Uplifting selfless grassroots volunteerism for a kinder, more compassionate world.

Amelia is TPP`s Director of Programs & Philanthropy. Driven by a passion for combatting climate change, she joined TPP as an intern and has since grown into a key leader on the team. Outside of work, you`ll find her in her tiny house in Maine, planning trips, reading, or cooking vegan meals.

Q: What first sparked your passion for climate work, and how did that path lead you to The Pollination Project?

✴️ I remember lying awake at night when I was nine worrying about climate change. My path to The Pollination Project has been a process of trying to channel that climate anxiety into positive action. Something that specifically drew me to TPP was our intersectional approach - we fund environmental projects and see the incredible value in them, but also recognize that climate, equity, health, animal rights, etc. are all interconnected and deserve funding.

Q: You`ve grown from intern to Director of Programs & Philanthropy. What`s been the most rewarding part of building and empowering TPP`s network of volunteers, donors, and grantees?

✴️ The stories! I`m lucky enough to get to see a project in its initial application stage, read what our grant advisors say about it, see it approved, and share the impact story with our donors. Sometimes the grantee even joins our grant advisor team, which always feels like a full circle moment. I`m constantly impressed by the dedication and creativity of our grantees.

Q: How does the way you live your daily life connect to the values that drive your professional work?

✴️ I try to live my life in a way that aligns with my values. Part of that is dedicating my time and energy to an organization creating good in the world. Another part of it is trying to minimize harm, so doing what I can to live sustainably in a tiny house and eating plant-based food, and demonstrating that minimizing harm doesn`t mean enjoying life any less!

Fast Five 👇👇
🔸Go-to vegan comfort food ➡️ Popcorn
🔸 Tool you rely on to stay organized ➡️ YNAB
🔸 A tiny joy in a busy week ➡️ Calling my niece
🔸 Current read / podcast ➡️ The Japanese Art of Living Seasonally by Natalie Leon
🔸 A value you bring to this work ➡️ Teamwork 💛 ...

A veterinary student watched a street dog die of thirst in 42°C heat.

And decided he would never just wait for the next one to arrive.

Meet Anish Khanal, fifth-year vet student from Lumbini, Nepal, and founder of Project BOW, Bowl of Water. Our newest grantee.

Bhairahawa`s summers are brutal. Temperatures climb past 40°C, and for hundreds of street dogs, birds, and cattle, there is no safe place to drink. Gutters are toxic. Water is scarce.

Anish lived the consequence of that. A street dog arrived at his teaching hospital limp, gasping, already in organ failure. His team ran every emergency protocol they had.

It wasn`t enough.

The dog died. Not from a complex disease, but because, in a city of thousands, he couldn`t find a single clean bowl of water.

That moment changed everything.

Project BOW is Anish`s answer. 50 community-guarded water stations across Bhairahawa. Daily hydration for 150 to 250 street animals through the deadliest months of the year.

But the vision goes further than water.

Each bowl is stewarded by a local shopkeeper, a Guardian, who refills it, maintains it, and becomes an active animal welfare advocate. People who never saw themselves in that role before.

This is grassroots philanthropy. A young person from the community, with firsthand knowledge and the drive to act, turning personal grief into collective care.

Anish can`t stop the sun from beating down on Bhairahawa`s streets.

But he can make sure those streets are no longer a desert.

Welcome to the family, Anish. We believe in Project BOW. 🐾💧

#ProjectBOW #AnimalWelfare #Nepal #GrassrootsPhilanthropy #NewGrantee #StreetAnimals #CommunityImpact #VetStudent #BowlOfWater #Lumbini ...

New Grantee🌟

When the next climate disaster hits, will cities be ready to feed their people?
Meet Noah Wescombe — Head of Policy at ALLFED and a globally recognised resilience expert — who is building the blueprint for urban food systems that can actually withstand collapse.

Based across the UK and USA, Noah`s research tackles one of the most urgent and overlooked questions in climate adaptation: what happens to cities when food supply chains break down? His work maps how urban centres can rapidly deploy shelf-stable, low-resource foods in the face of climate shocks, supply disruptions, and humanitarian crises and crucially, exposes the hidden costs of not acting: food insecurity, spiralling public spending, and delayed emergency response.

With deep roots in climate finance — from the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment to advising major global institutions — Noah brings rare cross-sector firepower to a problem that demands it. And with Brazil emerging as a pivotal market for alternative proteins, this work has the potential to shift how entire regions think about food security.

This is exactly the kind of bold, systems-level thinking that grassroots philanthropy exists to back. No bureaucracy. No waiting. Just urgent, high-impact research that could shape policy, protect lives, and accelerate the shift toward a more resilient, plant-based, and equitable food future.

We`re proud to support him. 🌍

#FoodResilience #ClimateAdaptation #PlantBased #AlternativeProtein #AnimalRights #FoodSecurity #Philanthropy #ALLFED #ClimateAction #UrbanFoodSystems ...

Instagram | New Grantee Announcement

What happens when the people who once fought for justice, peace, and human rights are forced to flee everything they knew?

Meet Hamidakhanim Giyasbayli, a peacebuilder, Nonviolent Communication practitioner, and civil society leader from Azerbaijan, now living in exile in Berlin 🇩🇪

Her project, Listening Across Exile, is creating something quietly powerful: free, volunteer-led workshops in Nonviolent Communication for migrants and people living in political exile.

Activists, journalists, and human rights defenders who have fled authoritarian environments often arrive carrying grief, fear, burnout, and deep loss. Legal and humanitarian support matters, but the emotional wounds of exile rarely get a space of their own.

Hamidakhanim is building that space.

Drawing on over a decade of peacebuilding work across the South Caucasus, and on her own experience of exile, she will lead small, intimate workshops where participants can explore emotional awareness, express their needs safely, and navigate conflict with compassion.

The long-term vision is just as meaningful: self-sustaining practices of care and nonviolence, rooted in migrant communities in Berlin, carried forward by the participants themselves.

This is grassroots philanthropy at its most essential. No large institution. No top-down program. Just one deeply experienced practitioner, her community, and the belief that honest dialogue can rebuild what displacement breaks.

Welcome, Hamidakhanim. We are honored to walk alongside this work.🧡

#NewGrantee #GrassrootsPhilanthropy #Peacebuilding #NonviolentCommunication #MigrantCommunities #PoliticalExile #Berlin #ListeningAcrossExile #CommunityHealing #CivilSociety ...