Nearly half of the world’s population is currently highly vulnerable to climate change impacts.
-Air pollution leads to an estimated 6.7 million premature deaths each year.
-An investment of $1 in climate resilient infrastructure, on average, yields $4 in benefits.
-By 2050, over 1 billion people could be displaced by environmental hazards — primarily sea level rise and natural disasters.
The good news is our charity partners listed below are working toward a future of sustainability and conservation. Their programs include responsible resource management, low-carbon development, sustainable agriculture, biodiversity research and protection, and more.
Explore the resources below to see the impact of their work.
Feeling inspired? Be a global champion and help increase communities’ resilience to climate change by supporting Global Impact charities through your employee giving campaign.
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In a world increasingly aware of its environmental footprint, sustainability is no longer just a buzzword — it’s a business imperative. Employees today are looking to their employers to prioritize the health of our planet and to think about their role in creating change. One way to demonstrate this commitment is by engaging your team in initiatives that make a tangible impact on global sustainability. The key is to find the right charitable partners who are leading the way in fostering sustainable communities and offer exciting engagement opportunities that employees will love — enter, Heifer International. Heifer International works globally, alongside…
The world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities are feeling the brunt of the effects of climate change – even though they are not the main contributors to it. Droughts and flooding from extreme weather events lead to an increase in poverty and violent conflict, deepening the problems these nations face. To withstand the effects of climate change, we need to build resiliency in climate-hit communities. Our charity partner the International Rescue Committee supports communities most vulnerable to climate change in a wide range of programming. Below, they share stories of impact from seven programs around the world, from Pakistan to…
Since 1970, we’ve celebrated Earth Day as a celebration of our planet and to bring attention to environmental issues. In recent years, the climate crisis has made that mission all the more critical. Already, climate-fueled disasters are destroying crops and displacing millions of people a year, and each of us are affected by those ripple effects. As the climate changes, how can we change, too? By bolstering communities’ resilience to a changing climate, we can empower them to succeed. Many of our charity partners are already doing just that – training farmers to use drought-resistant plants, providing rainwater harvesting systems,…
When we launched the Environment Cause Fund in 2021, we were looking to align donor interests in protecting the Earth with the work of our charities. Even in the past few years, much has changed. As the effects of climate change have continued to accelerate at a rapid pace, it’s become increasingly apparent that the environment is just one aspect at stake with a changing climate. World hunger has been increasing for the first time in decades, fueled by droughts and other extreme weather events. Climate-fueled disasters are now the number one driver of the refugee crisis. And although all…
As spring flourishes outside my office window and Earth Day approaches this month, Louis Armstrong’s song “What a Wonderful World” goes through my head. Global Impact celebrates the environment as April’s cause of the month as well. In honor of this month, I’ll share Armstrong’s lyrics that remind me of the ways that Global Impact’s charity partners help create a wonderful world. Planting change in Ethiopia Unlike in the song, there aren’t “trees of green, red roses too,” sprouting up in southern Ethiopia – rather, vegetables and quinoa – but they’re creating a wonderful world, nonetheless. Our charity partner Seed…
Benjamin Franklin famously said, “When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.” Those that live in the United States often do not think twice about the source of their water or whether it is safe to bathe in or drink. It is a luxury that billions of people worldwide do not know, an uncertainty that communities live with every day. Throughout the movement for clean water access is an acronym called WASH, which stands for “water, sanitation and hygiene services.” This concept is used widely by our charity partners and other government entities that focus on worldwide clean…
Images
- Title: Impact in Malaysia
- Charity: Human Rights Watch
- Country: Malaysia
- Photo Credit: Women of the Kenyah Jamok community in Long Tungan village raise concerns over lack of consultation on matters affecting their land, Borneo, Malaysia. © 2019 The Borneo Project
- Charity: Action Against Hunger
- Country: Tanzania
- Photo Credit: Toby Madden
- Charity: AJWS
- Country: Mexico
- Photo Credit: ProDESC
- Title: Demining in Columbia
- Charity: Humanity & Inclusion
- Country: Colombia
- Photo Credit: © J.M. Vargas / HI
- Title: Women’s groups in Guatemala growing organic vegetable gardens
- Charity: Seed Programs International
- Country: Guatemala
- Photo Credit: Wellkind
- Title: Villages in Ethiopia tending to vegetable gardens
- Charity: Seed Programs International
- Country: Ethiopia
- Photo Credit: Grow East Africa
- Title: Women tending to garden nurseries
- Charity: Seed Programs International
- Country: Senegal
- Photo Credit: Taaru Askan
Videos
Success Stories
Arsenic and excessive salt from rising sea levels poisoned Julia’s young family with every sip of water they took. The pond near the rural village where Julia, her husband and their two children live in Bangladesh is their primary source of water. But it was contaminated by the poisonous carcinogen arsenic and so high in salinity, the entire family was at risk of hypertension and high blood pressure. But Julia only had two choices: Either collect the pond water she knew was making her family sick or travel miles from her village to pump drinking water from a distant well, which caused incredible hardship. If she chose to go to the well, Julia had to carry heavy jars that were difficult to lift and caused her long-term physical pain. She also had to walk miles to and from the well, which could take all day, instead of caring for her…
Some of Malaysia’s most precious rainforests and the Indigenous communities who live there will now be protected. We partnered with Indigenous leaders and environmentalists in the state of Sarawak, home to 25 Indigenous peoples and most of Malaysia’s remaining rainforests, to document how laws and policies enable the takeover of Indigenous land by private companies, leaving communities displaced and destitute. We met with Malaysian officials, and we impressed our findings on European Union authorities, urging them to use their leverage. On February 20, Sarawak announced the state will no longer issue provisional leases for oil palm plantations, specifically with the aim “to mitigate deforestation” and citing “international scrutiny, especially from the European Union.” These “provisional leases” have been one of the most harmful weapons the Sarawak government has yielded against Indigenous peoples, as they do not require the state to survey the land before leasing it and can last up to 60 years. Our researchers met repeatedly…
This program supported a community in Burji, Southern Ethiopia. This region is remote and has limited resources. This program started by supporting a cooperative of 50 women and has now expanded to support 10 youth groups and 248 farming households, impacting a total of over 2,000 people with direct food access, crop and income diversity, and increased climate resilience in the face of severe drought.
“When I was a little girl, my father taught me to respect our ancestors,” Cristiane Flores, a young Gavião woman shared. Cristiane grew up in an Indigenous forest village near the banks of the Rio Negro, but she relocated several years ago to the metropolitan city of Manaus. “He also taught me to honor and see God in nature—in the trees, in water.” In Brazil, Episcopal Relief & Development partners with the Episcopal Diocese of the Amazon to deliver the Amazônia Resilience Initiative, a program serving marginalized, often remote communities in the states of Pará and Amazonas. Many of those served by the initiative are among Brazil’s 1.7 million Indigenous people. Cristiane and other participants receive monthly food debit cards or baskets containing rice, beans, cassava flour and other staples. Program teams also facilitate savings and loan groups that include financial literacy training. Members like Cristiane contribute monthly to a…
Ineza Umuhoza Grace, Global Coordinator and co-founder of the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition, first experienced the effects of the climate crisis at an early age when her family home in Rwanda was destroyed due to intensive rainfall and wind.
After a five-year struggle, AJWS grantee Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Project (ProDESC) secured a major win in June when federal energy authorities in Mexico announced they had definitively cancelled a massive energy project slated to be built on the lands of an Indigenous community. The project — “Gunaa Sicarú” — was awarded to a French utility company, and would have been one of the biggest wind energy parks in Latin America, built to supply power to private companies. This could have been a positive evolution for clean energy in the region — if the corporation had not trampled on the rights of Indigenous communities that own the land on the proposed project site. Gunaa Sicarú would have eaten up nearly 200 acres of Unión Hidalgo’s land — a devastating blow to this Indigenous, agricultural community. ProDESC, in partnership with the community, tirelessly petitioned the Mexican Energy Ministry to cancel…
