We were delighted to be joined by Florence Miller, Director of Environmental Funders Network (EFN), at our Members’ Lunch & Learn session on 23 February, 2023.

Florence has been in the role since 2012 and previously lived in the US, where she ran a national grants programme focused on innovative conservation.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can support highly impactful environmental projects, why not join us at EFN Live on Thursday 30th March? This is an online crowdfunding event run in partnership with EFN and you can register here.

Who are EFN and what do they do?

EFN has two goals: to support environmental funders so that they can be more effective in their giving and to increase the amount of money going towards environmental causes. 

It was set up twenty years ago to help network trusts, foundations and individual donors giving to environmental causes, to help them stay abreast of the range of environmental issues and the approaches to addressing them, and to connect with one another. 

We hold regular events for funders, as well as producing research and other resources to support their giving. 

How will you know when you’ve achieved your goals?

The easiest metric is the total amounts of money going to environmental causes – and we are starting to see that rise fairly steeply, which is great after years of very low levels of giving. We don’t take full credit for that, but we’re pleased to have been here and able to support it. 

It’s harder to measure effectiveness. We tend to look at both how funds are given and what they’re being given to. In terms of how funding is given, we know that long-term, unrestricted funding is transformative for the organisations and movements addressing environmental issues – substantially more so than one year, project-based grants. So we ask funders whether they are practising this sort of philanthropy, and we ask environmental groups if they’re finding it easier to come by long-term, unrestricted (or core) funding. 

In terms of what is being funded, we look to see whether previously underfunded areas of work or approaches are starting to receive more funding. Through our research, we’ve identified ‘Cinderella’ issues that, despite being the drivers or causes of environmental degradation, tend to receive little funding. Examples of such issues are finance (e.g. of the fossil fuel industry) and toxic chemicals. There are also approaches to change, such as policy advocacy and activism, which tend to be harder to fund, but which can be game-changing.

What is your advice for someone looking to fund environmental organisations for the first time?

We tend to encourage funders to think about where they’ll focus in a few different ways. Firstly, what issues are they looking to address? Obviously climate change comes up for a lot of people, but there’s also biodiversity, food and farming, access to green space, marine issues, and so on. 

Then we encourage them to think about the different approaches to change and to understand what might be underfunded, as well as what excites them. For example, they could fund advocacy and/or policy work, activism, culture and narrative work, litigation. We emphasise that we need all of these approaches but that ideally they will work in concert with one another, not in isolated and disjointed ways.

Then finally there is geography – where in the world will they be directing their funding? Some funders in the UK will only fund here, but obviously there is much more money available for environmental work here than in many other countries, so we encourage them to think about where they could have the most impact. 

Once they’ve started to narrow down their focus area, we can play a matchmaking role, connecting them with other funders with similar interests, so that they can learn from those already experienced in those areas. That is, I think, the value of the network.

Is it too late to support the environment?

In my view, everything we do now is worth it. People are suffering right now as a result of climate and nature breakdown. This will only get worse if we do nothing. Every pound given today will be worth several more once we’ve traveled further down the trajectories we’re on; the time to act is now. 

Do you try to bring underrepresented voices to the table?

Absolutely we do – and we want to be doing much more. Part of our strategy is to give a platform to the voices of those who are most affected by environmental issues, with a particular focus on racialized communities. In every issue that we present to the members of the network, we’re trying to think about different voices. 

Are there any easy wins for the environment?

It’s not necessarily ‘easy’ but there are approaches that solve multiple issues at once. Take for example, the cost of living crisis. People are freezing in their homes as they’re unable to afford their heating bills. We need to be insulating homes. That is the most obvious way to improve people’s livelihoods and address the climate crisis, all at the same time. Ideally we will always be addressing social and environmental issues in tandem. Not doing so risks making one or the other worse.