Subject: Following up on your question
From: Charlotte Pera <[email-masked]>
To: John Podesta <[email-masked]>
Cc: Gretchen Rau <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2015 17:00:32 +0000

Dear John,

It was great to have you on our board call on Monday, and I’m very much looking forward to learning from you and working with you.

You asked about the “other” category of funding shown on the slides we discussed on Monday.  The “other” category represents funds we expect Funders Table participants will spend on something related to the full portfolio, but where there is so much uncertainty in how those funds would ultimately be spent that distributing them by campaign or region in the recommendation at this stage could skew how other funders make 2016 funding decisions and leave critical initiatives underfunded in the end.  For example, $22 million of the “other” column for 2015 (per the recommendation we made in late 2014) was attributable to the expected 2015 climate budget of a new foundation that planned to form its board and open its doors in January 2015.  We had confidence as of October 2014 that the $22 million would be spent on climate mitigation priorities sometime in 2015 but had zero confidence in assigning those funds to any particular campaign or region, so it made sense to show it in the “other” category.

I believe your question touched on a broader issue of how much philanthropic investment is going toward regions/efforts not included in our Recommended Portfolio—we don’t yet have as much visibility into those investments as we would like.  We’ve focused so far on influencing the resources represented at the Funders Table because those represent such a large fraction of total climate mitigation philanthropy.

Please let me know if you have additional questions or need more information.  Sue Tierney and I look forward to talking with you on August 28.

Best,
Charlotte
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Charlotte Pera
President & CEO
ClimateWorks<http://www.climateworks.org/> Foundation
Assistant: Mark Quinn  | [email-masked]  |
T:   415-433-0552
M:  415-595-4516

ClimateWorks mobilizes philanthropy to solve the climate crisis and ensure a prosperous future.