Environment Funding Guide

Finding funding for environmental causes can be particularly difficult, because although many general grant-makers will make a proportion of their funding available for environmental purposes, searching for those that do can be hugely time consuming.

Equally, the vast range of definitions which can apply to ‘environmental causes’ means that thorough research into prospective funders is absolutely critical.

It is not enough to find just to find a grant maker willing to fund the ‘environment’, as almost all will have their own definition for what this entails. You need to find out what their focus is – be it supporting local heritage or combating global climate change.

Different funders also take different approaches to what they will support. Some will support those projects concerned with changing our day-to-day behaviour, for example, the ‘sustainable living awareness campaign’ aimed at local schools; whereas others will fund grand schemes such as The Eden Project.

In the course of researching the Environment Funding Guide, I came across some truly inspirational people and their projects/organisations, one of which I’d like to highlight here as a model of ambition and achievement. Run by volunteers, Incredible Edible Todmorden (IET) accesses funds and resources creatively through members of the community including local businesses and institutions.

IET aims to increase the amount of local food grown and eaten in the town.  It is supported by the local farmers, schools, public bodies and businesses. The major social landlord in the area has launched its own initiative giving free seeds and advice to tenants, the local railway station grows vegetables and herbs, the health centre is growing fruit trees and vegetables and establishing an apothecary’s garden. The fire station has agreed to the planting of trees on its land and the police station to planters of vegetables on its frontage.

Nick Green of IET says in his blog: ‘We need to re-invent the collective skills of community.  People that can rise to the challenges of the future without waiting for “the powers that be” to do the thinking and acting for us…You will find us sharing land, looking for new ways to be giving and receiving.  There is some pain in learning to share, but a lot more to gain. This is as much a campaign about behaviour change, a cultural shift, as it is about growing leeks.’

Something else which became clear to me in my research is that the concept of what it means to be an environmentalist or an environmental activist seems to be changing – it is becoming more mainstream in people’s consciousness.  

A comprehensive survey by leading think tank The Future Laboratory highlights that Britons now realise they can have a greater impact through their individual actions than government, with 49% stating it is down to the individual to take the lead. Thirty-two per cent of young people aged 18–24 think being environmentally aware is a matter of personal politics, with 41% believing individual action is the only way forward to combat climate change.

According to the research, 68% of those surveyed also said that the notion of ‘green’ would soon become obsolete – not through any lack of interest but rather that the majority viewed behaviours such as recycling (91%), switching lights off (66%) and driving hybrid cars (51%) as becoming standard practice within the next 20 years.

Organisations such as Incredible-edible Todmorden bear this research out in practice – they’re about individuals within the community who are changing its culture and creating new, inventive, creative rules by which it will be run and sustained.

The Environment Funding Guide is published by DSC – for more information see: www.dsc.org/sfguides

Further useful and very detailed information on the distribution of environmental grants made by funders can be found in 'Where The Green Grants Went', published by the Environmental Funders Network.  The fourth and latest edition can be downloaded from their website at www.greenfunders.org. I was very pleased that one of the authors, Jon Cracknell, agreed to write the Foreword to the Environment Funding Guide.

By Denise Lillya , Senior Researcher, Directory of Social Change