For more than fifty years, The Joseph & Vera Long Foundation has made conservation grants to study, protect, and restore the natural environment.  Joe and Vera Long instilled in their family the importance of limiting waste, protecting natural resources, and caring for others - values which are essential to sustain a healthy world. This planet is our home, and we feel strongly that it is humanity’s responsibility to care for and preserve it for future generations.

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With the help of many grantee partners, we have learned about the resilience of ecosystems and the adaptability of species, but we have also seen the extraordinary work needed to reverse the damage caused by humankind's advancement without concern for nature.  If global average surface temperatures continue to increase at their current rate, the environmental and social consequences would be harrowing.  However, we optimistically believe that many solutions to climate change can do more than reduce greenhouse gases; they can maintain biodiversity, improve food systems, and address social inequity. 

 

Moving forward, our Board of Trustees has decided to shift our focus away from traditional conservation grant making and towards creative climate solutions that yield multiple co-benefits.  We have committed half of our annual grant budget to support work which mitigates climate change.  With the help of key partners, we are developing our climate grant program to identify opportunities where our contributions can be effective and impactful within the larger, global effort to end the climate crisis and to seek out collective efforts that unlock the potential of solutions with great promise but limited access to conventional financing. 

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While our proactive approach to climate grantmaking will evolve over time, the Foundation is currently committed to multi-year grants for three large-scale strategic funder collaboratives focused on reducing methane emissions, reversing tropical deforestation and the transition to clean energy.  As a result, we will not accept any unsolicited grant applications for the environment in the foreseeable future.​​