“Let us not talk falsely now, for the hour is getting late…” Bob Dylan
Environmental philanthropy is virtually nonexistent. Since we were founded seven years ago, Synchronicity Earth has devoted significant time and resource into understanding why this is so. In fact, we were created as a response to the sad truth that there was negligible financial support available for conservation. Sadly, the numbers haven’t changed very much; we still only allocate 4-6% of Western philanthropy to the environment and 2%, globally;
Given all that we know – and especially – that we humans simply cannot exist on earth without a healthy, vibrant, robust and diverse natural world – I am as baffled as I was in 2006 when we first embarked upon our greater mission ‘to do something’.
That said, I do know a lot more now, and have developed some insights of my own:
– Philanthropy is linguistically founded in the notion of love, and of uplifting others – especially humans. Historically – especially in the last century – philanthropy has been the bedrock for applied altruism. Sadly, the environmental problems we face are fundamentally correlated to unprecedented Growth, and traditional philanthropy is not only ill-equipped to tackle it, but the issues have far surpassed its remit.
– In the Age of the 6th Extinction, I feel there is an inherent moral responsibility for environmental philanthropists and institutions to share their visions to try to encourage others to act. We need to call into question our Western ideals, systems and habits that have provided the root cause of global environmental degradation in order to begin to undo the fix we’ve created. Not only can we ramp up our support for groups working directly with people and communities who live with environmental degradation every day, but we can learn from their practices.
– Wealthy individuals – all in – give very little to the environment. Case in point: Coutts Private Bank just published the 2015 ‘Million Dollar Donors Report’ tracking 1,831 donations of $1 million US or more, totaling $24.5bn across 8 regions – UK, USA, Russia, Middle East, China, Hong Kong and South Africa in 2014. A mere 1.2% was distinctly allocated to the environment.
Why? Why does the environment – our natural world, which provides us with everything – rank so low on our philanthropic hierarchy of giving when it is fundamental to human (and species) survival?
