Featured Charity: The Ocean Foundation

At Giving Through Jewelry 10% of all sales are donated to a charity of the buyers choice. We realize that there are a lot of charities to choose from so we would like to highlight some of our favorites. This month’s featured charity is the The Ocean Foundation.

Check out our FACEBOOK page at the beginning of each month to see how much was donated.

As the only community foundation for the ocean, The Ocean Foundation’s mission is to support, strengthen, and promote those organizations dedicated to reversing the trend of destruction of ocean environments around the world.

They focus their collective expertise on emerging threats to generate cutting edge solutions and better strategies for implementation.

Because the ocean covers 71% of the earth, their community is global. They have grantees, partners, and projects on all of the world’s continents. They engage with donors and governments involved in ocean conservation anywhere in the world.

 

What We Do

Community Foundation Services

The Ocean Foundation can turn your talents and ideas into sustainable solutions that promote healthy ocean ecosystems and benefit the human communities that depend on them. As a member of The Ocean Foundation community, you will be heard, supported, included, and equipped to accomplish what you want to see happen for our coasts and ocean. We have what you need to increase your impact and bring your dreams for the ocean to life.

For more information about what it means to be a community foundation, click here.

We Sponsor and Host Projects and Funds

We Make Grants

We Accept Donations

We Partner with Corporations

 

Conservation Initiatives

Throughout our 20 years of work, we have launched our own initiatives to fill gaps in conservation work and build lasting relationships. These core ocean conservation initiatives provide leading contributions to the global ocean conservation dialogue on the topics of ocean acidification, ocean literacy, blue carbon, and plastic pollution.

Blue Resilience

Redesigning Plastics

Ocean Acidification

Community Ocean Engagement

History

Successful ocean conservation is a community effort. With the growing awareness that the work of individuals could be supported within a community problem-solving context, photographer and founder Wolcott Henry led a group of like-minded coral conservation experts, venture capitalists, and philanthropy colleagues in establishing the Coral Reef Foundation as the first community foundation for coral reefs — thus, the first coral reef conservation donors’ portal. Among its early projects was the first national poll about coral reef conservation in the United States, unveiled in 2002.

After the Coral Reef Foundation’s inception, it quickly became clear that the founders needed to address a broader question: How can we support donors interested in the conservation of coast and ocean ecosystems, and re-imagine the well-known and accepted community foundation model to best serve the ocean conservation community? Thus, in 2003, The Ocean Foundation was launched with Wolcott Henry as founding Chair of the Board of Directors. Mark J. Spalding was brought in as President shortly thereafter.

A Community Foundation

The Ocean Foundation still operates using the known community foundation tools and deploying them in an ocean context. From the beginning, The Ocean Foundation has been international, with well over two-thirds of its grants supporting causes outside the United States. We have hosted dozens of projects and worked collaboratively on every continent, on our one global ocean, and in most of the seven seas.

Applying our breadth and depth of knowledge about the global ocean conservation community to vet projects and reduce risk to donors, The Ocean Foundation has supported a diverse portfolio of projects that includes work on marine mammals, sharks, sea turtles, and seagrass, as well as launched headline programs such as the International Ocean Acidification Initiative and the Blue Carbon Calculator. We’ve looked at the economic impact of debris on beaches and the ways communities can restore abundance to the fisheries on which they depend. We continue to seek out opportunities to make all of us more effective and to make every dollar for ocean conservation stretch a little further.

The Ocean Foundation identifies trends, anticipates and responds to the growing needs and urgent issues related to ocean health and sustainability; and strives to strengthen the knowledge and expertise of the ocean conservation community as a whole.

We continue to identify both the solutions to the threats that face our ocean, and the organizations and individuals best suited to implement them. We work hard to ensure that we remain open to multiple strategies and new ideas about where and how those solutions could be developed and used. Our goal remains to achieve a level of global awareness that ensures we stop taking so much of the good stuff out and stop dumping bad stuff in recognition of the life-giving role of our global ocean.

Ways to give

All donations to The Ocean Foundation are fully tax-deductible to the largest extent allowed by law.

General Contribution

When you donate, your donation will go to where they are needed most. Increase our ability to be responsive and effective in the wake of ocean disasters and threats by contributing to our general funds. Help us take research and expertise to actionable measures towards ocean conservation and restoration. All donations to TOF are tax deductible to the fullest extent allowable by law. For more information on General Contributions, please contact us.

Planned Giving

Considering a Legacy Gift for the Ocean? A legacy gift to The Ocean Foundation ensures your values are cemented in perpetuity, and that our organization will be around to fight for your beliefs and passion to protect the ocean for generations. As a community foundation, The Ocean Foundation can customize a legacy gift to align with your giving goals and priorities and the organization accepts a variety of legacy gifts, including bequests, real estate, stock certificates, bonds, CDs, money market accounts and crypto currency. This type of support ensures that the organization will be around to serve the well being of our ocean for the future generations that will depend on it. For more information on Planned Giving, please contact Jason Donofrio.

Donor Advised Funds

Recommend mission-related distributions to support the ocean causes you love. Enjoy the full benefits of tax exemption and avoid the costs of creating a private foundation. For more information on starting a Donor Advised Fund, please contact us.

Corporate Matching Gifts

Double the impact of your gift by participating in your organization’s Matching Gift program. Further increase our ability to be responsive and effective in the wake of ocean disaster and threats as you will build our capacity. For more information on Corporate Matching Gifts, please contact us.

Employee Giving Programs

Direct your company’s giving toward The Ocean Foundation to take full advantage of your ability to make a difference to reverse the degradation of the coasts and ocean. For more information on Employee Giving Programs, please contact us.

Gifts of Stock

When you give stock directly to The Ocean Foundation, we can receive 100% of the current value to make the ocean healthier. Selling stock and giving a donation requires paying taxes on your gain, but giving directly avoids those taxes. If you have more questions about this process, contact us.

Funder Collaboratives

Hosted funds where financial contributions are made by a number of individuals, organizations or governments and pooled together for a specific purpose.

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