Thread by @curious_founder

I analyzed ~65,000 nonprofit tax returns to see where charitable dollars go in America.

I learned that environmental nonprofits receive less than 2% of all donations.

Here's what else I learned 🧵

#GivingTuesday #energytwitter

In 2020 Americans gave $471 billion to nonprofits.

Most of those donations went to the following categories: religion, education, human services, and health.

Environmental organizations received just $8 billion (~2%) — the least amount of any category tracked by the IRS.

Organizations working to reduce GHG emissions received only $2 billion.

That means 0.4% of all charitable donations went to climate mitigation.

Which is a huge bummer to say the least.

So what regions and sectors get the most funding?

Unfortunately not the ones responsible for the most GHG emissions.

Asia emits 53% of GHGs. Nonprofits working to decarbonize the region received 12% of climate philanthropy.

Turning our attention to the sectors responsible for the most emissions, we find a similar pattern.

The industrial sector is responsible for 30% of GHGs. Orgs working to decarbonize it received 2% of climate philanthropy.

Environmental justice organizations received the least funding of all categories.

In 2020 — the year of racial reckoning — these orgs received just $25-50m (0.3-0.6% of all environmental giving)

By contrast the 5 biggest enviro orgs received about $2 billion.

Nonprofits are critical to the climate movement. But they get almost no support.

And the orgs doing some of the most important work — the boring, tedious stuff we all need — get even less.

That's a huge problem.

While it's easy to point fingers at the ultra-wealthy, the truth is that most charitable dollars come from small donors like you and me.

We aren't going to change this trend $100 million at a time. We're going to change it $100 at a time.

With that, here are some orgs I recommend donating to on this #GivingTuesday:

@rewiringamerica — Home and transportation electrification

@weact4ej — Climate justice

@EvergreenAction — Wonky federal climate policy

If you donate to any of these orgs today I'll match you up to $1,000. Just send me a screenshot of the receipt.

If you want to add to the matching, let me know.

And if you have a favorite nonprofit retweet this and give them a shoutout (and some money!)

Lastly, if you want to read my full nerdy report, you can check it out here - carbonswitch.co/analysis-of-en…

@mollytaft and the @EARTH3R team have a good summary of it here - gizmodo.com/people-are-giv…