Patagonia Action Works - Grants Program

Since 1985, we’ve given $89 million to our grantees.

Who do we fund?

We support grantees working on issues in the areas of land, water, climate, communities, and biodiversity.

• Land - Terrestrial ecosystems and land use, sustainable agriculture and food systems, mineral extraction, healthy forests, pollution, toxics and hazardous wastes*
• Water - Freshwater/inland ecosystems, coastal and marine ecosystems, pollution, toxics and hazardous wastes*
• Climate - Energy extraction, climate and atmosphere, renewable energy, transportation
• Communities - Environmental justice, civil democracy, sustainable communities and indigenous populations/communities
• Biodiversity - Biodiversity and species preservation

*Grants categorized as “pollution, toxics and hazardous wastes” appear both in Land and Water.

Are you a grassroots environmental action group?

Patagonia funds only environmental work. We give grants to organizations that identify the root causes of problems and approach issues with a commitment to long-term change.
Because we believe that the most direct path to real change is through grassroots momentum, our funding focuses on organizations that create a strong base of citizen support.

We support small grassroots activist organizations with provocative direct-action agendas, working on multipronged campaigns to preserve and protect our environment. We think the individual battles to protect a specific stand of forest, stretch of river or indigenous wild species are the most effective in raising more complicated issues—particularly those of biodiversity and ecosystem protection—in the public mind. We help local groups working to protect local habitats and frontline communities through bold, original actions. We look for innovative groups that produce measurable results, and we like to support efforts that force the government to abide by its own—our own—laws.

Because we're a privately held company, we have the freedom to fund groups off the beaten track, and that's where we believe our small grants are most effective.

Our Mission

Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.

Our Reason for Being

Patagonia grew out of a small company that made tools for climbers. Alpinism remains at the heart of a worldwide business that still makes clothes for climbing – as well as for skiing, snowboarding, surfing, fly fishing, paddling and trail running. These are all silent sports. None require a motor; none deliver the cheers of a crowd. In each sport, reward comes in the form of hard-won grace and moments of connection between us and nature.

Our values reflect those of a business started by a band of climbers and surfers, and the minimalist style they promoted. The approach we take towards product design demonstrates a bias for simplicity and utility.

For us at Patagonia, a love of wild and beautiful places demands participation in the fight to save them, and to help reverse the steep decline in the overall environmental health of our planet. We donate our time, services and at least 1% of our sales to hundreds of grassroots environmental groups all over the world who work to help reverse the tide.

We know that our business activity – from lighting stores to dyeing shirts – creates pollution as a by-product. So we work steadily to reduce those harms. We use recycled polyester in many of our clothes and only organic, rather than pesticide-intensive, cotton.

Staying true to our core values during thirty-plus years in business has helped us create a company we're proud to run and work for. And our focus on making the best products possible has brought us success in the marketplace.