to individuals and businesses.
Develops forest carbon offset projects (e.g. in Brazil).
Runs environmental summer camp for children.
Notes:
Carbon Fund leveraged $11,700,000 in philanthropy over five years to achieve $1,500,000 in carbon offset sales. They've been around since 2003, so this is not an apples to apples comparison with Cool Effect.
Carbon Neutral Indiana
Legal status:
Fiscally sponsored by Indiana Forest Alliance, a 501c3
Founded:
2020
Headquartered:
Indianapolis, IN
Summary:
Sells carbon offsets to individuals and businesses.
Grows community.
Incubates other high impact climate projects like internship programs, advocacy, climate journalism.
Notes:
We've not been around for long, so the graph below shows five quarters from April 2020 - June 2021. We've leveraged just $21,000 in philanthropy to enable $100,000 in annual carbon offset sales. This shows that we used a tiny amount of philanthropy to enable even more philanthropy from the community.
