When Groundswell launched in 2020, we had a simple idea – make it easier for more people to put their money behind effective climate action.

Six years later, our community has directed more than $7 million to climate organisations, campaigns and communities across Australia. Along the way, we’ve learned a lot about how change happens and about the role philanthropy can play in helping it happen.

Here are six lessons that now shape every grant we make.
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1. There is no single solution to climate change

Climate change is sometimes presented as a problem in search of one big solution – a new technology, a better policy, a different government.

What we’ve seen is that progress rarely works like that.

Change happens when many things start moving together. Research makes a new idea credible. Campaigners build public support for it. Communities organise around it. Journalists bring attention to it. Lawyers hold powerful interests to account. First Nations leaders protect Country. Policy experts turn possibility into something governments can actually implement.

A breakthrough that looks sudden can be the result of years of work across many different parts of the system.

That’s why Groundswell backs climate action across a wide landscape – from clean energy and policy advocacy, to community organising, First Nations-led work, legal action and storytelling. The individual pieces matter. But so do the connections between them.
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2. Where and when you give matters

A bigger grant isn’t automatically a better grant.

Sometimes relatively small amounts of money, directed to the right place at the right moment, can unlock change far beyond the size of the original investment.

An organisation might have a small window to influence an important policy decision. A community may need resources to respond to a new threat. A campaign that has been building momentum for years may suddenly have the political conditions it needs to succeed.

Finding those moments takes more than reviewing applications twice a year.

Over time, Groundswell has built deep relationships across the climate movement and a trusted network of advisers, community leaders and givers. We draw on experience across campaigning, politics and policy, law, First Nations justice, energy, community organising and philanthropy to understand what’s shifting, what’s missing and where additional support could make the biggest difference.

The question isn’t only ‘Is this good work? ’It’s also – ‘Why this work, and why now?’
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3. Expertise matters. So does perspective.

We believe strongly in informed giving. But expertise doesn’t sit in one place.

Policy experts can see things campaigners can’t. People working within communities understand things that may be invisible from a boardroom. First Nations people bring knowledge of Country, culture and justice that cannot be substituted by outside expertise. People who have spent years working on an issue know where previous attempts have stalled and where new opportunities might be emerging.

That’s why our grantmaking deliberately brings different forms of knowledge together.

Our advisers help us understand the broader climate landscape and assess where funding might have strategic value. Community members and people with lived experience bring different questions and perspectives. And our giving community ultimately helps decide which shortlisted organisations we back.

We’ve learned that bringing those perspectives together makes our grantmaking stronger.
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4. The people doing the work usually know what they need

Philanthropy has traditionally put a lot of power in the hands of the person holding the money.

Over six years of working with climate organisations, we’ve become even more convinced that good grantmaking means knowing when to get out of the way.

Climate work rarely follows a neat project plan. Political conditions change. Opportunities appear unexpectedly. A tactic that seemed right six months ago may no longer be the best use of an organisation’s time or resources.

Wherever we can, we therefore back organisations flexibly and trust the people doing the work to decide how resources can have the greatest impact.

Our role is to do the work upfront – understand the landscape, find strong organisations and leaders, ask good questions and make considered decisions. Then trust them to do theirs.
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5. Who makes the decisions matters too

Groundswell began as a giving circle because we wanted climate giving to feel different – less like a small group of people deciding behind closed doors, and more like a community learning and making decisions together.

We’ve held onto that principle as we’ve grown.

Our grant rounds combine expert assessment with community decision-making, and everyone who gives to Groundswell can have a say in where our pooled funding goes.

It doesn’t mean every decision is simple. In fact, voting can be really hard! The shortlist is full of organisations doing important work, often in very different ways.

But that is part of the point.

Sharing decision-making exposes us to different perspectives. It asks us to consider trade-offs. And it reminds us that money isn’t the only thing of value in philanthropy – knowledge, experience and judgement matter too.
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6. Collective giving is about more than pooling money

When we started Groundswell, one of the most obvious benefits of collective giving was scale.

Twenty dollars on its own might not feel like enough to change much. Pool it with hundreds of other contributions and suddenly it becomes part of a $40,000 grant capable of giving an organisation real momentum.

We still believe deeply in that model.

But six years in, we’ve learned that the collective part is just as important as the giving.

People come to Groundswell because they want to do something meaningful about climate change without having to become experts themselves. Over time, they learn about how climate progress happens, discover organisations they might never otherwise encounter and see what their contribution makes possible alongside others.

And Groundswell learns too.

Every grant round adds to our understanding of the climate landscape. Every relationship with an organisation, adviser or community member gives us a clearer picture of what is changing and what is needed next.

That accumulated knowledge now shapes every grant we make.

And so after six years, perhaps our biggest lesson is this – none of us needs to figure out climate change alone. When we bring together knowledge, resources and people who care about the same future, we become much more powerful than any of us could be on our own.