Giving Compass' Take:

• David Roberts discusses how the Climate Emergency Fund aims to supply resources to climate activist groups in order to raise civil engagement.

• Why is civil disruption and amplifying populist energy crucial to climate philanthropy? How can donors participate in, and increase, climate emergency funding in their own communities?

• Read about how climate activists can communicate better.

On Monday, hundreds of climate activists were arrested in Sydney, London, and Amsterdam in the first round of what is expected to be a wave of protests across at least 60 cities in coming weeks.

The “International Rebellion” kicked off Monday requires organizing, communication, a shared understanding of science, and a shared list of demands. But on a more prosaic level, it requires money.

In July, recognizing the significance of the new wave of climate protests and the need to sustain them, a small group of environmental philanthropists came together to create the Climate Emergency Fund. In contrast to conventional philanthropy, which tends toward the slow and bureaucratic, the goal was to identify groups engaging in disruptive, nonviolent climate protest, vet them, and get money to them, quickly. Rather than a few big donations to a few big green-group campaigns, the idea is to spread the money widely, to lots of groups, in relatively small increments.

Since July, the fund has raised over a million dollars and gotten about $800,000 out the door in the form of 26 separate grants to groups ranging from 350.org to Extinction Rebellion.

The Fund was started by a small group with a long history of environmental philanthropy: Trevor Nielsen, a cleantech investor who co-founded the Global Philanthropy Group; Rory Kennedy, the youngest daughter of Robert Kennedy and an accomplished documentary filmmaker; lifelong philanthropist Aileen Getty (of the Getty family fortune); and Sarah Ezzy, who currently manages the Aileen Getty Foundation and previously directed the Global Philanthropy Group.

They came together around a shared conviction that street protest is both crucially important to climate politics and a longtime blind spot for environmental philanthropy.

With the Fund, they hope to capitalize on and amplify the populist energy that has exploded around climate change in recent months.

Read the full article about why philanthropists are raising money for climate activists by David Roberts at Vox.