Giving Our All is a collection of 15 interviews of philanthropy in action – honest, thoughtful and inspiring stories. Funders and donors share their personal stories about their giving: why they started, what they have learnt along the way, what motivates them to keep going and so much more.
They share the key moments in their life when they realised it was the time to do something different – to give their all to the environmental and connected social causes they care about.
These interviews are a trove of ideas and examples for anyone curious about effective environmental action.
Each interviewee has different backgrounds, values, interests, giving strategies and ways of working. Their scale of giving ranges from the tens of thousands to the tens of millions.
Some are part of larger, established trusts and foundations. Some are giving as individuals, couples or small family foundations. All have discovered that their role in the funding ecosystem is vital and adding to a wider movement of protecting life on our planet. The interviews are all self-contained and can be read in any order.
Who is featured?
- Nick Oldridge – an individual donor who sees the need for a different type of climate communications and shares his work on the National Emergency Briefing and Climate Science Breakthrough.
- Sonal Sachdev Patel – the CEO of the GMSP Foundation who shares how her family foundation is supporting the grassroots organisations in both India and the UK.
- Ben Goldsmith – Chair of the Conservation Collective and Trustee of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation who reflects on how a lifetime championing nature and rewilding has shaped his giving and convening.
- Eli Manderson Evans – CEO of the Blagrave Trust who shows how a youth funder recognises the urgent need to address climate change and support young people’s voices.
- Leonie Taylor – an individual donor and trustee of the Taylor Family Foundation who shares how faces the origins of her wealth and how it now shapes her giving and work.
- Sufina Ahmad – the Director of John Ellerman Foundation who charts how the foundation shifts from funding individual issues to focus on systemic change and using all the foundation’s wealth for good.
- Lauren Gupta & Becky Holmes – Co-founders (with Bill Holmes) of The Helvellyn Foundation, their family foundation, who both share the ways new generation donors with a passion for wildlife are building trust and momentum with their partners.
- Sophie & Nick Marple – Co-Founders of Gower Street, their small family foundation, who share how they deploy their wealth to tackle the climate crisis both in the UK and Ghana.
- Renata Minerbo – Co-Founder with Seth Tabatznik of the Be the Earth Foundation, who shares how the family foundation supports the shift to an eco-centric economy and experiments with new ways of deploying their wealth.
- Julia Davies – Founder of We Have The POWER, who shows how she directs her wealth and legal expertise towards transformative change with a recent focus on community energy.
- Jon Cracknell – Trust Secretary of The Ecology Trust and a long term funder who reflects on where the environment movement is succeeding and what funders could do differently.
- Christine Oliver – Trust Secretary of the Polden-Puckham Charitable Foundation who explains why and how the foundation is spending down its funds to meet the challenge of this moment.
- William Kenyon – an individual donor who realises that funding what he’s passionate about – cycling routes in his hometown – allows him to stick with it for the long-term.
- Stephanie & Stuart Mills – Co-Founders of Practical Acts and authors of Wealth With A Why who charts how they mobilise the spectrum of their wealth to support the environment.
- Jessica Sweidan – Co-Founder of Synchronicity Earth who shares how the foundation has grown from small to large to help other donors protect life and biodiversity on earth.
Themes
Across all the interviews, six key themes emerged: joy, ambition, urgency, interconnection, trust and love.
- Joy. Environmental issues provoke a range of emotions from anxiety to outrage, but joy is a unifying theme that these funders derive from acting to solve those problems.
- Ambition. These funders and donors all share a powerful sense of ambition – their goal is nothing short of the transformation of the world as we know it.
- Urgency. There is a focus on acting now, while funding can still help prevent the worst of the climate and nature crises.
- Interconnection. Environmental issues are impossible to disentangle from social issues and these funders and donors recognise that environmental issues do not affect us all equally.
- Trust. These stories show how funders and donors deeply trust their grant partners and why they advocate for others to give flexible, unrestricted and long-term support.
- Love. For these funders and donors their giving is not only motivated by love of their fellow humans, but also their love of the more-than-human world.
We invite you to dip into these interviews to be inspired, to celebrate stories of progress, or even to be challenged to think differently.
A huge thank you to all of our contributors for sharing their stories, time and energy with us: Nick Oldridge, Sonal Sachdev Patel, Ben Goldsmith, Eli Manderson Evans, Leonie Taylor, Sufina Ahmed, Lauren Gupta & Becky Holmes, Sophie & Nick Marple, Renate Minerbo, Julia Davies, Jon Cracknell, Christine Oliver, William Kenyon, Stuart & Stephanie Mills, and Jessica Sweidan.
We’d also like to very warmly thank the editor of the collection, Florence Miller, the Director of EFN, 2012-2024 and Jane Cabutti, who started the project in 2025-26.