Environmental NGOs – Where the Money Goes
Lack of funding for environmental groups is a chronic and worldwide problem.
These groups are arguably some of the most important change-drivers. They are the ones with the data at their fingertips, the energy and creativity to tackle environmental problems head-on, and the will to keep at it even when the mainstream media has decided that, this week, some other fad is more interesting. Yet these resources and skills are being hampered by a chronic and, for some, severe lack of funding.
Since the issues facing the planet are so dire in their implications, so ominous in their warnings, you’d think people might feel moved to help those who are trying to help all of us survive. Yet when asked what issues concern them most, registered voters consistently place things such as climate change close to or at the bottom of their lists.
This isn’t a product of the current economic downturn, either. Green charities and organisations have suffered from chronic underfunding for years. According to a report by New Philanthropy Capital in 2007, only an estimated two per cent of charitable grants in the UK go to environmental charities and only an estimated five per cent of public donations go to environmental causes.
Major funders are also not coughing up the cash. A report by the Environmental Funders Network (EFN) in 2008 showed larger funders gave just £34 million in environmental grants in 2005-6 – a mere 1.6 per cent of the £2 billion given by the UK’s largest grant-making trusts in 2004-5. It also found that funding directly
tackling climate change accounts for just eight per cent of the environmental grants made by the larger trust-funders.
On the one hand it could be argued that funders remain daunted by the scale of the issues these groups are tackling and are unsure about how to track the impact of their investments – which may be why the EFN report showed the projects most likely to win funding from trusts and foundations is measurable, ‘practical’ conservation work, closely followed by education projects.
On the other hand there is the issue of public apathy that nobody seems to know how to address. This, in part, may also be due to an inability to measure things – such as the rate and seriousness of global change, the impact of individual actions and the relative feel-good factor of buying a Fairtrade coffee versus funding an environmental NGO.
Because it is fundamentally a grassroots movement, environmentalism is dependent upon subscriptions, donations and private financing. It can’t be expected to have to rely upon largesse from governments or corporations (in many cases commercial sponsorship is a real hindrance to progress). Private funds and private citizens are not going to donate to a cause they don’t know/ care about or can’t make sense of. Which may be why Europeans spend their money on other things: $10 billion on ice cream, $13 billion on haircare products each year. These, seemingly, are things we understand.
The irony is that there is a tacit understanding among most environmental groups that the ultimate measure of their success will be when the day comes that they are no longer needed. Thanks to the funding squeeze, many will go out of business long before they can have the chance to bow out gracefully.
Pat Thomas
This article was an addition to an article originally titled Buddy Can you Spare Some Green? which first appeared in the Ecologist May 2009 – and is an eye-opening read about what it can really be like to work for environmental NGOs.
