John Ellerman Foundation: Environment
Overview
Note:
Their current strategy ends in 2025, and they are undertaking a strategic review to plan for 2025 onwards. There are no plans to close as part of this review. However, as with any new strategy, there may be some changes to their funding priorities and criteria. These changes will be flagged up in advance, and they will transition to any such changes to an agreed and publicly available timeline with clear guidance on how they wish to minimise any disruption to current and prospective applicants.
Criteria applicable to all funding
They ask that organisations applying to us meet the following two criteria, which apply to all three of our funding categories:
- Organisational size and form
They prioritise UK-registered charities with an income between £100,000 and £10m. This focus allows them to use their capacity and resources by supporting organisations that are established and experienced in the work they undertake. They rarely fund organisations that are outside of this preferred income range.
- National significance
They want their funds to make a difference, with as wide an impact as possible, to organisations that are nationally significant. This may involve creating art of the highest quality; working across a wide geographical area; or sharing and expanding successful initiatives. They also recognise it may be necessary to change the system, and that by influencing policy, campaigning or adopting other approaches more far-reaching and longer-term benefits are possible.
National significance may look different in each of their categories:
- Arts – the creation of new work in itself has the potential to create a national or international legacy to inspire others. Using high quality as a key criterion is designed to strengthen and widen impact, thus demonstrating UK-wide significance. Partnerships, whether cross-art form, cross-sector or geographical, may also enhance this significance, and touring and digital output may contribute to a national footprint.
- Environment – certain species, habitats and/or ecosystems may have national significance due to their relative scarcity and/or the benefits ('ecosystem services') they provide to people. Some organisations may occupy a nationally significant niche because few other organisations cover the thematic area they specialise on.
Initiatives which have national reach or reach within the countries that make up the UK, may also be nationally significant. Furthermore, more locally based initiatives which have clear potential for replicability or are scalable to country level may also be considered to be nationally significant. They also consider the biodiversity of the UK Overseas Territories to be of national and/or international importance.
- Social Action – they look to support organisations whose work is rooted in practical experience, often in more than one locality, and is nationally significant because their work can be applied at an England, Scotland, Wales and/or Northern Ireland level.
What the look for in applications:
- Effectiveness and impact – this could mean a good understanding of the needs being met and how best to tackle them; awareness of how your work adds value and relates to and complements the work of others; effective systems to monitor and review progress; a culture of learning, reflection and improvement; and being alert to opportunities to widen impact.
- Strong governance and management – a diverse and representative organisation with a well-qualified and engaged board and strong and inspiring leadership; a thorough understanding and oversight of finances across the Board and leadership team; and awareness of the organisation’s strengths and weaknesses.
- Financial management – All applicants should demonstrate a funding need and are not expected to hold excessive free reserves, i.e. unspent, unrestricted or designated funds, unless there is a clear Board approved reason for doing so. They expect applicants to have a reserves policy in place that is being followed.
- Collaborative – this could mean organisations that are well connected, understand how they fit within their world, and work well with others relevant to the work being done.
- Fit with category criteria – they recommend that in your application you focus on one of their categories, as each has slightly different criteria. They find those seeking to apply across multiple categories tend to present a weaker case than those applying to one.
Core funding has long been their signature, but they are also happy to make grants for projects or programmes. These costs could include:
- staff salaries, training and expenses
- day-to-day running costs and operations
- monitoring and evaluation
- communications and digital innovation
Funding Level
Their main grants programme generally makes grants of between £10,000 and £50,000 per year, for up to three years.
Last year their grants in the Arts, Environment, and Social Action categories ranged from £30,000 to £150,000 and the average grant size was around £106,000.
To get an idea of the size of grant they make, take a look at the grants list on their website, and they also publish their data to 360Giving which can be reviewed here.
ENVIRONMENT: People and Planet
They believe that a healthy environment is essential to the wellbeing and resilience of people and nature.
Their aim is to achieve greater harmony between people and nature, through the protection, restoration and sustainable use of the natural world.
They are interested in organisations that understand the interdependence of people and nature and apply this in their thinking and practice. Often, it is the system that has to change, so we will also support those working to influence governments, businesses, financial and economic systems and civil society through policy, advocacy and campaigning work.
What they fund:
They concentrate their Environment funding under two main headings:
- The Ocean – protection, restoration and sustainable use of the ocean, through more and effectively and equitably managed protected areas; ocean recovery; engaging coastal communities; reducing overfishing and addressing other harmful effects of human activity on, and in the ocean, such as pollution.
- Land and fresh waters – building healthier ecosystems in urban or rural environments, through effective and sustainable management including implementing evidence-based interventions conservation and restoration; connecting fragmented habitats; and landscape-scale work to protect and restore places of special significance. We will also support work to reduce or prevent the damaging impacts of human activities, particularly climate change, and air, land and water pollution from chemicals and other pollutants.
Their focus is on the UK and UK waters.
However, they are also keen to support land and marine-based work in the UK Overseas Territories (UKOTs). For work in the UKOTs, they welcome applications from UK-charities working in partnership with local Territory-based NGOs and from charities based in the UKOTs. UKOTs-based charities can apply either directly or through a charity conduit in the UK. For more details on this please see the FAQs, specifically the question: ‘Do you make grants overseas?’.
What they are looking for:
Organisations that do some of the following:
- seek to improve the natural environment
- understand both the significance of habitats for human wellbeing, as well as the impact of people on nature
- look for sustainable solutions by ensuring that the livelihoods and economic needs of local communities are integrated into their thinking and strategy
- work collaboratively
- seek to take an evidence-based approach
- tackle underlying causes as well as symptoms.
For more details and guidelines for each area of work see the website
For FAQ's visit the website here
For information on grants the Foundation has awarded click here