Startups: Learn how the Magnetic Pitch Method can make fundraising for your startup 10x easier.
Philanthropists and Investors: Contact us to discuss how to maximize your Return on Climate Impact.
I’m Neesha. Lovely to meet you! If you’re committed to making an outsized impact on climate, you’re the right place. Welcome.
At Impact Stars, we mentor entrepreneurs and organizations working on game-changing climate solutions to help them expedite their path to success.
Our unique vantage point is having a bird’s eye view across the landscape. We see where the biggest gaps and opportunities are. This allows us to help philanthropists, investors, and sustainability leaders deploy their resources to achieve an outsized Return on Climate Impact (ROCI).
Most importantly, we move quickly: because climate change is HERE and the time to make an impact is NOW. We connect people to each other so together, we can create exponential impact.
Climate change shouldn’t just be about melting ice caps and polar bears…
Or remind you of the latest dystopian ‘end of the world’ movie that Hollywood releases every couple of years.
Impact Stars exists because the right investments we make today can have a massive impact on reducing our climate risk tomorrow.
A climate impact portfolio can be optimized based on your current needs, risk tolerance, and interests:
THE HAPPY CFO: These solutions make financial sense even if you remove the climate benefit. Think - next generation renewables and zero emission technologies. CFOs love these because Wall Street can’t find fault with them.
THE CO-BENEFITS MULTIPLIER: These solutions deliver multiple social, environmental, and quality of life benefits. Climate is the cherry on top. These appeal to employees and ESG investors alike.
THE FOARK: First-of-a-kind ideas that others may hesitate to fund but don’t scare those who revel in making big ‘moonshot’ bets. Think Elon Musk’s XPrize or Salesforce’s recent $500 million bet. Typically right for systems-thinkers who work from first-principles.
THE STACKED PANCAKE: Two or more climate solutions in one integrated project. For example, agrivoltaics and regenerative farming can double the impact on the same land.
THE CARBON CREDITS+: A basket of credits that are as future-proof as possible in an ever-shifting marketplace in an uncertain regulatory environment.
Why Bother?
Ever since I was young, I gravitated toward hard problems where I can have a meaningful impact. From working with children with disabilities in India when I was sixteen, fundraising for women running underground schools in Afghanistan in my late twenties, and teaching financial literacy to youth in foster care in the US in my forties, I have spent the last 25 years trying to leave the world a bit better than I found it.
As a mother of a teenager now, I don’t want to look into the eyes of my son and say I didn’t do everything in my power to alter our trajectory on climate. By spending our time, money, and talents on the RIGHT leveraged solutions, we can reduce climate risk for our kids.
From regenerative farmers to biochar startups, ocean entrepreneurs to mangrove restorers, I’m fortunate I get to see the hopeful side of climate every day.
Done right, your decision to act quickly on climate will have a ripple effect and inspire others.
WHAT YOU DO IN THIS CLIMATE MOMENT MATTERS.
As one foundation CEO put it, “Our funding for the arts, homeless shelters, food banks — none of that matters if the planet is uninhabitable.”
BE THE LIGHTHOUSE
Request a free call to discuss a climate leadership plan that does justice to your vision.
DOES IT SOMETIMES FEEL LIKE YOU’RE A LONE WOLF HOWLING INTO A SEA OF CLIMATE APATHY?
People cannot see, touch, or smell greenhouse gases.
They need to see tangible impacts in their daily lives for climate to matter to them.
That’s why I recommend leading with WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) solutions if you need to get buy-in from other stakeholders within your organization.
An Example of a WIIFM (what’s in it for me) Project: Reduces Extreme Weather Risk AND Removes Carbon Dioxide
If your employees are on edge because they get evacuation alerts daily during fire season, you could introduce the biochar initiative — not as a climate project but a What’s in it for me (WIIFM) project.
Biochar can be created by burning dried up brush collected from the forest floor in an oxygen-free environment.
This biochar stores all that material as carbon dioxide in the ground up to 100 years.
By taking carbon out of the atmosphere, we reduce climate risk and fire risk, and biochar is good for the soil.
No one can argue with biochar. In fact, you can talk about this project without mentioning the word climate even once.
Working on a Climate Solution?
Access the Find Funding Faster Directory to search a highly-curated database of 194 foundations that care about climate and allied issues such as biodiversity, oceans, and regenerative agriculture.
We will be releasing new tools soon, so set up an account, and you’ll be notified when they launch.