What are environmental donors thinking?

Written by Care2 Team | 2025/5/2

A new social media analysis by Impact Social, on behalf of Care2, has uncovered which issues most concern and motivate American donors to environmental causes.

US ENVIRONMENTAL DONOR PULSE: Online & Social Media Sentiment Analysis reveals donor motivations that can help environmental charities, nonprofit organizations, and advocacy groups understand how to improve their marketing and fundraising appeals to better reach and engage supporters online.

The method behind the study

Impact Social developed a custom panel of U.S. environmental donors for this analysis by using big data software to scan social media conversations in which Americans publicly discussed donating to environmental charities or funds on a curated list. The final dataset included over 8,000 individuals.

The next step was to design a large list of search terms and phrases related to environmental topics like policies, new technologies, activism, and protections. Impact Social then looked for those keywords in posts from the donor dataset, and when there was a match, that content was identified for analysis.
This content was then reviewed and interpreted by human analysts, ensuring greater accuracy and contextual understanding than could be accomplished using machine generated algorithms. (For further details on methodology read the full report here.)

What were the results?

The analysis found dominant themes in both the positive sentiment and negative sentiment categories. In this context, "sentiment" refers to the emotion of content posted on social media and is typically categorized as either positive, negative, or neutral.

Negative Sentiment
The overall tone of these posts is one of alarm, frustration, and urgency.

Donors were most worried or fearful about:

Potential rollbacks or edits to the Environmental Protection Act (EPA)
Harmful anti-environmental justice actions by the Trump administration, including deregulation and budget cuts

Positive Sentiment
The overall tone of these posts was optimistic, highlighting progress in climate policy, grassroots activism, and conservation efforts. These posts encouraged community engagement (often via petitions) and policy advocacy.

Donors were most optimistic about:

The power of collective advocacy action through petitions, letters to lawmakers, and participation in environmental campaigns.
Donors expressed a particular desire to focus on the protection of national parks and public lands.

What are the takeaways for environmental organizations?

Marketers and fundraisers who want to reach environmental donors should consider mirroring the discussions that most concern these supporters.

Nonprofit organizations should test content to supporters about threats to the EPA and harmful potential actions by the Trump administration. As Impact Social’s analysis uncovered that donors were worried about the fate of national parks and public lands, supporters should be reminded about the importance of direct action to protect these spaces.

For many social media users, localized discussions created the most engagement. Organizations who want to interest these supporters should design content that talks about empowering donors to make a difference in their own communities. Organizations can engage these donors by giving them opportunities for direct action through petitions, public comments, and messages to lawmakers.

Donors to environmental causes care about protecting hard-won progress on climate, conservation, and environmental justice. Charities, nonprofits, and advocacy groups should not hesitate to call for grassroots action!

Read the full report: US ENVIRONMENTAL DONOR PULSE - Online & Social Media Sentiment Analysis

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