Environment & climate charities

Climate and environmental charities range from policy shops working on emissions to grassroots groups protecting their own watersheds. Three here are Giving Green 2025–2026 Top Climate Nonprofits, and one works right in Appalachian Ohio.

8 charities3 evaluator top picks7 Four-Star on Charity Navigator1 local

Environment & Climate charities

A membership-based nonprofit in The Plains that has worked since 1991 to build a healthier economy and environment across Appalachian Ohio through sustainable agriculture, forestry, watershed restoration, zero-waste initiatives and environmental education.

★★★★ Charity Navigator🏔️ Appalachia

Pushes for the policies and technologies needed to decarbonize the whole economy, from methane pollution and carbon capture to advanced nuclear, hydrogen and superhot rock geothermal, pairing technical analysis with advocacy across the U.S., Europe, Africa and MENA.

Giving Green Top Pick

Decarbonizes aviation and maritime shipping — historically overlooked sectors — by leveraging industry coalitions, direct advocacy, and legal frameworks.

Giving Green Top Pick

Fights plastic pollution through science, education and advocacy, running lab research, TrashBlitz community trash audits and a global ambassador network; co-founder Marcus Eriksen led the 2014 study estimating at least 5.25 trillion plastic particles afloat in the world's oceans.

★★★★ Charity Navigator

Helps smallholder farming families in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania restore degraded land through its Forest Garden Approach, training them to combine trees and regenerative agriculture to grow enough nutrient-rich food to eat and sell.

★★★★ Charity Navigator

Pools donations and channels them as grants directly to community-led grassroots groups protecting the environment and the rights of people who depend on it, guided by volunteer experts — more than 20,000 grants in 168 countries since 1993.

★★★★ Charity Navigator

A West Harlem–based environmental justice group, founded in 1988, that organizes residents and advocates at the city, state and federal levels so people of color and low-income communities help shape the environmental health policies affecting them.

★★★★ Charity Navigator

A US-based 501(c)(3), launched in 2022, working to speed geothermal energy's global growth by shifting oil-and-gas resources, technology and know-how into geothermal, backed by its GeoMap resource map, early-stage project funding and policy research.

Giving Green Top Pick

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