Our 2025 Community Impact Report

Summary

• Our community grew to approx. 38,000 members, engaging through Slack channels, virtual events and workshops, and Expert Office Hours – all powered by 137 dedicated volunteers.
• An estimated 15,100 members are already working in climate in some capacity, and between 3,000–6,300 members credit it to Work On Climate’s help
• Since the start of Work on Climate, we’ve helped thousands of climate founders at different stages – from curious explorers to Series A+ companies – get a step further on their journey. 
• Connections are the foundation: Work On Climate enabled members to make approximately 56,000 meaningful connections with each other: ranging from “weak ties” to friends, collaborators, and even co-founders, some of whom have since raised tens of millions of dollars.
• Engagement drives outcomes: Unsurprisingly, members who made fuller use of our programs were significantly more likely to make meaningful connections and find opportunities. 88% of engaged members experienced some benefit from the community, compared to only 56% of unengaged members.

When Work On Climate began five years ago, our goal was simple: To help professionals transition to working in climate. We started a community that was free and open to all, founded on the belief that climate action is about building, and on the values of being positive and action-oriented.

We have always been hearing that Work On Climate “hits different” compared to the typical “doom and gloom” climate rhetoric, and that people are inspired even by seeing so many others like them become climate builders — before they even use any of our programs.

As a result, thousands of our members found their path. We are immensely proud to have played a role in so many careers. And as a small employer ourselves, we know how impactful and joyful it has been for those who hired our members to do climate work.

But, as the climate movement has evolved, so has our understanding of what it takes to truly address the crisis. This brings us to a pivotal moment: Work on Climate’s mission and worldview have shifted, in two crucial ways:

1. From helping people find climate jobs ⇒ to helping people become climate leaders — who proactively transform their companies and industries, whether inside or outside the context of a formal role
2. From addressing the climate crisis in isolation ⇒ to seeing it as one of many symptoms of a poorly designed economic system, and targeting our climate efforts at ultimately transitioning to a regenerative economic system

Moving forward, we will support all members to build their vision, power, and agency as climate leaders wherever they are, mobilizing talent for a regenerative world.

Before we step into this new chapter, we want to take time to appreciate and measure what we’ve accomplished under our original mission. This impact report captures our achievements as of late 2025, and the insights that led us to evolve.

In October 2025, our Impact Research Team conducted a community-wide survey, which received responses from 559 members. These are our findings.

Research Highlights

1. Helping members find climate jobs

Last year, we worked to remove as many barriers as possible and empower more people to embark on climate careers, no matter where they are on their journey. Capturing the impact we’ve had in this area is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle.

• Today, 40% of our employed members work in climate  (whether in a full-time job, a sustainability-focused role, or as a partial aspect of their current work) – that’s approximately 15,000 people using their skills to address the climate crisis.
• Out of these, an estimated 6,340 members credit Work on Climate with a non-zero role in their beginning to do such work. Out of those, approximately 3,020 say that it was a significant role.
• Note that in our last year’s report, yielding a number of 3,018 climate jobs, we used a different measurement methodology: we weren’t counting partial climate work in a current role, and we didn’t have data on the degree to which Work On Climate helped. Thus, the numbers are not directly comparable.
• Even for members who do climate work, but Work On Climate didn’t play any role in it, our community continues to help them be more effective in their current position: for example, such members made a total of ~8,400 meaningful connections.
• The data reveals a clear pattern: engagement drives outcomes. Members who actively participated in programs were significantly more likely to network with peers (64%), find job opportunities (38%), and receive valuable support. Meanwhile, 44% of unengaged members felt they hadn’t benefitted at all, compared to just 12% of engaged members.
• Among job seekers, 51% are transitioning from another field into climate – showing that the movement to climate careers continues to grow and diversify.

While breaking into the climate industry presents incredible opportunities, there are also hurdles to overcome – from navigating a growing number of job boards and networking events to getting through the door with companies, in an ever-dwindling supply of climate jobs. Our members told us they want more structured pathways for engagement and clearer entry points, especially for those just starting their climate journey.

2. Building climate companies

Note: Due to modest survey sample sizes and likely issues of response bias, our data on founders is less robust. In particular, our results this year indicate approximately 3,970 founders in the community (compared to last year’s estimate of ~8,000) and approximately 1,500 having been helped in some way (compared to last year’s estimate of 3,000+). 

We hypothesize that the results of the previous survey suffered from a bias introduced by a response incentive — a chance to win a LinkedIn Premium (generously offered as a grant by LinkedIn) — which is likely disproportionately useful to founders. As a result, founders were likely over-represented in responses. We hypothesize, however, that without the incentives busy founders are likely under–represented in survey responses.

While these results make it impossible to draw year-over-year comparisons, it is clear that our community is helping thousands of founders, even if it is difficult to be sure about how many thousands.

Our current best estimate is that our community includes approximately 3,970 founders — one of the most exciting aspects of our ecosystem. These entrepreneurs are at every stage of the founding journey, creating a unique environment where early-stage founders can learn directly from those who’ve already navigated key milestones.

Our founders span the full spectrum:

• 20% are in the exploration phase (founder-curious or pre-idea)
• 29% are validating ideas and building initial solutions
• 27% have incorporated and formalized their ventures, but have not raised capital
• 23% are raising capital and scaling (pre-seed through Series A+)

Approximately 1,500 founders reported having been helped by the community via validating their ideas, finding co-founders, receiving mentorship, and so on. 

What founders valued most:

• 20% received direct mentorship or peer support
• 15% gained operational improvements and strategic guidance
• 36% found value in relationship-building and advice – the “soft” outcomes that often lead to hard wins
• 5.5% found co-founders or key hires
• 2% connected directly with investors through the community, and a similar percentage connected with customers

One of the community’s most compelling stories continues to be the story of Rich Wurden and Kenny Lee, who met each other in the community to start Aigen — a company that uses solar-powered agricultural robots to dramatically reduce usage of fertilizer — which went on to raise a $12M Series A round in 2023.

This single story — out of thousands of founders we helped — represents mobilizing an order of magnitude more capital than the total capital raised by Work On Climate’s itself since our founding.

3. Creating meaningful connections

While some people are less familiar with relational outcomes than “hard” outcomes, such as new job positions or tons of CO2, in reality these outcomes are most foundational for our work.

Systems-change literature emphasizes that relationships are the work, and emphasizes the critical role of relational infrastructure created by organizations like Work On Climate. We invite you to read the brilliant book on this topic, Relationality by our advisor David Jay.

We are proud to have built a powerful relational infrastructure engine for the climate movement. We have enabled tens of thousands of meaningful connections between members and their peers, mentors, collaborators, co-founders, friends, and employers.

• 78% of surveyed members made at least one connection through Work on Climate, totaling approximately 56,000 connections.
• The majority (40%) made at least one professional networking connection, but we’re heartened that 13% made genuine friendships, 6% found project collaborators, and another 6% hired someone. The indirect impact of these connections is likely many times larger, as people, once connected, tend to make more connections for each other, catalyzing further outcomes.
• Unsurprisingly, program participation matters: for example, 66% of Expert Office Hours attendees and 64% of virtual event participants reported making connections, compared to much lower rates among those who didn’t engage.

4. Our volunteers

Today Work On Climate has a very small staff team (4 employees) that forms the backbone of the organization, while most of the program implementation work is done by highly skilled volunteers organized into topical teams led by other volunteers. An incredible 137 volunteers powered everything we did over the course of the last year.

These are highly experienced professionals – typically with 10+ years of experience – who dedicate their time to supporting our programs (such as events, mentorship, community routine community management), marketing, operations, and research.

• 90% of volunteers report being satisfied with their experience and feeling that their contributions are valued.
• We have built a unique culture that embodies our values. Several volunteers have described being part of Work On Climate’s team as “a healing experience”.
• They told us they feel fulfilled by working toward a cause with like-minded individuals and being part of a supportive team.

To our volunteer team: thank you. Work on Climate would not exist without you.
To our funders: thank you. Without your support, we couldn’t fund the staff work necessary to hold our organization together.

Opportunities for Improvement

Feedback from our members creates opportunities for us to assess and improve how we design our programs and partnerships.

The main themes from open-ended responses included a desire for:

• Clearer pathways for engagement – many members don’t know where to start with our various programs (often not knowing what programs exist), or where to begin their path to climate impact in general
• More structured opportunities for networking, mentorship, and skill-building
• Regional and in-person connections to complement our digital community, as well as sector-based connections

Our members are telling us they need more than job search support – they need a local community, with which to navigate the path to climate impact. The evolution of our mission addresses this feedback in several ways: from the reorganization into sector-regional chapters with clear pathways, to a focus on helping members develop their unique leadership path (as opposed to common-denominator job search).

What’s Next

We’re grateful that our members and volunteers provided us with this feedback. Our biggest takeaway: people want more support and more meaningful connection. This leads Work on Climate to a critical moment of evolution.

For years, we assumed that caring about climate meant finding a climate job. As pathways into the climate field have narrowed in a challenging job market, we’ve gained a deeper understanding: solving climate change requires transforming all of humanity’s systems. Every professional can find ways to use their skills, networks, and influence to drive change – whether they work at a climate startup, a Fortune 500 company, a nonprofit, as a freelance consultant, or anywhere in between.

This insight has led us to our new mission: to mobilize talent for a regenerative world by supporting all our members to find power and agency as climate leaders wherever they are.

We will continue to help people find climate jobs. We’ll also empower members to transform their current roles, start climate initiatives within their companies and industries, build industry power, and shape the systems around them. Because building the workforce we need to solve climate change means meeting people where they are and helping them find their path to impact.

Our Methodology

The Work on Climate Impact Research Team sent out an online survey in October 2025 and collected information from 559 respondents. The survey combined quantitative and qualitative approaches to capture perspectives. For the qualitative portion, a thematic analysis was conducted to identify key themes, priorities, and insights around community value, barriers to engagement, and improvement opportunities that complement the quantitative findings.

Thank you to our 37,000+ members and 137 volunteers for making this impact possible.