Sea Forward Fund

From our shore to yours, we wish you all a joyous holiday season and a new year filled with peace, hope, and new horizons. 🌅   The Sea Forward team gathered last week in sunny Santa Barbara, CA to reflect on a year of growth and impact. As we celebrate the milestones of 2024, we look forward to writing the next chapter of success for Sea Forward together. Thank YOU for making this community of changemakers possible.

#ICYMI: Have you explored our latest edition of The Current? 🌊 If you’re in need of a dose of inspiration, look no further. From Fund Director Laura Francis’ transformational trip to the 1000 Ocean Startups meeting in Amsterdam to Sea Forward’s newly announced investment and grantees, our quarterly newsletter offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the work our team and portfolio funds are doing to drive impact for ocean conservation. Catch up on all the action. https://bit.ly/3ZM51kX

🪸 Grantee Spotlight 🪸 Based in Bali, Indonesia, the Coral Triangle Center (CTC) works closely with local communities, private sector, governments, and partners to strengthen marine resource management in the Coral Triangle. They aim to protect coral reef ecosystems and ensure sustainable livelihoods and food security. Through our recent grant, Sea Forward is honored to support the CTC as they work with the Rhun Island women’s group to develop a sustainable community-based waste management mechanism. This project will increase the knowledge, skills and capacity of the group members to improve waste management equipment and facilities, while increasing the involvement of diverse groups, including women’s group members, school children, village government, and local community members. 🌊 Explore the CTC’s mission and learn about their global impact. https://bit.ly/3MVrGnz ♻️ Discover how their efforts are strengthening women's voices on waste management. https://bit.ly/3BggUq1 📸 credit: Kasman/CTC, Laode Junaidin/CTC

This #GivingTuesday, let’s make waves for a healthier ocean and brighter future. 🌍💙 You can make a difference in the health of our ocean and the billions of people who depend on it by joining our growing sea of changemakers committed to sustaining and restoring our precious marine ecosystems. When you give to the Sea Forward Ocean Health Fund, you’re not only helping our ocean, you’re planting the seeds of hope for future generations. As one recent donor shared, supporting this mission was “among the easiest decisions” of their life — a simple but impactful way to be a part of the solution. Explore donor levels and consider making a contribution today: https://bit.ly/3MJyFzU

🪸 Grantee Spotlight 🪸 The BIOSPHERE FOUNDATION aims to regenerate our Earth’s biosphere by empowering everyday individuals to become ‘Biospherians’ – advocates for a healthier, thriving planet. Through contagious sustainability, they’re not only combating climate change; they’re sparking a global movement of ecological restoration. We’re honored to support their powerful initiative “Biosphere Regeneration, Education, and Training for Indigenous Peoples in the Coral Triangle.” This project tackles ocean health head-on in Northeast Sulawesi by helping remote island communities implement biodiverse food and coral gardens. From January to August 2024, the Biosphere Foundation’s flagship sailing yacht ‘Mir’ sailed over four thousand nautical miles, training indigenous leaders, both onboard and at selected island communities, in sustainability and ecological regenerative practices. The program also incorporated a 'Semester at Sea' training program for Indonesian interns to learn about seamanship, navigation, and coral stewardship. 🌊 Watch the video to meet some of the participants and learn more about why this program will create a ripple of change in ecosystem regeneration. https://bit.ly/4eZLxOf ⛵ You can also track the completed Mir voyage with the interactive Google Map here. https://bit.ly/3Bhmjga

The ocean is at the heart of our planet’s future—regulating our climate, driving economies and offering transformative solutions to global challenges. Yet, this immense potential remains vastly underappreciated and underfunded. To unlock the ocean's potential, we must move beyond incremental change. Implementing scalable solutions demands radical collaboration and disruptive innovation. 1000 Ocean Startups is a global coalition designed to harness this collective power. By fostering collaboration and mobilizing investment, we aim to catalyze 1,000 transformative start-ups by 2030—pioneering solutions across various industry sectors that drive the transition to a regenerative blue economy. At this year’s Annual Gathering, we brought together innovators, investors and ecosystem builders to explore the role of collaboration in advancing ocean innovation. Under the theme The Ocean Nexus, we highlighted the connection between ocean solutions and pressing global challenges like climate change, food security and energy transitions—charting a path forward to scale impactful solutions. The time to act is now. Collaboration isn’t just beneficial, it’s necessary. By working together, we can de-risk investment, scale impactful solutions and create a sustainable future for both people and planet. Learn more about how the coalition is accelerating ocean innovation and shaping the future of the blue economy at 1000oceanstartups.org 🌊 #1000OceanStartups #OceanInnovation #OceanImpact #Startups #SDG14 Friends of Ocean Action | Alfredo Giron Nava | Ronald Tardiff | Sam Zak | Oliver Yorke | Erin Skoczylas | Sofía Milian | Yu Jie Law | Ted Janulis | Ingrid H. Maurstad | Christian Lim | Alexis Grosskopf | Gracie White | Millicent Pitts | Maria Damanaki

🪸 Grantee Spotlight 🪸 The Misool Foundation is on a mission to safeguard the most biodiverse reefs on Earth through the empowerment of local communities, providing a structure by which they are able to reclaim their traditional tenureship of reefs. The Misool Foundation team manages a suite of conservation programs which combine marine governance, waste management, community empowerment, and species conservation. From restoration to education, their work is crucial to fostering a culture where sustainable tourism and community-based conversation can be mutually beneficial. They aim to demonstrate to local hosts, government, and guests that sustainable tourism can provide a better life than logging, mining, or overfishing. Sea Forward Fund’s matching grant supported reef health and fish biomass studies in the Misool Marine Reserve in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. Learn more about the Misool Foundation’s initiatives to protect the world’s richest reefs. https://bit.ly/47B1x6X 

#SystemicInvesting for ocean health in action! 🐠 This eye-opening case study from TransCap Initiative (TCI), a think-and-do-tank at the nexus of real-economy systems change, sustainability, and finance, explores Builders Vision’s (BV) systemic approach to advancing a sustainable blue economy. Through the lens of BV’s ocean grantmaking and investment efforts, TCI illustrates how systemic investing can drive meaningful change in both human and natural systems to advance environmental sustainability and social justice. Builders Vision has developed an approach that recognizes that no one form of capital is enough to foster a healthy ocean. They have built a strategy that invests across the capital spectrum and embraces a systems change mindset. This creates conditions for the real and transformational “sea change” needed to sustain a healthy and habitable planet. Dive into the “lessons” learned to unlock invaluable insights for fund managers and anyone eager to embrace this innovative investment philosophy. 🌟

Our ocean plays a vital role in regulating our climate, supporting biodiversity, and providing food and livelihoods for billions of people. 🌍 It also faces unprecedented threats from overfishing, pollution, climate change, and other human-induced pressures. At Sea Forward, we believe that #ImpactInvesting through a collaborative multi-donor advised fund can catalyze the scale and innovation needed to address our ocean's complex challenges. 🗝️ 🔓 Aiming to generate positive, measurable social and environmental impact alongside financial returns, impact investing involves intentionally investing in organizations, funds, and companies working to solve pressing social and environmental issues.     We’re excited to give investors the opportunity to drive positive change and support a thriving, resilient ocean ecosystem by directing capital towards sustainable aquaculture, science-based monitoring tools, circular economy solutions, biodiversity conservation, and climate-resilient initiatives. Participate today. https://bit.ly/3MJyFzU Learn more about the power of impact investing. https://bit.ly/3Tvyn3m

💡 More valuable reflections from the 1000 Ocean Startups Annual Gathering. At Sea Forward, we’re on a mission to make impact investing accessible, opening the door to all types of people interested in joining the movement for a healthy ocean. This is why Fund Director Laura Francis helped coordinate a session focused on why the ocean is not a “niche” topic, but rather, a lifeline to sustaining a healthy planet for us all. By building a unified voice, we can work together to attract investors, share knowledge and advocate for ocean impact investment as sustainable and profitable. Explore more insights from the event. ⬇️