Charities should take environmental issues into account when fundraising returns to normal levels after the crisis, the Institute of Fundraising (IoF) has said.
The organisation has today published an environmental toolkit that aims to “help to develop a mindset that considers environment in everyday professional choices and actions, and offer a direction of travel to charities”.
In the foreword, Peter Lewis, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising, said: “Crises can be vehicles for change as well as challenge. We have an opportunity now to think about how we can build back better, and that must include environmental considerations.
“Returning to normality does not, and should not, have to include a return to the status quo – the choices and decisions we make now have the potential to reshape our future for the people and causes we represent and serve.”
Most fundraisers asked about environmental practices
The toolkit includes a series of advice and information on how to embed green fundraising in a charity’s day-to-day work. It explains how to start a conversation with board members and colleagues, covers environmental policies and risk assessments and includes practical advice for what people working in different fundraising sectors can do.
For example, digital fundraisers can try and reduce the weight of their emails; trust fundraisers can ask grantmakers where their money is invested; individual giving fundraisers can ensure that direct mail is printed on recycled paper; event fundraisers can go digital with event materials and vegetarian with meals.
On holding funders to account, the report says that this doesn’t mean turning down grants, but that simply asking the question can encourage greater transparency around investments.
It says: “If even 20% of grantees asked this question, it would allow grant managers to more easily make a case internally for ethical and transparent investments.”
The toolkit also highlights the business case for environmentally conscious fundraising.
A survey of Chartered Institute of Fundraising members found that the majority of fundraisers have been asked about their organisation’s environmental policies or practices at some point, with 50% being asked by staff, 24% by individual supporters or donors and 25% by funders.
The toolkit introduction on the IoF website says: “The climate emergency is far bigger than fundraising, but the choices we make about how we fundraise, the donations we accept or refuse, or through the engagement we have with millions of people who support and donate to charities, we have the potential to reshape our future for the people and causes we represent and serve.”
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