If you’ve been following us on LinkedIn or Instagram over the past few weeks, you’ll have heard us talk about how we will do philanthropy differently, how we’re building a community not just a fundraising campaign, and how our members will be appreciated for their skills, experience, talent and time, not just their donation.
But what does that all really mean?
Right at the start of your membership journey, you make the decision at which level to join. There won’t be any difference in the benefits you get as a member if you join at the £10/month level or the £100/month level. We want this fund to be accessible to you regardless of your financial situation, and we want to celebrate you for more than your financial contribution. Someone who joins at £10/month might introduce a further ten women to the fund or provide vital pro bono support to one of our grantees. So, while we will be over the moon to receive some members at the higher levels, valuing a member for their membership fee alone doesn’t make sense to us.
Once you’ve joined, you’ll be invited into the member community, in which you can participate as much, or as little, as you like. Participation might mean attending webinars with interesting speakers, including our grantees. It might mean volunteering to support some of the functions of the fund, such as screening and shortlisting the applications for funding. And, most excitingly, it might mean participating in our mentorship programme, where we match the skills offered by our members pro bono to the skills and capacity required by our grantees. And of course, participation means the right to vote on the applications that will receive our grants. That’s what we mean by having agency over where your money goes.
As we grow, we’ll look into the possibility of opening local (probably county level) chapters. That will mean members will get a chance to vote for and support more projects that are local to them. It will create more opportunities to get to know the grantees and their projects, and maybe even to meet some fellow members who, you never know, might live just down the road from you!
This is how Women’s Fund for Nature is different from other charities. You won’t just hear from us when it’s time for another donation. We invite you to be part of what we’re building, to hear first-hand from the people and initiatives you support, to be in the room when funding decisions are made, and to really understand what your support is doing for young people across the UK working on the frontlines of climate action.
We want membership of the fund to be an enjoyable, educational, and inspiring experience! We’re just starting out so anyone who joins the fund now will be helping to build and to craft that membership experience. All feedback, ideas, and suggestions will be welcomed wholeheartedly. In these early days, we might seem a little disorganised at times, and we may well make mistakes, but we promise to learn from them. It may take us a while to become a well-oiled machine, but our mission will be constant: to fund and champion youth-led responses to the climate and nature emergencies in the UK. So, if you like the sound of being part of a community of women on a mission, and you don’t mind a little bit of building-the-plane-while-flying-it mentality, then please join us!