Eating Better is an alliance focused on food system change. In the past 11 years, we have grown from 25 to 70 members, representing numerous sectors. Last year we had the great opportunity to attend EFN’s conference Effective funding – how to catalyse change through funder/fundraiser collaboration? Collaboration is our (sustainably sourced) bread and butter, so this event resonated strongly with us.
But, without re-hashing all the organisational positives of collaboration, why exactly should we be talking about collaboration in relation to more effective funding in the environment sector?
What we’ve learnt
- Reducing competition increases trust and speed of delivery: We can be afraid of doing this, but defining where our role starts and ends, checking our egos and knowing when to lean in and when to let others lead makes us all more effective. It means others trust us more and the speed with which research and knowledge is shared is significantly increased.
- Unusual suspects and systems thinking: The power of multi-perspective feedback cannot be highlighted enough. It is becoming increasingly acknowledged that environmental issues are inextricably linked to health, land and water use, social and economic justice, animal welfare and more. Although we can work on single issues, real and lasting change will only come if all aspects are addressed in connection to each other, thus avoiding polarisation and culture wars. When we do a piece of work, passing it through a multi-sector filter increases the likelihood that it will be relevant and valuable, and therefore actionable.
- The more (brains), the merrier: Having said that we are used to working in a systems focused network, this doesn’t mean that we are always aware of how issues sit alongside each other in detail; we are constantly learning. This is where having collaborators with brains grown elsewhere and a mix of lived experiences — across geography, identity, and neurodiversity — adds a lot of strength.
- Can I use your…? Much of civil society’s work, and especially within the environment sector, is faced with organised and better resourced opposing forces that have roots in global corporate interests and political power dynamics. In our alliance of diverse organisations, both in type as well as size, shared infrastructure and leaning on each others’ strengths has been instrumental in multiplying the effectiveness of any work we do.
- We’re in this together: One of our biggest aims as a team is to help build confidence in our members to talk about and work on the change we want to see in our food system. Working in partnership builds confidence on the inside, and legitimacy on the outside.
- A burden shared is a burden halved: An extension of the above, this speaks directly to another important point made during the EFN conference, that ‘to protect the environment, we need to protect the environmentalist’. Working to fix the damage our joint ways of living have caused the environment is hard. Knowing that we can lean on each other to do it makes it easier.
Fostering a culture of collaboration
You don’t have to be in an alliance to collaborate, but you do have to have the space and support to be able to do it. This is where funders come in – they can enable infrastructure organisations to thrive and provide the space for collaboration directly. They can lead, by collaborating with their peers and grantholders, to provide simpler processes, reduce competition and spot where the gaps in funding might be.
Creating a culture of collaboration across civil society will lead to greater speed and impact of delivery. But for this to work, support is needed from funders to make it clear that funding applications for partnership work will be recognised as impactful, if not more so, than sole organisation applications which currently make up the majority of our competitive system.
Here are four ideas for funders to consider as next steps:
- Facilitate civil society networking: Organisations are people, and when people feel unsupported and alone doing work that is hard, they burn out. Funders can help provide support by championing opportunities for civil society networking through existing infrastructure organisations. For example, the Green Fundraisers Forum, facilitated by EFN, supports fundraisers and environmental groups through their programme of events, training, resources and relationship building.
- Provide more support for partnership bids: When something is obvious and readily available to be used, it can more easily become a habit, and habits are how theory embeds itself into the everyday and transitions into culture. Funders have the power to create transparent and flexible invitations to consider partnership work, thus actively fostering collaboration.
- Fund with trust and flexibility: If collaboration is going to reach its peak effectiveness, the way its outcomes are measured cannot always follow a KPI-type approach. For alliances like Eating Better, success sometimes looks like a good conversation or a workshop that led to alliance members feeling more confident in addressing their audiences. Funders can build trust and flexibility into their evaluation model to allow organisations to plan and measure their impact in the way that works best for them, especially if that impact is a shared one.
- Collaborate with other funders: Organisations often know what needs to be done in order to create change, but often struggle to make a pitch for this work. Funders can fuel change through collaboration, taking the form of match funding, pooled funds and supporting grantholders to fundraise further.
These recommendations resonate strongly in our daily conversations with individuals and groups across our alliance and beyond. They are also reflected in EFN’s report ‘Increasing the effectiveness of environmental funder-fundraiser relationships’. Barriers to adopting them – and how different funders are navigating these – will be explored in EFN’s next planned piece of research. This will support more peer-to-peer learning on this topic and, we hope, help to foster greater connection and collaboration among funders.
The appetite for collaboration is high among civil society, and we hear regular calls for more conversations, idea-sharing, mapping and joint project work as well as joint funding bids. Yet, too often, these ambitions remain unrealised – not due to a lack of enthusiasm, but rather the right support. By implementing the recommendations outlined above, funders can play a pivotal role in fostering stronger connections among grantholders and investing in a culture of collaboration for meaningful, lasting change.