Environmental groups and funders are highly focused on tackling planetary crises and the social impacts our societies face. Yet they also continue to navigate debilitating barriers and time-consuming funding practices.
This report presents the perspectives of funders surveyed on the recommendations of our previous report: Increasing the effectiveness of environmental funder-fundraiser relationships. It strongly demonstrates how deeply funders care about, and are committed to, improving how funding is distributed and managed.
However, the report also identifies challenges the respondents face in improving their funding practices. The number and type of challenges vary depending on a funder’s unique situation, but common ones include limited capacity, constraints related to legal and governance requirements and difficulties changing established organisational structures and practices.
Who was part of the research?
Our findings are based on the survey responses from 57 individuals/50 funding organisations, as well as inputs from 60 funders that joined us at the EFN Members’ Retreat 2026. Each section includes quotes, examples and experiences of a diverse group of funders.
What we found out
We saw progress in all four issue areas outlined in our previous research: funding availability, grant applications, grant management, and collaboration and coordination. Yet, these improvements are not spread evenly and some overarching challenges, such as limited capacity, can impede potential progress across all areas. We included some deep dives into these main recurring challenges: capacity and trustees & primary donors and offered some possible solutions going forward. Overall our analysis revealed a strong appetite for peer learning, knowledge sharing and collaboration, which could directly address some of the overarching long-term challenges and provide a blueprint for short-term quick wins.
Case studies
We found many funders are already on the journey and making progress in addressing these challenges. From establishing flexible and trusting funding practices to different approaches to connecting with environmental groups, this report showcases over ten case studies and stories detailing imaginative and impactful changes funders have adopted:
- Navigating regulations for grantmakers by Bates Wells
- Adopting trusting and flexible funding by Co-op Foundation
- Different approaches to connecting with environmental groups:
- Why we are invite-only by Samworth Foundation
- Why we became invite-only by Brian Mercer Trust
- How we run our open call for proposals by Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme
- How spending down changed our application format by Polden-Puckham Charitable Foundation
- How we manage applications as a very small foundation by Kreitman Foundation
- What our accessibility audit taught us by John Ellerman Foundation
- How we co-create applications with grantholders by Friends Provident Foundation
- What our storytelling approach to reporting has shown us by Blagrave Trust
- What environmental fundraisers told us about reporting and evaluation processes by EFN and the Green Fundraisers Forum
- Exploring the power of pooled funding by Synchronicity Earth
Key takeaways:
Improving the effectiveness of funder-fundraiser relationships is not about applying a fixed set of rules. There is no single model of effective grantmaking, and funders operate within different contexts, constraints and trade-offs.
- Quick, ‘sweet spot’ approaches exist. These are relatively simple changes that can reduce unnecessary work, improve accessibility and free up more time for both parties to focus on relationships and impact.
- More complex challenges need longer-term and more nuanced approaches.
- Learning from others is another important enabler of progress.
- Trust and transparency sit at the centre of these issues and the solutions to them.
Many of these recommendations have also been discussed by others working in the sector, such as IVAR, ACF, and more.
Concluding thoughts
We hope this report inspires funders with stories of solutions and new and improved funding practices, whilst recognising the urgency of the challenges the sector faces. The report aims to support funders and fundraisers to understand each other’s challenges better, and work together to overcome them. After all, improvements to funding practices not only benefit environmental groups and fundraisers, but also environmental funders and their missions to create positive environmental impacts.
If you’re a funder reading this report, we ask you to consider what you could experiment with? What are you curious to learn more about? What might you need to let go? In a sector responding to escalating climate and nature crises, the way funding is provided directly shapes the resilience, diversity and effectiveness of the entire ecosystem.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to everyone who contributed to this research through the survey, interviews, the 2026 EFN annual funder retreat session, writing and editing.
Thank you to the co-authors (ordered alphabetically): Nick Addington (EFN/William Grant Foundation), Julie Christie (EFN) Tara Cooper (EFN), Patricia Cremona (EFN), Marina Stavroula Melanidis (University of Cambridge).
Thank you to the working group (ordered alphabetically): Sufina Ahmad (John Ellerman Foundation), Aruna Bahia (Co-op Foundation), Tessa Durham (Gower Street), James Goodman (London Funders), Lauren Gupta (The Helvellyn Foundation), Bonnie Hewson (Farming the Future), Claire Jenkin (Rebel Restoration), Christine Oliver (Polden-Puckham Charitable Foundation), Liz Parry (Ennismore Foundation), Sharmin Rouf (Fishmongers’ Company)
Thank you to the authors of the case studies featured throughout the report (in alphabetical order): Sufina Ahmad (John Ellerman Foundation), Aruna Bahia (Coop Foundation), Abigail Gibson (Friends Provident Foundation), Sophie Grange- Chamfray (Synchronicity Earth), Oliver Hunt and David Hunter (Bates Wells), Richard Luck-Hille (Kreitman Foundation), John Merrill (Brian Mercer Trust), Daniel Newton (Blagrave Trust), Christine Oliver (Polden-Puckham Charitable Foundation), David Thomas (Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme), Asimina Vergou (Co-op Foundation), Nathalie Walters (Samworth Foundation).
We also thank those who reviewed report drafts (in alphabetical order): Oscar Brennecke-Dunn (EFN), Catherine Bryan (EFN), Naomi Carter (EFN), Liz Gadd (EFN), Helen Kersley (IVAR/EFN), Rachel Khan (ACF), Natasha Ratter (EFN) and Bryony Timms (EFN).