At The Navigation Fund, we think finding and retaining top talent is almost as important as fundraising for the causes we work on, so when Trump and DOGE launched sweeping cuts across the federal government, we were paying attention.

The administration moved quickly to undermine the federal government’s capacity to combat climate change. Mass layoffs beginning in February 2025 directly targeted the agencies most essential to climate action, including over 2,000 individuals at NOAA and the Department of Energy and the 10,000+ employees of USAID, many of whom supported climate projects around the world.

Suddenly, lifetimes of experience and dedication to these causes were neutralized, and people with a passion for impact were scrambling for their next roles. From a human perspective, this was a massive tragedy: cruel and unnecessary treatment of committed public servants with no clear goal.

From a climate perspective, it risked a generational loss of talent and critical strategic knowledge, exacerbating similar trends outside government. We wanted to be a part of the response, but we also knew our resources were tiny relative to the scale of impact of the cuts. What could we do to help?

Launching the Bridge Grant Program

In April 2025, The Navigation Fund opened applications for a new program: “Climate Change Bridge Grants: Leveraging Federal Government Expertise for Climate Impact.” Affected federal public servants could apply for six months of funding to work on a climate project of their choice and support their transition to continued high-impact work.

We set up a low-overhead process: soliciting one-page proposals and quickly narrowing to the top 10% of applications for a deeper dive. Applications closed on April 30, and by June 11, money was on its way for eight awards totaling over $1M.

The final projects have just concluded, and we’ve been thrilled with the results. For example: 

• Two teams did deep dives to learn from the Biden administration's successes and failures using industrial strategy and tax incentives for clean energy policy, respectively. Both teams built close relationships with partners helping shape future Democratic policy, meaning many of these lessons can be translated into better climate policy in the future. 
• The Climate Endurance project went on to raise additional funds to invest in building bipartisan support for climate action, one of the most neglected areas of climate philanthropy.
• Monica Bansal and Hadas Kushnir conducted a massive review of cancelled USAID projects and catalyzed $14M in funding to high-quality vetted projects.

A more extensive list of project outcomes and coverage is available at the bottom of this post. 

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We expected one to two awards to fail outright and another one to two to be valuable but not achieve their goals. In large part this assumption was based on the knowledge that some projects’ deliverables were mostly under their control while others’ success was dependent on external factors (like further fundraising). 

We would classify seven of the eight projects as clear successes, including two that led to unexpected career pivots that kept the recipients working on the cutting edge of important issues. Two more face an uncertain future after their outputs did not attract additional funding.