Vulcan

Vulcan was founded in 1986 by philanthropists Jody Allen and the late Paul G. Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. Members of our multidisciplinary team advise the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation on its portfolio of charitable work investing in wildlife conservation, ocean health, vibrant communities, and arts & culture.

Coral reefs are among the most important, diverse, and beautiful ecosystems on the planet. Yet warming oceans are causing bleaching events — and the death of corals — on a scale never before seen. To respond to this crisis, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation launched the Global Find for Coral Reefs. Today, the GFCR is a 10-year, $625 million blended finance mechanism being implemented by a coalition of United Nations agencies, donor and host governments, local partners, private philanthropies, conservation NGOs and financial institutions. The GFCR supports business models that sustainably finance key conservation and development goals for coral reefs via two windows. Technical assistance, capacity development, and monitoring and evaluation are provided via the grant window, while the investment window generates de-risked investment capital to maximize the impact of projects incubated by the grant window.

The foundation has been funding innovative coral research since 2013 when it awarded its first coral-focused grant to the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology to produce heat-resilient corals through breeding and conditioning techniques. This ground-breaking research has been heralded as the hope for coral survival in the face of warming and more acidic ocean waters. Additional active coral-related grants from the foundation include larval restoration work with Southern Cross University and assisted gene flow with Smithsonian Institute and Mote Marine Lab.

Related website: