There is a serious shortfall in finance for the environment sector, which receives less than 9% of funding awarded by UK trusts and foundations. While one solution is to grow the available funding, another important strategy is to increase its effectiveness, ensuring maximum impact for every pound spent.
This report examines areas of ineffectiveness in the funding landscape, homing in on twenty key issues facing environmental fundraisers. We also explore funder-driven solutions to these challenges and synthesise them to offer six cross-cutting broad recommendations.
Many of our findings are not new but have been echoed repeatedly in other research and campaigns. We hope that, by compiling and assessing these issues here, we can catalyse progress in the environment sector, foster the wellbeing of fundraisers, increase the resilience of environmental groups and amplify the impact of funders.