Securing funding for environmental work can be a hard sell: it is often abstract, slow and sometimes invisible. Rewilding, habitat restoration and nature recovery may take years before a meaningful change can be seen. And unlike visitors to a building or users of a service, the numbers and experience of people’s engagement with landscape and nature are notoriously difficult to quantify. How do you measure the quiet joy of a view, time spent outdoors, or the impact volunteering might have on someone’s sense of wellbeing? All of this makes it challenging for fundraisers to explain why support is needed now.
People as well as Place
A strong Case for Support makes your work about people as well as place. Move beyond describing environmental loss and towards articulating the wider benefits of the work you are seeking to deliver. Your Case for Support also provides a shared narrative for your organisation, becoming the bridge which connects specialist nature restoration work to the wider impact on local communities.
The key is to start with people and place, rather than an abstract environmental crisis. The challenge for fundraisers is to translate ecological ambition into everyday human outcomes. Instead of opening with “We face a global biodiversity emergency…”, or describing declining species or habitats, begin with a specific landscape and community: a river catchment that now floods more often, a local park where wildlife has slowly disappeared, or a former industrial site that could become a vital corridor for nature and people. This immediately grounds your story in a place your reader can imagine and care about.
For each nature-based outcome, ask “what does this mean for people?” More trees on steep slopes might mean less flooding. Better managed agricultural run-off means cleaner water. Restored wetlands could support wildlife tourism and volunteering. Better-connected urban green spaces can improve mental health, provide safe routes to school and give children daily contact with nature.
Making the journey visible
Projects that deliver for nature also need a timescale. Be honest about the long-term nature of your work, but make the journey visible. Set out early milestones – hectares restored, volunteer days delivered or the first returning species. Funders and donors increasingly understand that impact takes time; your role is to show how their support today helps unlock each stage along the way.
This Earth Day, a concise, people-centred Case for Support can help nature and conservation charities turn complex restoration plans into something funders and donors can understand, feel and back with confidence.
How Craigmyle can help
At Craigmyle, our consultants have extensive experience in developing Cases for Support that funders can engage with, for environmental organisations and charities of all kinds. If you would like help refining yours – for Earth Day or beyond – we would be delighted to talk. Contact us to arrange an inital conversation.
