Summary
Farming the Future is a pooled-fund and movement building organisation that uses participatory grant-making, sociocracy and trust-based philanthropy to support collaboration on systems change in UK food and farming.
Aims and activities
Aims and questions
Aims and activities
Our vision is for a well-resourced, just transition of UK farming and food systems, centred on wellbeing for producers, people and planet. Our mission is to connect, strengthen and grow the agroecology and food sovereignty movement and create the enabling conditions for change by improving the flow of resources for connection and collaboration, through trust-based funding.
Since 2019 we have distributed over £3 million to 120 collaborations and pioneering projects involving over 140 organisations, using funds pooled together by more than 15 donors. You can read more About Us, our Pooled Fund and the collaborative projects we support on our website. Our pooled fund responds to changing needs and gaps in provision based on listening with our funded partners, and uses participatory grant-making with Ambassadors from the sector we support to resource the capacity to collaborate, convene and work in coalition.
Together we are:
- Increasing funding and support flowing to those who are collaborating to create the enabling conditions of systems change (from policy to practice, capacity to build relationships to narrative change)
- Supporting a shift of decision-making power and asset stewardship into the hands of producers and communities
- Listening and responding to shared and emerging needs and using this to make the case to other funders for more trust-based funding for agroecology and food sovereignty in the UK.
How to get involved
We aim to build our pooled fund to £1 million annually in the next 5 years. We are open to funders joining, both large and small, and encourage donor partners to get involved in the collective if they have the time and interest.
You can read our invitation to funders, which highlights some of the many benefits of joining a pooled fund.
If you are interested in exploring the link between your work and food and farming systems, connecting and working alongside other funders and movement organisations, supporting systems change and movement building in the space between your strategy and others, or testing out more participatory funding practices, then we would encourage you to get in touch with us to talk about ways we could collaborate. If you are interested in finding out more, please contact Bonnie Hewson, Director.
Who's involved
Who was involved
The following donors are currently involved: The A Team Foundation, The Roddick Foundation, Be the Earth Foundation, The Savitri Trust, The Kreitman Foundation, IG Advisors, National Lottery Community Fund, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, John Ellerman Foundation.
Learning and Resources
We share our learnings as well as some from our grantees on our Learning Blog. On our website you can find our Annual Reports, Theory of Change and other publications, stories from the field, and other information on our funding practices.
Case studies on our work:
Impatience Earth case study: Collaboration and Pooled Funding with Farming the Future
Place Matters case study: Lessons on UK Field Building from Farming the Future
