“Fossil-free is the new apartheid,” says Thomas Nowak, a certified financial planner with Quantum Financial Planning who is based in Grayslake, Ill., and specializes in green investing. “This movement has legs. A large number of my clients are asking for fossil-free portfolios.”

Steven J. Schueth, president of First Affirmative said that while “at this point, the list of institutions doing fossil-free portfolios is pretty short,” fossil-free investing “has caught fire quicker than any other issue in the past 25 years.” He says he has 160 individual clients opting for it.

It’s relatively simple to work with a financial planner to create a fossil-free portfolio for yourself, but how can you tell if your preferred nonprofits have done the same or are considering it? The simplest approach is to ask. If you can’t get an answer, look at their portfolios.

One of the main resources for the divestment movement, DivestInvest, has targeted 200 oil, gas and coal companies and provides a list of them. You could see if any of these corporations are in your nonprofits’ portfolios.

You could also make it a family affair by asking your college-attending children, grandchildren or other relatives where their colleges stand on divestment. “One of the most interesting strategies I’ve heard is for students to advise their parents — and college alumni if possible — to request divestment prior to any further contributions,” Mr. Nowak says.

“Many college campuses have student divestment clubs that work with their schools to commit to divestment,” he adds.

Mr. Nowak also suggests that you ask institutions for their portfolio’s investment policy statements. If they plan to divest from fossil-fuel companies, that goal should be in those documents.