1.5°Climate Projects (Internal)

Presentation

Pitch Deck

Meeting Notes

Legislation - SF 2447

Illinois Environmental Council

$166,020 Raised | Fundraising Goal Achieved!

Thanks to the organizing efforts of LCV affiliate Illinois Environmental Council (IEC) and Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition partners, Illinois has been at the forefront of state-level climate action that has been a model for other states. In 2026, IEC aims to pass legislation addressing data centers’ extensive energy and water use, including a requirement to “Bring Your Own New Clean Capacity and Energy” (BYONCCE). As the convener of Illinois’ environmental movement, IEC is uniquely situated to bring together the normally siloed clean energy, water, and agriculture stakeholders who will need to speak with one voice to counter deep-pocketed industry influence.

Geography: Illinois

Funding Type: c4c3

Presenter(s): Jennifer Walling, CEO

Presentation Date: 02/03/2026

Western Resource Advocates

$152,700 Raised | Fundraising Goal Achieved!

The emerging data center boom is placing significant new demands on energy and water resources, creating substantial financial risk to ratepayers, increasing greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector, and making it nearly impossible to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. With additional financial support, WRA can develop and advance smart policy strategies in the Colorado state legislature and the public utilities commission to catalyze the adoption of new technologies, conserve water, and protect ratepayers while reducing harmful pollution and accelerating the transition to clean energy .

Geography: Colorado

Funding Type: c4c3

Presenter(s): Jon Goldin-Dubois, President

Presentation Date: 01/13/2026

WRA Data Center Report

Org Details

Chesapeake Climate Action Fund

$156,100 Raised | Fundraising Goal Achieved!

Rampant data center expansion is projected to triple electricity demand in Virginia, a state in which just one county, Loudoun, is the data center capital of the world. This rapid demand curve has made lawmakers sympathetic to proposals for new fossil fuel infrastructure and allowed utilities to maintain coal plants previously slated for retirement. Big Tech must be forced to acquire clean energy and operate efficiently in order to keep Virginia on track to meet the state’s climate goals. CCAN Action Fund proposes a high visibility communications campaign to urge leadership to take action.

Geography: Virginia

Funding Type: c4c3

Presenter(s): Mike Tidwell, Executive Director | Victoria Higgins, Virginia Director

Presentation Date: 12/16/2025

Home Energy Efficiency Team

$110,000 Raised | Fundraising Goal Achieved!

HEET is a nonprofit reimagining and redesigning our energy system to meet the needs of the future. In 2017 HEET pioneered the idea, now made real, of thermal utilities providing building heating and cooling through interconnectable geothermal networks. These networks deliver local, clean, least-cost thermal energy. This invisible energy is everywhere including the air, the ground, and even the sea. Near HEET’s office, Boston Harbor is 3.4℃ warmer today than in 1950. That’s too hot for lobsters. It’s also enough 'anthrothermal' energy to heat over one million homes. Join the lobsters in supporting #ThermalOpportunity mapping, making invisible solutions visible.

Geography: Massachusetts

Funding Type: c3

Presenter(s): Zeyneb Magavi, Executive Director

Presentation Date: 11/04/2025

| Coordination, Collaboration, and Technical Assistance

| Start-Up/Innovative Project

Mothers Out Front

$50,000 Raised | Fundraising Goal Achieved!

Founded in Massachusetts, Mothers Out Front mobilizes moms and caregivers nationwide through three strategic campaigns for climate justice. Moms v. Methane organizes communities to stop new gas projects and advance clean heat solutions. Sustainable Schools, Resilient Communities helps families decarbonize schools and create safe, healthy spaces for children. Make Polluters Pay holds the fossil fuel industry accountable for its damage. Together, these campaigns train and equip moms to win state and local victories that accelerate the clean energy transition and ensure all children can thrive in a healthy climate.

Geography: California, Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia

Funding Type: c4c3

Presenter(s): Jenny Zimmer, Co-Executive Director

Presentation Date: 11/04/2025

| Battleground States & Districts

| Federal Climate Action

NY Renews

$100,000 Raised | Fundraising Goal Achieved!

NY Renews is a multi-sector, multiracial, and intergenerational climate, jobs, and justice coalition of 400 organizations creating a path to a 100% clean energy economy in NY. As the main force behind the passage of NYS’s historic climate law in 2019, NY Renews is the leading coalition working to ensure the mandates and goals of the law are adequately funded and fully realized. Their 2025 and 2026 plans include: (1) watchdogging NY’s Climate Law at a time when the governor is failing to lead on climate; (2) ensuring that the state's proposed cap-and-invest program remains the primary vessel to fund the climate law; and (3) building the capacity of the communities they represent to strengthen the movement, deepen alignment, and lead on climate justice.

Geography: New York

Funding Type: c4c3

Presenter(s): Morgan Stockman, Development Director

Presentation Date: 09/25/2025

| Coordination, Collaboration, and Technical Assistance

| Racial Equity and Environmental Justice

Project InnerSpace

$100,000 Raised | Fundraising Goal Achieved!

Next generation geothermal is a zero-carbon source of electricity and heat/cooling that is at a critical inflection point to unlock massive decarbonization benefits in the US. According to the International Energy Agency, new geothermal technologies have the potential to meet all electricity and heat demand in Africa, China, Europe, Southeast Asia and the United States combined. Despite this, geothermal has been absent from major conversations about decarbonization in the US. Project InnerSpace is facilitating the rapid transfer of resources, technologies, and know-how from the oil and gas industry toward geothermal energy production through state specific research papers and innovations like GeoMap.

Geography: National

Funding Type: c4c3

Presenter(s): Ryan Williams, Director of Development | Jackson Grimes, Director of Global Engagement

Presentation Date: 09/09/2025

| Federal Climate Action

Protect Our Winters

$100,000 Raised | Fundraising Goal Achieved!

POW’s mission is to lead the outdoor movement for climate action. We are organizing the Outdoor State to be the most powerful voice for climate in the U.S. Building on our national momentum, we are rolling out a local engagement strategy anchored by a new clean energy campaign designed to activate all levels of the POW community and accelerate decarbonization across the country. POW is committed to breaking local development logjams by educating communities and organizing targeted, on-the-ground advocacy campaigns that drive specific clean energy projects forward. We are shifting the cultural, societal and structural norms to ensure prioritization of local clean energy development.

Geography: Colorado

Funding Type: c3

Presenter(s): Lindsey Halvorson, Director of Advocacy and Campaigns

Presentation Date: 08/26/2025

Greenlight America

$107,600 Raised | Fundraising Goal Achieved!

Greenlight is mobilizing grassroots power to win local clean energy fights where projects are most at risk of being blocked. With our Clean Energy Mobilization Hub, we equip supporters to show up in permitting battles, ensuring solar, wind, and storage get built on time to meet the urgent climate window. Partnering with Protect Our Winters (POW), we’re expanding campaigns in the Mountain West—especially Colorado and Nevada—through joint phonebanking and organizing, advancing projects with more than 600MW potential. Together, we’re making sure clean energy doesn’t lose by forfeit and building durable climate wins in critical geographies.

Geography: National

Funding Type: c4c3

Presenter(s): Matt Traldi, Founder and CEO

Presentation Date: 08/26/2025

California Environmental Voters

$83,210 Raised

EnviroVoters, the CA LCV affiliate, is seeking support to pass a number of urgent climate bills that would make Big Oil pay for the damage their pollution has caused, including disasters like the LA wildfires. These bills shift financial responsibility from frontline communities to corporate polluters and mark a bold step toward long overdue climate justice. This is part of our larger effort to build momentum for polluters pay efforts including insurance affordability and cap and invest. With a proven track record, including the success of SB 253, EnviroVoters brings deep policy expertise, strong coalitions, and a clear strategy to win.

Geography: California

Funding Type: c4c3

Presenter(s): Mary Creasman, CEO

Presentation Date: 04/25/2025

| Racial Equity and Environmental Justice

Extreme Weather Survivors

$121,405 Raised | Fundraising Goal Achieved!

Extreme Weather Survivors (EWS) is a national network of people directly impacted by wildfires, floods, hurricanes, and other climate-fueled disasters—92 million Americans each year. Despite this escalating crisis, climate change remains dangerously underestimated by the public and under-prioritized by policymakers. EWS is changing that. Their work expands the reach of the climate movement by engaging people far beyond its traditional base and by ensuring those with lived experience help shape the policies that affect their communities. By empowering survivors as trusted messengers through trauma-informed support and advocacy training, EWS is building a powerful force for change—one that shifts public perception, drives bold policy, and brings new voices into the climate movement. EWS is seeking support for their work to make polluters pay in California.

Geography: California

Funding Type: c4c3

Presenter(s): Sierra Kos, Co-Founder and Co-Director | Chris Kocher, Co-Founder and Co-Director

Presentation Date: 04/25/2025

| Racial Equity and Environmental Justice

Stopping Bad Bills in Texas

$128,300 Raised | Fundraising Goal Achieved!

Legislation has been introduced in Texas that would thwart renewable energy and promote fossil fuel development in a state where the impacts could not be more consequential. In recent years, the plummeting costs of wind and solar have allowed renewables to compete with fossil fuels in a state that is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the country – and Texas now generates more renewable energy than any other state by a long shot. The Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance and Texas Consumer Association are leading efforts to block the ideological attacks on renewable energy and move forward bills that will help consumers and increase grid reliability.

Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance (TAEBA) is the Texas chapter of Advanced Energy United is deeply involved in efforts to stop bad anti-renewable bills while also promoting transmission expansion and energy waste reduction.
Texas Consumer Association and the Consumer Fund of Texas are consistently providing focused research and advocacy showing how anti-renewable bills would hurt Texas consumers. Two new studies are in the works to come out in the next few weeks; TCA will use support here to make sure people see the research and understand the negative impacts.

Geography: Texas

Funding Type: c4c3

Presenter(s): Sandie Haverlah, ED of Texas Consumer Association | Trish Demeter, Managing Director of Advanced Energy United

Presentation Date: 04/11/2025

Welcoming Neighbors Network

$92,700 Raised

WNN members North Carolina Housing Table and Texans for Housing are advancing pro-housing, pro-climate land use reforms in their deep-red state legislatures. By building unique, bipartisan, strange bedfellow coalitions around these reforms, they have a clear opportunity to achieve climate-friendly reforms where other environmental policies are dead on arrival. These policies would shift housing growth toward existing, walkable, transit-connected communities, reducing per capita emissions and fighting suburban sprawl. Through community organizing, coalition-building, and direct advocacy, the NC Housing Table and Texans for Housing are overcoming the power of NIMBYism and achieving groundbreaking pro-climate progress in unlikely places.

Geography: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin

Funding Type: c4c3

Presenter(s): Henry Honorof, Director of the Coordinating Team | Denzel Burnside, Head of NC Housing Table | Felicity Maxwell, ED of Texans for Housing

Presentation Date: 03/25/2025

| Start-Up/Innovative Project

AK PIRG

$34,083 Raised

Facing a severe natural gas shortfall, Alaska is making immediate decisions on LNG import contracts for the next 30 years. A lack of institutional leadership and predatory delay from Alaska's public utilities and state agencies have created the current crisis. While LNG imports are a necessary bridge as renewables are built, they are not a long-term solution. AK PIRG staunchly opposes expensive, long-term LNG obligations and is working extensively at the Regulatory Commission of Alaska to keep the lights on in the short term and protect consumers from being locked into LNG and rising market prices in the long term.

Geography: Alaska

Funding Type: c3

Presenter(s): Natalie Kiley-Bergen, Energy Lead

Presentation Date: 03/07/2025

Renewable Energy Alaska Project

$34,083 Raised

Renewable Energy Alaska Project is Alaska’s leading clean energy education and advocacy group. REAP is currently pushing legislation that would require the state’s four largest utilities to diversify their generation portfolio away from a heavy reliance on natural gas. Those utilities are now preparing to import extremely expensive LNG, as local gas supplies begin to run short. Working with its statewide coalition, REAP is advocating for a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) requiring that 55% of the electricity on the state’s largest electric grid come from renewable sources by 2035, a transition that would save consumers over $1 billion by 2040.

Geography: Alaska

Funding Type: c3

Presenter(s): Chris Rose, Executive Director

Presentation Date: 03/07/2025

Conservation Voters New Mexico

$50,000 Raised | Fundraising Goal Achieved!

In New Mexico, we have the opportunity to pass a climate package that would codify net zero emissions by 2050, allocate $340 million for climate action, and $10 million for state agency capacity for compliance and enforcement. With a unified coalition, Clear Horizons NM, a partnership of 30 environmental and social justice organizations, Governor Lujan Grisham’s public support during her 2025 State of the State, and a pro-climate legislature, we are positioned to pass this slate of climate legislation through both chambers but the NM LCV affiliate needs additional resources for grassroots advocacy, communications, and lobbying to get them over the finish line.

Geography: New Mexico

Funding Type: c4c3

Presenter(s): Demis Foster, CEO | Justin Garoutte, Climate and Energy Advocate

Presentation Date: 02/14/2025

New Mexico Legislation

Org Details

Chesapeake Climate Action Network

$110,500 Raised | Fundraising Goal Achieved!

Chesapeake Climate Action Network Action Fund (CCAN AF) is committed to advancing public policies that fight climate change across their region and beyond. Their Maryland team is working diligently to maintain Maryland's leadership as a national champion maintaining a steady pace in greenhouse gas emissions reductions, clean energy investments, and dedicated climate funding. Right now, CCAN AF is leading the advocacy for a state policy initiative: the Abundant, Affordable Clean Energy Act. This bill codifies clean energy solutions that will help ease Maryland's resource adequacy concerns and proposes ratepayer protections that will lower utility bills.

Geography: Maryland

Funding Type: c4c3

Presenter(s): Brittany Baker, Maryland Director

Presentation Date: 01/30/2025

Southwest Energy Efficiency Project

$113,853 Raised | Fundraising Goal Achieved!

SWEEP works to achieve a healthy, equitable, and low carbon future in the Southwest United States. A priority campaign for the organization in 2025 is securing a fully decarbonized electric grid in Colorado as quickly as possible. Locking in statute a “100% clean energy by 2040” policy for all Colorado utilities would establish a much-needed beachhead of climate leadership in the Interior West, pushing back against federal headwinds and generating momentum for the state’s next governor in 2026. To overcome utility opposition and ensure success, SWEEP needs additional resources for advocacy and paid communications.

Geography: Colorado

Funding Type: c3

Presenter(s): Elise Jones, Executive Director | Justin Brant, Utility Program Director

Presentation Date: 01/30/2025

Permit Power

$120,000 Raised

Permit Power is working to make clean energy more affordable and accessible by addressing bureaucratic barriers that make rooftop solar 7-8 times more expensive in the U.S. compared to other developed countries. These obstacles include lengthy, complex local permitting processes and utility interconnection delays. Building on successful legislation in California and Maryland, which established pathways for instant online permits for rooftop solar and home battery installations, Permit Power is advocating for related legislation in seven states in 2025. This presentation will explore how changing policy design and strategic messaging can offer a pathway to success in the very different States of New Jersey and Texas.

Geography: New Jersey, Texas

Funding Type: c4c3

Presenter(s): Nicholas Josefowitz, CEO & Co-Founder | Doug O'Malley, Executive Director of Environment New Jersey | Hannah Birnbaum, Chief of Advocacy

Presentation Date: 01/14/2025