Natural Climate Solutions in the United States – Jan 15

Posted by Allen Family Philanthropies on December 2, 2025

Allen Family Philanthropies aims to accelerate Natural Climate Solutions in the United States

Allen Family Philanthropies aims to build thriving and resilient communities in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

The organization has issued a request for proposals to accelerate Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) in the United States. NCS are some of the few shovel-ready climate change mitigation technologies available today, and they have broad public support.

To be effective, NCS must be implemented rapidly and rigorously, but there are numerous technical, social, economic, and other barriers to implementation. Recent research and a survey of NCS experts facilitated by the Science Philanthropy Alliance provide evidence that across all NCS pathways and barriers, science and technology solutions can help overcome barriers and accelerate implementation.

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, the organization is 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.

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 $10 million will be available to fund six to seven projects (each lasting up to three years in duration) via this RFP.

Projects must specify the proposed NCS pathway(s) and targeted barriers; must be intentionally designed to, in spirit, adhere to principles for high-integrity NCS projects; 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; and projects must articulate a study design for developing and deploying solutions.

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, and projects that have secured co-funding.

Organizations eligible to receive funding from the foundation include nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3), U.S. organizations; units of state or local government; state or federally recognized tribal communities or tribes; and public and private colleges and universities.

An informational webinar for interested applicants will be held December 9, 2025, at 9:00 a.m. PT. Letters of intent are due January 16, 2026, at 12 noon PT. Upon review, selected applicants will be invited to submit full proposals, due March 10, 2026.

For complete program guidelines, application instructions, and to register for the informational webinar, see the Allen Family Philanthropies website.

Deadline: January 15, 2026