Philanthropy can do more than respond, it can reshape the future.

When Shockwave Foundation launched in 2020, we were responding to a simple but urgent reality: communities already living with climate disruption were not short on solutions — they were short on the funding needed to implement them. Five years into our 20-year, $50M horizon, we can see the patterns of progress taking hold.

Our Story

Our founder, Paul Traina, is the first to admit he’s a pessimist. Years ago, he saw the writing on the wall: the window for climate mitigation was narrowing. If some impacts are inevitable and the future holds disruption and loss, where is the hope? The bright spot quickly became clear: adaptation and resilience — what communities already living with climate change are calling for.

In 2020, Paul founded Shockwave Foundation to answer that call with a 20-year investment. Our name “Shockwave” draws inspiration from Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, which predicted a world of such rapid change that it could overwhelm our capacity to adapt. Led by CEO Jeny Wegbreit, Shockwave Foundation aims to do more than just adapt — we strive to buffer and respond to the massive shocks driven by the climate crisis, helping communities not just survive, but flourish in a rapidly changing world.

Our Strategy

Our North Star: We invest in solutions that help communities adapt and thrive in a changing climate, with an emphasis on food and water security — humanity’s most vulnerable systems and the foundation of resilience and survival.

Goals

  • Equip communities to withstand climate shocks and grow stronger over time

  • Enable the replication of proven solutions through evidence, insights, and best practices

  • Promote resilient, interconnected systems across communities, ecosystems, and economies

  • Act as a catalyst for scalable, lasting solutions that benefit future generations

Principles

  • Directly address climate adaptation/resilience

  • Focus on long-term, scalable, replicable impact

  • Apply a systems approach, considering ecological, social, and institutional connections

  • Emphasize experimentation and autonomy of projects with flexible, trust-based grantmaking

Solutions

  • Water Security: water resource management and nature-based solutions, data platforms and monitoring tools, finance/governance innovations

  • Food Security: agroecology and regenerative practices, climate-smart crops, agricultural finance and capacity building

Approach

  • Treat climate disruption as an opportunity to improve communities, ecosystems, and economies

  • Provide catalytic funding & raise visibility for promising organizations

  • Take risks on high-impact, innovative solutions

  • Collaborate with peer funders and fellow philanthropists to increase leverage and sustainability

Our Team

  • Jeny Wegbreit, ScD MPH

    CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

    LinkedIn

    For over two decades, Jeny has been a trusted partner to visionaries, helping them build stronger, more impactful organizations. Her work spans the academic, nonprofit, and international development sectors, where she has provided leadership, strategic guidance, research and evaluation for institutions including the University of California Global Health Group, the University of California Women’s Global Health Imperative, and the Asante Africa Foundation. Jeny also advised numerous family philanthropies and social impact organizations, helping them drive transformational change.

    Jeny holds a Doctorate of Science in Human Ecology and Epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, a Master of Public Health in Environmental Health from the University of Michigan, and a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from the University of California, Berkeley.

  • Paul Traina

    FOUNDER AND BOARD CHAIR

    LinkedIn

    Paul Traina is deeply committed to addressing the global climate crisis through innovative investments and philanthropic efforts. His focus is on improving food and water security for frontline communities facing the harsh realities of climate change. In addition to founding Shockwave, Paul serves on the board of the Pacific Institute, is a partner at Silicon Valley Social Ventures (SV2), and a member of Forward Global. He also mentors emerging social entrepreneurs through Santa Clara University’s Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship and consults with Stanford’s Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (Stanford SEED).

    A second-generation Internet pioneer, Paul played a pivotal role in shaping the technology that powers our connected world. He developed key software and systems that allowed the Internet to scale to what it is today, with a 30-year background dedicated to creating technology that brings people together and democratizes access to information.

    Paul was instrumental in the rise of Juniper Networks, where he led critical roles in both Engineering and Corporate Development. Before Juniper, he was a leading engineer and software architect at Cisco Systems, joining in its early days and helping build the foundation of the modern Internet. test