A new “think-and-do-tank” and funder focused on combating climate change — the Jewish Climate Trust — launched on Thursday with backing from some of the most prominent North American Jewish philanthropists and kicked off its formation with a $3 million grant to the environmental nonprofit Adamah and an equivalent $3 million commitment to help the main Israeli environmental organizations.

The Jewish Climate Trust is the brainchild of Stephen Bronfman, who has been involved in climate-related philanthropy for some three decades through the Canadian David Suzuki Foundation, where he is the vice chairman. Bronfman serves as co-chair of JCT alongside Michael Sonnenfeldt, an entrepreneur and philanthropist who has long focused on climate change and Israel advocacy. British Jewish environmental activist Nigel Savage will serve as the inaugural CEO.

In addition to Bronfman and Sonnenfeldt, its funders include: philanthropists Stacy Schusterman, chair of Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies; philanthropist Marcia Riklis; Jeff Hart, chair of the Climate Solutions Prize; Charles Bronfman; the Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation; David Cogut; Dan and Sarah Rueven; and the Israeli environmental funding group PAI, which is both a stakeholder in JCT and a working partner.

For the Schustermans, whose family wealth originally comes from oil and gas drilling, their involvement in the Jewish Climate Trust represents their second large move to support environmental causes — the first being a $341,000 donation to Adamah in 2023.

Bronfman, 61, told eJP this week that he came up with the idea for JCT as he was approaching his 60th birthday. “I thought to myself, ‘How can I get things done? Where are we going to take things?’ And I took a look at both the environment and the Jewish world,” he said. “I started to realize that a lot of the next generation of [philanthropic] leaders and people from the private sector are very interested in climate [change]. Maybe their parents weren’t interested, but they were and they didn’t know where to go. So I said, ‘Maybe I can play a leadership role here.’”

Bronfman began reaching out to others in the Jewish world who were working in similar fields to develop the concept. “We had this idea of doing a climate trust and putting partners together to tackle the largest issues of our day, [which are] climate-related,” he said, adding that a goal was also to operate in both Israel and North America.

“And we built a nice little organization that we’re just kicking off, and I’m really thrilled that Michael Sonnenfeldt is my fellow chair. We’ve got great funders — major foundations — and great philanthropic players,” Bronfman said. 

Jeff Neiman, vice president of the Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation; Jeff Solomon, a longtime advisor to the Bronfman family; and environmental activist and academic Daniella Hirschfeld will also serve on the board. JCT will work closely with the Jewish Funders Network, with whom Bronfman maintains close ties, having co-chaired the group’s conference in Tel Aviv last year.

Bronfman said that he was driven by the thought that: “There is just so much money coming from the Jewish world and going into the Jewish world — How about getting some of this money into the climate crisis?”

In a separate interview, Sonnenfeldt also noted the impending “extraordinary transfer of wealth” from a generation that did not fully grasp the threat of climate change to ones that “are more steeped in the threat.”

“There are extraordinary untapped resources within the Jewish community that we believe should begin to be allocated to addressing the threat of climate change,” Sonnenfeldt said.

Savage, a longtime environmental activist, echoed this, saying in a statement that the Jewish community needs to “raise our game on climate.”

Sonnenfeldt said he came on board having worked with both Savage and Bronfman in the past on a program to make Birthright Israel trips more environmentally conscious. 

Sonnenfeldt said JCT does not adhere to a strict ideology or strategy with regards to combating climate change, but seeks to provide the latest scientific research to donors (the “think” part of the think-and-do tank).

“Each organization has a different approach. We haven’t issued proclamations, but personally, we need to reduce and eliminate fossil fuel use. Carbon-capture technologies might offset fuel use, but net carbon emissions must be reduced dramatically,” he said.

Demonstrating the Jewish Climate Trust’s commitments to both North America and Israel, the trust issued its first grants in both locations. In North America, the organization provided $3 million over the course of three years to Adamah to support its efforts facilitating American Jewish organizations to adopt new environmental strategies, such as grants for solar panels; and to help Adamah develop its interfaith work and launch a new Jewish Green Business Network.

“Adamah’s new partnership with the Jewish Climate Trust is a huge step forward for Jewish climate leadership and a transformative moment for our organization,” Brett Cohen, Adamah’s board chair, said in a statement. “By investing in bold solutions, deepening collaboration and scaling our impact, we’re positioning Adamah for its next chapter — one where we reach more people, create greater change, and build a healthier, more sustainable world for generations to come.”

In Israel, the organization committed $3 million to the country’s main environmental nonprofits to help them “develop a shared strategy on climate and to build capacity for each of the organizations,” JCT said.

Tamar Zandberg, a former Israeli environmental protection minister and chair of Life and Environment, the umbrella organization for the Israeli environmental movement, said in a statement that JCT represented a significant “new addition to the landscape.”

“For Israel to improve its performance on climate, and become a regional and global leader, we have to foster new and innovative partnerships — interdisciplinary, cross-sectorial and cross-border; and to do that we need significant new funding commitments. JCT’s commitment and leadership is really important,” Zandberg said.

Both Bronfman and Sonnenfeldt noted that the trust was launching at a particularly appropriate time, as the new Trump White House is reducing the U.S. government’s focus on the environment and some Jewish donors have grown wary of environmental groups, some of which adopted anti-Israel stances in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks. Though both noted that the project preceded both the U.S. election and the Oct. 7 attacks.

“It’s a great time to start,” Bronfman said. “The U.S. administration has put climate change a lot lower on its agenda… and people are reacting. We’ve raised a nice amount of money.”

According to a JCT spokesperson, the organization has so far raised $18 million in multiyear commitments so far, and the organization will have an annual budget of $6 million.

Sonnenfeldt noted that the organization’s decision to include Israel in its work has made it more attractive to some donors. “Some climate organizations have been hostile to Israel, so we offer an effective climate channel untainted by antisemitism or anti-Israel sentiment,” he said. “We didn’t create the Jewish Climate Trust for that reason, but it turned out that many donors found it attractive because they felt less comfortable with other organizations that were becoming less hospitable or more anti-Israel. The clarity of our Jewish identity… is attractive to many.”

Both Bronfman and Sonnenfeldt also said the organization hopes to use Israeli environmental science prowess as a way to advance diplomatic endeavors between the State of Israel and Arab or Muslim countries.

“Israel’s technology, particularly in water, could be a bridge to peace. We consider diplomatic initiatives and national security threats related to climate,” said Sonnenfeldt, a co-founder of the Israel Policy Forum and member of the board of trustees of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Hirschfeld, who serves on the boards of both JCT and Adamah and teaches in the environmental planning department at Utah State University, said the reconstruction efforts in Israeli communities near the Gaza and Lebanon borders and in Los Angeles also presented a “unique opportunity to design with resilience in mind.”

Sonnenfeldt stressed the scale of the threat to the planet posed by climate change.

“Climate change is an existential threat to humanity. A significant portion of humanity refuses to acknowledge this threat,” he said. The Jewish people, having survived numerous existential threats and possessing a tradition of debating and resolving ethical issues, are uniquely positioned to address this. An organization focusing on a Jewish response to climate change has dramatic appeal. I’m involved in many climate initiatives, but none pair the threat with the potential of the Jewish people’s wealth, knowledge, and wisdom to make an outsized difference.”