Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative

Support 12 nonprofits who ensure access to abortion care and reproductive healthcare resources.

Local Abortion Access

Climate Emergency Fund

Koko is a tech-based nonprofit that brings mental health and well-being to millions of people.

Koko is a tech-based nonprofit created by a team out of Airbnb and MIT. Our mission is to bring mental health and well-being to as many people as possible. We believe the best way to do this, the best way to help millions of people, is to reach people where they are — online. 

We work with social networks and large online communities, arming them with the tools to make a measurable impact on the health and well-being of millions of people, especially young adults. Our services have reached 2 million people so far, mostly adolescents.




Koko

United Help Ukraine

World Food Program USA

COTAP mitigates your CO2 footprint with life-changing and certified forestry projects in least-developed countries.

When donating, please specify one of the following three options: 1) Offset To All Projects, 2) Offset: (Choose Nicaragua, Uganda, India, Fiji, Indonesia, or Mexico), or 3) 100% to COTAP’s Operations & Expansion. For more information, please see https://COTAP.org/Crypto.

Founded in 2011, COTAP empowers individuals and organizations in developed countries to simultaneously fight both global poverty and climate change. COTAP connects your carbon footprint with forestry projects in least-developed countries which create life-changing income for the world's poorest people. 

All COTAP projects are certified by the Plan Vivo Foundation Carbon Standard, the world's oldest forest carbon standard and the only standard which requires that projects share 60%+ of carbon revenues with participating communities. Combined with COTAP's transparent, modest, and consistent margin of 10%, ensures that you are creating $8.10+ per tonne in income for some of the world's poorest communities.

Our Mission

The mission of Carbon Offsets To Alleviate Poverty (COTAP) is to empower individuals and organizations in developed countries to address both climate change and global poverty. COTAP counteracts your carbon emissions through certified forestry projects in least-developed regions which create transparent, accountable, and life-changing earnings for rural farming communities where income levels are less than $2 per day.

The Problem

In developing regions around the world, hundreds of millions of people live in rural areas on less than $2 per day. This level of poverty forces communities to make hard choices between food, health care, and education. It is the poverty level where an estimated 11 million children die every year. Many of these communities are not fits for traditional microfinance, which tends to be primarily urban, and significant portions of their land are not suitable for agriculture.

While there are many promising technical innovations and development programs which can increase crop yields, there remains a geographic limitation on markets where such increased yields can be sold.

The result is that there are farming communities all over the world who could be made much less economically vulnerable if there were a way to generate significant supplemental income from non-crop land usage which did not rely on physical distribution.

The proven potential of small-scale forestry carbon projects

Small-scale afforestation, reforestation, and agro-forestry programs have a proven track record of reaching such communities and for creating direct, significant, verifiable and lasting economic benefits for them. One of the most compelling ways to finance such activities is through the sale of carbon credits.

Such projects have faced a combination of serious challenges in selling their carbon credits. Many would-be customers and/or project investors dispassionately view carbon credits as a single-dimension environmental commodity, of which they are only able to technically value and pay for the environmental component. Relative to other project types, carbon credits from community-focused tree planting projects credits are issued in smaller quantities, they are issued more slowly, and they entail a variety of unique risks, albeit highly manageable ones.

Further, carbon projects entail significant startup, certification, and ongoing management costs. In order to cover their costs and maximize returns, project investors rationally prefer larger projects and shy away from geographically-fragmented, small-scale ones where return/profit potential opportunities do not pool in large amounts in any one place. This, in turn, means that more carbon market volume is transacted under carbon standards which favor large projects, and that in turn puts more momentum behind the market acceptance of such standards, tilting the playing field away from quality, community-focused standards like Plan Vivo.

The small-scale forestry carbon financing gap

The above set of factors has created a financing gap for community-focused forestry carbon projects, whereby project organizers are able often able to obtain a fair per-tonne price, at an early stage, and at volume – but rarely, if ever, are they able to attain all of these factors at the same time.  If this problem were solved, then the proven and multifaceted solution of small-scale forestry could rapidly expand, thereby lifting the poorest out of poverty, mitigating climate change, enhancing food security, and restoring landscapes at a much larger scale.

COTAP is founded on the belief that this financing gap, though understandable, is an unacceptable market failure – and a humanitarian injustice – given forestry carbon projects’ proven ability to reach and empower the world’s most vulnerable populations.  Who does COTAP believe can fill this gap? Individuals and organizations in developed countries.  Virtually all individuals in developed countries have unavoidable carbon footprints, and most are highly concerned about global warming, global poverty, or both.

The need for a crowdfunding intermediary

Every year, small-scale forestry projects plant trees which will result in the projected sequestration and long-term storage of tens of thousands of tonnes of CO2; however, the average annual individual CO2 footprint is relatively very small in comparison, CO2 footprints vary among individuals, and individuals have different preferences and budgets pertaining to how much of their footprint they wish to address.

COTAP is the critical intermediary which fills the gap between individuals and these poverty-alleviating projects by pooling together offset donations from many individuals and organizations and then working with projects to ensure that commensurate quantities of the offset they’ve generated will be retired, which means they cannot be re-sold.

The net effect is that, through COTAP, you’re indirectly employing the poorest people in the world to plant and maintain trees which counteract the emissions which you have not yet been able to eliminate.  This empowers you to fight both climate change and poverty with one tax-deductible donation, and it empowers our participating farmers by connecting them with funding that’s at an early stage in the planting cycle, at a fair price, and at significant volume.

COTAP’s Solution

COTAP makes individuals in developed countries, primarily the U.S., aware of the poverty-alleviating power of forestry carbon projects, and COTAP makes forestry carbon credits accessible to individuals in small amounts and as a tax-deductible donation.

COTAP sources carbon offset funds from those who care about both climate change and poverty alleviation, pools those funds, and transparently matches those funds with our partners’ forestry projects in order to fill the forestry carbon finance gap, restore landscapes, and create direct, significant, verifiable, and lasting benefits for the most economically vulnerable people in the world.

All of COTAP’s current portfolio projects are registered under the Edinburgh, Scotland-based Plan Vivo carbon accounting standard. With roots stretching back to a research project in Chiapas, Mexico in 1994, Plan Vivo is the longest-standing and most established forestry carbon accounting standard in the world. Plan Vivo is also the only carbon accounting standard which always requires projects to have detailed plans for direct payments to smallholders and community groups. Plan Vivo-accredited projects are projected to sequester over 1.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Addressing more financing gaps by being “vintage agnostic”

COTAP not only seeks to support upcoming planting seasons at an early stage, but also supports projects’ unsold credits from prior planting seasons or “vintages.” In our view, unsold Plan Vivo credits are a societal injustice just the same as the fact that these projects’ credits aren’t pre-sold in larger quantities and at earlier stages. COTAP is thus “vintage agnostic,” so as to pursue all of our projects’ funding opportunities and thereby fulfill our mission to the fullest possible extent. As COTAP scales, the issue of older vintages will become a moot point as we will have been instrumental as the buyer which ensured those credits were sold. For more on vintages and COTAP’s transparency, please see COTAP.org/transparency.

More Accountable, Market-Based Philanthropy

COTAP’s dual mission, crowdfunding model, and tax-deductible status, together with Plan Vivo’s reach, accountability, and transparency, forms a new category of microfinance and a new category of high-performance philanthropy.

In pursuing its mission, COTAP doubles the number of reasons for individuals to take action on climate change and it greatly expands the climate change issue beyond that of a disempowering and single-dimension environmental problem.

COTAP’s Vision

On an annual basis, COTAP aims to eventually catalyze millions of tonnes of validated carbon sequestration, millions of planted trees, and tens of millions of dollars in wages to hundreds of smallholder farmers who live on less than $2 per day. Unlike “crowdsourced” philanthropic models which involve loans, grants, matched savings, or guarantees, COTAP involves wages.

COTAP creates a new system whereby the world’s most vulnerable perform the tangible service of counteracting the unavoidable carbon footprint of individuals in developed countries.

This will not be simple, easy, or quick, but this is one of the many things that is worth doing despite all of the challenges.  It requires a movement, and we invite you to join us in our movement to make tomorrow brighter.


Carbon Offsets To Alleviate Poverty (COTAP)

Evergreen Collaborative

Cool Earth

A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION FOCUSED ON GLOBAL REFORESTATION


We want to make it simple for anyone to **help the environment by planting trees**. Together, we can restore forests, create habitat for biodiversity, and make a positive social impact worldwide. We are action-oriented and seek to have an impact through quality and community-driven tree-planting projects throughout **North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific**.

have
One Tree Planted engages and impacts populations all over the world. In just nine years, we have gotten over **100 million trees** in the ground through new and established relationships with over 463 planting partners. In 2022 alone, we planted over 52 million trees within 327 planting projects in 74 countries across six regions and have potentially sequestered more than 10 million tons of carbon over the next 20 years. Through these projects, we helped to:

- create 2,438 jobs, 
- support 50,582 farming families, 
- engage over 32,000 volunteers, and 
- restore 97,769 hectares of land. 

One Tree Planted has impacted populations at all levels. On a macro level, One Tree Planted has helped to reduce the adverse effects of carbon emissions, air pollution, and global warming. It has inspired and engaged individuals, schools, foundations, and businesses to take action to combat climate change. It has restored landscapes for economic, social, and environmental well-being. On a micro level, it has supported community development by building and beautifying urban green spaces and improving air and water quality. It has helped underdeveloped communities become resilient and self-sufficient, develop sustainable economies, and provide income, food, and heating to support families. Its action and positive storytelling have inspired many and boosted the sense of community all around the world.

One Tree Planted

1174052616

1258415673

1294684541

1435915265

1716255002

2092125301

We are a nonprofit, so instead of charging fees we rely on the generosity of donors like you.

Choose a donation for Every.org

2446828177

Monthly donations help nonprofits focus on mission and long-term impact, not fundraising. Cancel anytime.

2516130445

2542453124

2569181361

2719555774

2883383521

2904334964

339774024

3419981770

3755280456

3784064084

3794356679

3868271524

3925410835

761293274

93462226

2729980760

3440869557

671754822

1014384873

1112422858

2028390811

220342792

2266630408

2519810400

2539558839

2826465835

2830700366

2843798242

2898624300

2916352438

3259439560

3642494300

3902459442

4250940449

585491400

634737150

641510716

91682487