Making the case for flexible funding in conservation
Many leaders will confess that working in the conservation and environmental field is not easy. Whether it's addressing sudden environmental crises - such as the severe drought our Maliasili partners in Namibia are currently facing - seizing opportunities to protect endangered species, or strengthening community resilience, conservation organizations need to be agile. Even without these urgent challenges, organizations continuously require money to manage daily operations. They must pay salaries, fuel (or fix) vehicles, build their teams’ skills, purchase equipment, and more.
However, their organizational agility is often limited by the fact that funding is often tied to specific projects, leaving little room for adaptation. In a report released by Maliasili and Synchronicity Earth in 2022, titled "Greening the Grassroots," 92% of interviewed African civil society organizations (CSOs) identified the lack of flexible or core/unrestricted funding as a significant barrier.
What is flexible/core/unrestricted funding? This refers to financial support that allows organizations to allocate resources according to their own priorities and needs, rather than being confined to specific project requirements or predetermined categories.
What is restricted funding? This is support often tied to specific projects, rigid in its allocation, and limited to predefined outcomes and reporting requirements. This type of funding can constrain an organization's ability to respond to emerging needs and adapt to changing circumstances.
While restricted funding can be highly useful in many instances, there is an increasing call for a shift in funder thinking, allowing more autonomy to local teams in decision-making and placing trust in them to decide the best use of resources at any given time. In this Reader, three leaders - Tiana Andriamanana, Patrick Kimani, and Andrew Stein - representing different organizations and geographies share their experiences and make a case for the importance of flexible funding.
Andrew, sometimes, it's difficult to fully access flexible funding, especially as a local organization that has only been operational for a few years. What advice do you have for conservation leaders in this position?
Focus on building trust →
At the end of the day, partnerships are built on trust. Restricted funding instruments exist to ensure that donors feel their money is spent as intended. Without initial trust or a proven track record, it makes sense that there are guardrails on disbursement. During our early days, we could not attract a lot of flexible or unrestricted funding. Despite my decade-long experience in conservation, many donors wanted to ensure that my new organization would be around for the long term. In the first 8 years of our program, over 85% of our fundraising was restricted.
Only recently have we improved our ability to build the trust and partnerships that include flexible funds. Today, those who provide this support know us well and trust our mission, intentions, and team. I don’t think there are any shortcuts to trust - and I would encourage leaders of new organizations to really focus on this to attract flexible funding sooner.
“Build a strong reputation and reinforce trust with your funding partners, the communities you work with, field partners, government and other stakeholders. That way, your name will speak for itself.”
Tiana, what advice can you give to conservation leaders about asking for flexible funding? What key points do you emphasize to make the case for this type of support?
Firstly, make sure you develop your strategic plan, and if you don’t have one, set a very clear vision →
Over the years at Fanamby, we've seen that it's very important to have a strategic plan in place. This ensures that you don’t end up working with funders who do not match your objectives and you do not end up running projects that are not aligned to your mission. A strategy helps funders see your vision, understand what you want to achieve, and where you aim to go. It’s such an important tool in fundraising because it highlights where you need investment in resources, making the case for flexible funding. It also builds confidence in your leadership and shows that you’re proactive about your organization’s future.
Show your impact →
As Andrew says, a big piece of the equation, perhaps the biggest, is building trust. Trust that you’re not only an organization that is financially responsible, but also one that is achieving significant impact in your area of work. Therefore, I advise leaders to really prioritize showcasing their organization’s impact. Collect valuable data and present it in an appealing way. This evidence of the value of your work can help you make a compelling case, showing donors the tangible difference that giving you more funding - especially one that allows you to be flexible and address your greatest needs - can make.
“I advise leaders to really prioritize showcasing their organization’s impact.”
Don’t be afraid to ask →
Whether it's asking for flexible funding or explaining the challenges you’re facing with restricted, ‘project-only’ funds, don't hesitate to initiate these conversations. Remember, many donors are also learning and adapting, just like you. Many progressive donors are interested in having these types of conversations. By asking the right questions and having the right discussions, you can often help them understand the value of flexible funding and how it benefits the partnership.
Tiana, you and Andrew have both highlighted how invaluable trust is. What strategies have you used to build trust with donors and make them more comfortable with the idea of providing flexible funding?
Humanize flexible funding - put a face to it - and help funders understand the realities on the ground →
We’ve learned over time that we cannot work with partners who don’t understand our realities. The fact is that it’s hard to collaborate with funders who don’t understand the challenges we face on the ground. So the first thing we do, where possible, is invite them to the field - where they can really see and get to learn how complicated the work is, and how complex the solutions have to be.
For many donors, we’ve realized it works much better if they can put a face to something they invest in. When discussing flexible funding, many funders see the paperwork, procedures, reporting, and numbers. They see the administrative side - not the human side of it. This is a crucial part - to give a ‘face’ to flexible funding, which is ultimately about people and the organization's impact. It's about the team that makes things happen; it's about the communities they serve, the resources needed to achieve results. This is the kind of image we need donors to have when they think about this type of funding.
Have honest conversations →
As I’ve mentioned earlier, you have to have honest conversations with donors. Being brave is a huge part of attracting unrestricted money. It’s not easy or comfortable always, but having open discussions about what’s working, what’s not, and why your organization needs support that allows it to be agile and to respond to opportunities, threats and challenges is critical. We’ve observed that this transparency builds trust and shows funders that you’re committed to continuous improvement and honest communication.
Patrick, how has flexible funding helped your organization take advantage of new opportunities and expand your impact?
Flexible funding allows you to do what you need to do for the greatest impact →
Flexible funding has been very critical to our work because we operate in the dynamic world of community-led conservation. Unlike more ‘formal’ corporations and NGOs where things are rigid, working with communities requires flexibility because of the informal approaches required.
For instance, establishing conservation spaces such as the successful Munje octopus closure required a great level of detail, and listening to communities, who took at least a year to arrive at a consensus. This meant the project took longer, and ended up costing more money than planned. As Tiana mentioned, flexible funding helps you adapt to your reality on the ground. This is where this type of support came in handy because it allowed us to take more time with people, and give every community voice a chance to be heard without jeopardizing our relationship with the funder of the program, Blue Ventures.
We are currently working to strengthen local livelihoods through a Livelihood Impact Fund, which requires comprehensive feasibility assessments, extensive community consultations, business plan development, and more. We cannot predetermine the livelihood interventions because we want communities to have agency in this process. Flexible funding allows us to shape interventions that genuinely respond to community needs.
Andrew, like Patrick, how has flexible funding enabled you and your team to do your work better? Can you share specific examples of how this type of funding has made a difference?
It has enabled us to strengthen our organization with a strategy, and a better-paid team →
Before receiving unrestricted funds, we were struggling to keep the team together. Our primary funding sources capped the funds we could spend on our staff - including administration - but had heavy administrative burdens. We lost several of our management team to the private sector or larger NGOs.
“Unrestricted funds have enabled us to build our team - including hiring vital administrators. This has helped us implement our programs, meet the requirements of our donors, develop our 5-year Strategic Plan, and most importantly, pay our staff a living wage.”
We’re now able to adapt and grab opportunities →
By the nature of our work, much like Patrick, we must constantly adapt. New opportunities sometimes appear from nowhere, and we must seize them and have the momentum to act. I have a good example: after years of CLAWS operating as the driver of the Communal Herding Program, we recognized the need to shift the roles and responsibilities to the communities we work with. A highly skilled collaborator became available to help mediate and facilitate this transition. With unrestricted funds, we have hired his organization (Herding 4 Hope) to support us intensively in this process. Now, we see a path to a sustainable future with more responsibility on the livestock farmers themselves and less reliance on external support.
Flexible funding has also strengthened CLAWS' leadership →
Lastly, I ran CLAWS for seven years without a salary; my professorship supported my expenses. Since most grants only provide 10-15% for administrative expenses, I did not see a possibility to support myself, and pay my team. Yet, donors questioned my commitment by not devoting all of my time to the development of the organization. Eventually, I had to make a decision, and with the increased unrestricted funds, I could double our fundraising effort, which has now ensured I can dedicate my time to CLAWS and strengthen our programs and impact even further.
Patrick, how can conservation leaders and donors meet halfway when it comes to flexible funding?
Conservation leaders should work to maximize and show the impact of the funding →
My key advice to conservation leaders is to demonstrate to donors that flexible funding is not a blank cheque to go off-track from your goals or objectives. See it as a chance to maximize the impact of the funding through well-thought-out plans and calculated risks. They must convince donors that working with strict, inflexible funding for some aspects of community-led conservation initiatives, is merely ticking boxes that won’t serve the intended purpose in the first place.
Funders should trust local conservation organizations more →
Donors should cede some ground and trust the conservation organizations’ instinct. As organizations on the ground, we understand the reality; we come from the communities we serve and the landscapes and marine scapes we work in. Meeting halfway is the price we all have to pay to see real conservation happen, because the real point of impact is at the community level, and communities are not fashioned to work along straight lines. Flexibility and trust are how we will meet halfway.