Accelerating Natural Climate Solutions Grants from Allen Family Philanthropies

Allen Family Philanthropies has issued a call to non-profit organizations across the U.S. that are working in the Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) space to break implementation barriers using science and technology.

The foundation is particularly interested in U.S.-based projects consisting of diverse teams of scientists, practitioners, and key stakeholders (e.g., community members, landowners, state land managers, etc.) to co-develop, test, and deploy science and technology solutions addressing barriers to NCS implementation. A total of $10M will be available to fund 6-7 projects (each lasting up to 3 years in duration) via this Request for Proposals (RFP).

About Natural Climate Solutions

Allen Family Philanthropies believes that science and technology solutions can be catalytic in deploying high integrity NCS projects (Ellis et al. 2024). For this RFP, we are particularly interested in projects that develop, test, and deploy science and technology solutions for overcoming NCS implementation barriers recently identified by Brumberg et al. (2025) and Kroeger et al. (2025). These studies identified eight types of barriers: 1) material inputs, 2) finance, 3) markets, 4) adverse NCS impacts, 5) knowledge, 6) social and behavioral, 7) rules and laws, and 8) governments and organizations. The foundation believes that the collaborative development of generalizable science and technology solutions to overcome these barriers will be critical for NCS to meet their mitigation potential.

Principles for high-integrity NCS projects

LOI and RFP Process

To participate in the RFP, an organization and its partners must first submit a Letter of Interest (LOI) that will be reviewed by foundation staff. A subset of applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal. The LOI is intended to have a low barrier-to-entry for potential applicants; the full proposal request will include additional questions, references, and other accompanying materials.

We ask applicants to submit all information through the submission portal. LOI templates can be found in the submission portal, although please note applicants must input text into text fields in the submission portal.

Visit our website to learn more and begin your application

Eligibility

To be considered for this opportunity, applicants must meet all of the following criteria:  

• Projects must be based in the U.S.
• Projects must specify the proposed NCS pathway(s) and targeted barriers.
• Projects must be intentionally designed to, in spirit, adhere to principles for high-integrity NCS projects (Principles for high-integrity NCS projects, linked above).
• Project teams must propose to advance the development and deployment of a generalizable solution to a particular barrier or set of barriers.
• Projects must clearly explain why and how the proposed solution(s) is positioned to overcome the barrier, ideally by embedding the proposed project within an existing NCS project.
• Projects must articulate a study design for developing and deploying solutions.
• Organizations eligible to receive funding from the foundation include: Nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3), U.S. organizations; Units of state or local government; Public and private colleges and universities. Prior to any award of funding, organizations must review and agree to the Allen Family Philanthropies Grantee Code of Conduct.

Priority will be given to: 

• Projects demonstrating expertise through partnerships. For example, a project team focused on developing new technology to alert unregulated grazing on protected grasslands using remotely sensed data would likely benefit from a partner with strong ties to landowners, an expert on remotely sensed data, and an expert on processes for triggering enforcement.
• Projects must articulate a study design for developing, testing, and deploying solutions.
• Projects that have secured co-funding.

Timeline for Applications

There are two stages for the RFP: LOI and full proposal. In the first stage, we ask applicants to submit a LOI. The foundation team will review LOIs to determine if the proposed projects will be invited to submit a full proposal. LOIs will be reviewed on a rolling basis, so we encourage teams to submit early to have ample time to work on full proposals. Proposals will be reviewed by an expert review panel. We anticipate notifying awardees in Q3 2026.

• November 12, 2025: Letter of Interest (LOI) process opens for eligible applicants
• December 9, 2025, 9:00am PST: Informational Webinar for interested applicants
• January 15, 2026, 12:00pm PST: LOI process closes
• February 5, 2026: The foundation requests proposals from select, eligible applicants
• March 10, 2026: Proposals due
• Early Q3 2026: Funding decisions announced