About Us

We are at an inflection point, with an urgent opportunity to diminish the power of dirty energy industries and build a new energy system that centers justice, redistributes power, and creates healthier, safer, and more prosperous communities. Hive Fund was launched in 2019 to fill a gap in climate philanthropy by identifying and supporting undervalued organizations contributing outsized impact toward equitable and durable climate solutions. The groups we support — most of them led by Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian American, and Pacific Islander women and gender-nonconforming people — are rooted in communities most impacted by pollution and other systemic disparities, and are driving an equitable transition to a cleaner, more renewable energy system. Yet they're consistently underfunded, ultimately holding all of us back from achieving deep and lasting progress. 

Why the South? 

There is no road to durable climate progress that does not go through the US South, yet philanthropy has severely underinvested in the region. The South is home to powerful, globally connected environmental and climate justice movements and is emerging as a hub for new clean energy manufacturing. At the same time, the region is the epicenter of the US oil and gas industry, with an explosive expansion of polluting facilities proposed in Black and Brown communities.  

Our Goal

Accelerate the transition from dirty to clean energy in ways that center justice, redistribute power, and create healthier, safer, and more prosperous communities. 

Pathways to Change 

We support grantee partners working toward our shared goal through three interconnected pathways: 

Rapidly transition to cleaner, renewable energy in ways that equitably redistribute leadership, ownership, and benefits to disinvested communities in the US South and beyond.  

Reverse the expansion of dirty energy, reduce pollution and other harms to communities in the US South, and weaken polluting industries’ political, economic, and social stranglehold. 

Strengthen people power to channel broad public demand for change toward climate solutions that address the problems everyday people face.  

How We Work

The complex, long-term change needed to address the climate crisis requires philanthropy to think beyond short-term funding cycles, rigid requirements, and small grants that constrain grantees. We provide multiyear general operating support, collaborate with grantee partners to guide our work and track progress, and renew most grants. These practices give organizational leaders the flexibility and security to think long-term, hire top talent, work adaptively, unlock innovation, and build robust organizations capable of advancing bold visions.  

With staff and advisors based throughout US South, we provide deep geographic, cultural, tactical, and issue-specific knowledge. Our trusted relationships with partners and community leaders help us find and vet new groups to fund, co-create strategy, and inform funding decisions. 

We often fund ecosystems of organizations in a geography or sector and facilitate their collaboration so the sum of their work can be greater than the parts. We don’t require groups to work in single-issue silos and support groups that leverage their resources and skill to address multiple problems at once. 

We embrace an organizational ethos of learning by doing and regularly share insights, funding strategies, lessons learned, and participatory practices with the field in hopes of evolving together to fund organizations in ways that enable them to do their best work.