The Fund in 2024: An Interdependent World

The Fund in 2024: An Interdependent World reflects on how the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and its grantees experimented with finding intersections across issues, geographies, and ideologies in order to score victories in the face of uncertainty.

Last July, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) released a report by its president and CEO, Stephen Heintz, describing the unique confluence of forces—political, geo-strategic, economic, social, technological, and environmental—fueling the turbulence we saw in 2024. It was the hottest year on record and the first to pass the 1.5-degree Celsius warming threshold scientists say will mark the worst impacts of climate change. There were 56 active conflicts in 2024, the most in any year since the end of World War II. More people than ever before turned out for elections worldwide despite rising threats of political violence. And, as Stephen describes in his report, the interconnected causes and cascading impacts of these challenges demand a new approach—one that requires vision, diligence, and greater connectivity. 

The Fund in 2024: An Interdependent World details how the RBF and its grantees implemented this new approach. For example, the RBF, together with the Partnership Funds and Rebuild by Design, spearheaded a project in the United States that aims to address the destabilizing impact extreme weather events will have on democratic institutions by melding civic engagement expertise with knowledge about the infrastructure and tools policymakers and communities need to cope with climate-related shocks.

Read the full report