Strategic Positioning for Climate Solutions

I work where nonprofit development, business development, and marketing meet — helping nonprofit leaders and climate tech founders figure out who to reach and how to reach them. That means identifying target funders, validating sales strategies, translating technical work into investor-ready narratives, and positioning complex solutions for the specific rooms where decisions get made. You've built something the world needs. I help you get it in front of the people who can fund it, buy it, and scale it.

Nonprofit Leaders

You're doing climate work that sits at the intersection of social impact and science. You need funding, but most development consultants don't understand what you're building well enough to position it effectively for funders.

I help you:

I bring development expertise with a science and climate tech background — I understand what you're building and know how to make funders see its value.

Clients include:

Creative Climate Lab
Act Now Bay Area
Rethink the Runway
West Marin Environmental Action Committee
Kateri Tekakwitha Fund

What clients say:

Working with Casey helped us at Climate Gals identify the opportunities that were most relevant for us to seek funding, prepare our strategy for outreach and applications, and establish a clear road map for next steps. As a new organization, development can be overwhelming, but Casey helped us find the pathways that were “right sized” for our stage and most likely to be successful for us.
Taylor CousinFounder, Climate Gals
As a small initiative, Rethink The Runway has traction in bringing sustainable fashion events in the Bay Area, however we're always struggling with funding. Casey helped us figure out different streams of income for our organization for both the short and long term. We had ideas about revenue but needed help prioritizing what was worth our small team's time — she helped us sort through, pick the streams that fit where we are right now, and walk away with an actual plan instead of a list of maybes. Rethink the Runway will be in a much stronger position because of it!
Mira MusankFounder, Rethink the Runway

Climate Tech Founders

You've built something. You have traction. But deals aren't closing because you're stuck in technical language, targeting the wrong buyers, or both.

I help you:

You've built something valuable. I make sure the right people understand it.

Clients include:

One Concern
Exodigo
Flypower
PowerGEM
Breathe Zero

About

Casey O'Brien

I help climate nonprofits and foundations raise money: grant strategy, proposals, funder narratives, and development planning that gets technical and scientific work in front of the people who fund it.

I came to development sideways, through climate tech. I started as a reporter covering the industry, then spent years working inside it — One Concern, and Exodigo through their $105M Series A — leading country launches and expansions into the UK, Europe, the U.S., and LATAM along the way. That's an unusual background for a development consultant, and it's the reason organizations hire me: I can read a technical program and understand what it actually does before I try to make a funder care about it. I still take on climate tech work — positioning, messaging, non-dilutive funding strategy — for founders whose story is what's holding them back.

I'm a ClimateBase Cohort 7 Fellow and studied sociology and anthropology at University of Puget Sound — living in Washington cemented for me that there was nothing else I wanted to do than save the earth with words. I'm a Marin County native with deep roots in West Marin, where agricultural land use and coastal conservation were the first climate stories I knew. I write The Canary, a Substack on climate tech. When I'm not working, I'm hiking with my dog, camping somewhere in California, or reading my way through yet another stack of books.

FAQ

Do you work on retainer or hourly?

Both. For retainer clients, we structure ongoing partnerships around your needs. For hourly work, I bill fixed hours per month so you have predictable costs and consistent access.

What do people actually hire you to do?

Nonprofits hire me to develop grant strategy, write proposals, or build narratives for specific funding opportunities. Founders hire me to validate their sales strategy, identify target customers, develop positioning and messaging, or prepare for investor conversations. Sometimes it's a one-time project (grant application, pitch deck). Sometimes it's ongoing strategic partnership.

Do you work remotely?

Yes — I work with founders and organizations across every timezone. But I'm deeply rooted in the Bay Area climate ecosystem, and that local network is key to how I do my work. You get both: global reach and Bay Area climate tech fluency.

Can't internal teams just do this themselves?

Sure — if you have time to learn funder landscapes, study how different industries evaluate climate solutions, and build positioning frameworks from scratch while also running your organization. Most teams I work with are brilliant at what they do. They hire me because I've spent a decade learning how to translate climate innovation for the specific audiences they need to reach, and it's faster to bring me in than to figure it out themselves.

How did you get into this work?

I started as a reporter covering climate tech startups. After watching too many of them fail — not because the technology didn't work, but because they couldn't communicate what they were building — I got sick of just writing about it and moved into communications and marketing inside the industry. From there, the path wound through in-house startup roles, consulting, and nonprofit development work that often happened on the side. But the through-line is simple: I've wanted to work in climate since I could read, and I've always found a way to do it. That breadth — journalism, startups, nonprofits — is what lets me operate across contexts most consultants can't. I've seen how each world works and how to translate between them.

Get in Touch

Ready to position your climate solution for success?

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