by Jon Cracknell
With the M4 (temporarily) closed and drivers stranded in their cars overnight on the A38 it was a reasonably intrepid band of 45 delegates that travelled down to Dartington Hall, near Totnes, for the second Environmental Funders Network (EFN) Retreat on 14th and 15th January. Participants, a mixture of trustees and staff, came from both large and well known foundations and also smaller and newer funding organizations.
This diversity has been a hallmark of EFN as it has grown over the last six years to a network in which 85 trusts and foundations have been involved. A glance through the biographies supplied in the retreat brochure shows there is no such thing as a typical green funder. Grant-making ranges from the specialist to the generalist, from the local to the global, and across a dizzying array of problems and perspectives, from animal welfare to human rights. Crafting an agenda that works for such a diverse group of participants can be a challenge. The Devon retreat was designed to help funders get to know each other better and agree points of shared interest.
With this in mind the first day was given over to a series of expert presentations that were deliberately big picture – looking at the need to re-think economic growth, the drivers of global biodiversity loss, the outcome of the Copenhagen climate change conference, and the future of food and farming. On the second day the focus narrowed in on ‘next steps’ that EFN can take as a network, with a series of workshops allowing funders to discuss issues of common interest more intimately.
To this formal programme was added a lot of conversations between sessions, over meals and during coffee breaks. The Retreat was marked by a real sense of an EFN community coming together, with 20 EFN-ers to be found in the bar at midnight, trading ideas and comparing notes with peers. Dartington Hall’s strapline encourages delegates to “Eat. Drink. Sleep. Think.” While the balance between these activities varied within the group (!) the widely held feeling was that the Retreat was a great way of firing up people’s grant-making at the start of a new decade.
Willingness to work collaboratively on an ongoing basis is strongest around thematic issues. Sub-groups of the EFN have formed around tropical deforestation, biodiversity and marine conservation, and a group on climate change will take shape following the retreat. Within these clusters funders swap knowledge and alert each other to grant-making opportunities, although the pooling of grants to support specific pieces of work is still the exception rather than the rule.
Beyond the specifics of day-to-day grantmaking, the EFN has long been concerned with improving how the environmental grants market functions. Work in this direction is underpinned by the network’s research series, Where The Green Grants Went, which reveals how little philanthropic money – just 3% of spending by the UK’s largest trusts – makes its way to environmental causes.
Whilst the overall sum granted to environmental initiatives has been growing, the proportion allocated to systemic challenges like climate change and resource consumption remains low – leading to discussion at the Retreat and elsewhere on how to not just ‘grow the pie’ but also shift the way in which existing grants are distributed.
Plans for developing the EFN include a significant upgrade in information-sharing between funders, more thematic sub-group activity, and active outreach both to trustees and to non-environmental funders whose interests are directly threatened by problems like climate change.
The network is very keen to engage new funders, and there are no fees for taking part in its quarterly lunches and other ad hoc events. If you are interested in learning more about environmental philanthropy or would welcome an opportunity to meet peers that are active in this space then please send an e-mail to info@greenfunders.org
Jon Cracknell helps coordinate the Environmental Funders Network, the views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of the of the Network
