Announcing Our Summer 2023 Partners

Over the past four years, the Honnold Foundation has supported 58 grantee Partners in 27 countries, territories, and U.S. Tribal Lands through integrated grant funding, capacity building, and storytelling strategies. Our Partners' work is increasing access to reliable and affordable electricity, building economic equity, decreasing reliance on fossil fuels, strengthening Indigenous self-determination, advancing regional conservation efforts, mobilizing healthcare resources, and bolstering climate resilience— all through solar energy.

Today, we’re ecstatic to share our first round of 2023 grantee Partners, featuring five new organizations and six returning multi-year Partners. 

Meet Our New 2023 Partners

The Honnold Foundation invests in innovative, community-centered solar energy projects around the world. In addition to unrestricted grant funding, each of the Honnold Foundation’s Partners benefits from capacity-building support, storytelling spotlights, and regional networking opportunities.

Meet Our New Multi-Year Partners

The Honnold Foundation believes that solar energy is a powerful tool for communities to build equity from the ground up. We also know that this work takes time and sustained resources, which is why, in 2023, we’re proud to announce multi-year funding for existing HF grantees.

Multi-year funding provides ongoing unrestricted support, continued capacity-building, and new storytelling opportunities for Partners whose work has the potential to scale.

Interested in getting involved? The best way to support our work at the Honnold Foundation is through a donation. After all— it takes all of us, doing whatever we can, however we can, to make this world a brighter place.

Meet Our Fall 2022 Partners

In the past three years, the Honnold Foundation has supported 48 Partners in over 20 different countries and territories, each of which uses creative solar energy solutions to build equity, increase climate resilience, and support communities’ right to self-determination.

Earlier this year, we committed to doubling our grantmaking to fund $2 million in solar energy projects. Now, we’re ecstatic to share that we’ve met our goal and are welcoming a new cohort of Honnold Foundation Partners!

We’re excited to share the Honnold Foundation’s Fall Partner cohort: 10 precedent-setting, community-led organizations from around the world. 

“For centuries our people have had to break our bodies and our mountains mining coal. Now we can begin to heal both by mining the sun.”

— Jacob Hannah, Director of Conservation at Coalfield Development

Billions of dollars are being poured into climate tech, but marginalized communities battling generations of inequity are often left out of the vast majority of these investments. At the Honnold Foundation, our goal is simple:

Power People, and the Planet

Nearly 90% of HF’s funding goes directly to our partners, and 100% of our funding comes from our donor community—people like you, who know that it takes all of us to make the world a brighter place.

Join us: donate today and support a brighter world for years to come.

Meet Our Spring 2022 Partners

In the past three years, the Honnold Foundation has supported 34 Partners in 20 different countries and territories, each of whom uses creative solar energy solutions to build equity, increase climate resilience, and support communities’ right to self-determination.

Now, we’re excited to share the Honnold Foundation’s Spring Partner cohort—  14 precedent-setting, community-led organizations from around the world. 

“Seeing an elder turn on the lights in their home for the first time is a powerful feeling.”

— Deb Tewa, Native Renewables Workforce & Education Manager

As you learn about our newest Partners, you may notice some familiar names. For the first time, the Honnold Foundation has made multi-year commitments to Partners who have expanded their initial projects and are working to scale regionally. This Fall, the Honnold Foundation will announce 12 additional Partners, raising our 2022 grant commitment to $2 million.

Billions of dollars are being poured into climate tech, but marginalized communities battling generations of inequity are often left out of the vast majority of these investments. At the Honnold Foundation, our goal is simple:

Power People, and the Planet

Nearly 90% of HF’s funding goes directly to our partners, and 100% of our funding comes from our donor community—people like you, who know that it takes all of us to make the world a brighter place.

An anonymous donor has stepped up with a generous matching gift: between today and Thursday, June 30th, 2022, all contributions up to $55,000 will be doubled! Every dollar you donate will go straight towards our work, and, if we meet our match, the full $110,000 will power two new grantees.

Join us: donate today and support a brighter world for years to come.

Exploring Solar in Angola

by Maury Birdwell, former Executive Director & Board chair

Angola is a stark, harsh country in many ways. Like much of the developing world it lacks the infrastructure - both technologically and democratically - to provide equal opportunity across its vast social and physical geography. The capital of Luanda grants a striking visual metaphor: gazing from the rooftops at night one sees mud-brick hovels next door to ostentatious night clubs and five star hotels. The countryside is ravaged of any wildlife, and everywhere we drove it was ablaze with field clearance burning. At first blush its easy to greet this with despondence and pessimism; however, when viewed in the context of a country barely a decade free from thirty four years of civil war things take on a rosier glow.

Pause on that for a second: many Angolans lived a practical lifetime in a constant state of unrest, wherein the present state of peace has become the exception to their existence. For those of us in the western world we cannot and will not ever know what that really means. Our de facto team leader Stacy Bare had spent nearly a year clearing land mines, simply aiming to return the countryside to a basic state of usability. How many times have you scouted what looks to be a promising climbing destination only to abandon it because the approach was too threatened by the possibility of land mines?

On August 30, Alex Honnold, Stacy Bare, Ted Hesser, and myself boarded flights to Luanda with some audacious goals for a two week trip: we sought to sample the climbing, see the state of affairs 10 years after Stacy's last visit, and initiate a pilot program for off grid solar entrepreneurship. Ted in particular (with what help I could offer) had been pushing hard and fast on the latter goal for the better part of six months. We had made great strides but hit many roadblocks - in fact our solar products were still stuck in customs when we arrived in country. Nonetheless, we had come as far as we could from our computer screens and Skype, the only thing left to do was get on the ground and figure out if all the other off grid solar companies who refused to enter Angola thus far were right after all.

This is where the horizon begins to look bright. Not only did we establish a handful of routes from 5.7 to 5.13c, we learned that the HALO Trust (Stacy's former employer) and other similar organizations just passed the halfway mark to clearing the roughly 1,500 documented minefields across the country, and it appears that by importing just 100 home solar systems we've convinced the Energy Minister to order another 3,000 units as part of a broader market test. It is far too early to say whether Angola will see the type of micro-grid solar explosion that is sweeping East Africa, but it's heartening to know that a country with a traditional mono-economy of oil and gas is investigating these kinds of alternatives. Our partners at organizations like SolarAid and Elephant Energy have been eyeing Angola for years, perhaps our devil-may-care effort will remove the mystique and enable them to come in equipped for success.

These last two weeks were a blur of climbing rocks, spontaneous dance battles with the locals, and late night debates about the efficacy and approaches of bridging the energy gap. There were ups and downs, setbacks, and triumphs. Just like everywhere in the world we learned that at its most basic level Angola is full of good, decent people who see and strive for a better future for their country; except these people are starting the race 10 meters back and without the starting blocks available to many of us. While our impact may be minor in scale, we at the Honnold Foundation believe that only by refusing to accept current realities can we bridge those gaps. More than anything, we hope that you believe the same thing, too.

Huge thanks to partners The North Face, VICE Sports, and Goal Zero for believing in and supporting this trip.

Be sure to tune in to VICE Sports this fall for the feature on Alex, Stacy, and the Honnold Foundation's trip to Angola.

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Honnold Foundation On Sacramento's Fox 40

Honnold Foundation founder Alex Honnold dropped by his local news station after the Thanksgiving holiday to talk to reporter Sabrina Rodriquez. During their interview, Alex discussed about how climbing has given him a passion to channel his success toward improving the world and lives of others. The segment also features some great footage of a few of the projects we support. Thanks again to Fox 40 for the opportunity to help inspire others.

Click here for the interview.

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