Delivering effective conservation practice: the role of funders
This blog post was written by Simon Wightman (Lead Funding Manager, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation) and Patricia Cremona & Sophia Cooke (Environmental Funders Network). This is the third in a series of blog posts from our Delivering Effective Conservation Practice meeting, held in January 2026.
We’re all well aware that we face an urgent nature crisis, and the resources available to address it fall far short of what’s needed. In this context, how can we ensure that biodiversity conservation is delivered as effectively as possible?
This is the million (or billion!)-dollar question that was discussed at the Delivering Effective Conservation Practice conference hosted at the University of Cambridge in early January by Conservation Evidence, the Cambridge Conservation Initiative and the Centre for Science and Policy. The conference was attended by several hundred conservation practitioners, funders, policymakers and other stakeholders who shared insights, challenges and practical strategies to enhance conservation outcomes on the ground.
Below we outline our key takeaways from the conference about the role of funders in supporting effective conservation (see additional blogs for more detail on the conference workshops and presentations).
What are the different ways in which funders can support effective conservation practice?
1. Encourage practitioners to draw on the available evidence to inform work they are seeking funding for, taking into account evidence available outside the published literature, including Indigenous and local knowledge where relevant. Funders can ask about this at an appropriate stage in the application process – without placing undue additional time burden on applicants (see 18 example approaches from funders here). Funders can also support applicants to access the available evidence where needed, for example using tools such as the Conservation Evidence platform.
2. Support practitioners to embed evidence generation and use into their culture and strategy – for example by funding capacity building for evidence generation and use (which could be core funding, and/or dedicated funding for capacity building), and sharing examples of how organisations have systematically embedded evidence use into their approach. (Read examples from four organisations here, and checklists to help organisations move towards evidence generation and use here).
3. Provide funding for initiatives that support effective evidence generation, dissemination and use across the sector, such as tools, training and events that bring those who produce evidence together with those who seek to use it.
4. Provide dedicated funding – over a sufficient time period – for generating evidence as part of funded projects, recognising that it often takes many years to obtain meaningful results, especially when testing the effects of conservation actions. Funding should ideally support the most robust study design possible, for example with replication, controls and before-and-after monitoring (see further discussion from funders and practitioners here). BUT of course this funding should only be allocated where necessary to fill an evidence gap, and where appropriate for the project (see below).
5. Recognise that not every project needs to generate new evidence, as sufficient evidence may already be available. It is often the tried-and-tested, rather than ‘novel’, work that is hardest to attract funding for – even if it may be more impactful. Furthermore, some projects may not be appropriate to generate reliable evidence, for example if the sample size is too small or adequate capacity is unavailable.
6. Place as much value on sharing lessons learned as on sharing successes, and communicate this to your grantholders to build confidence in sharing what has not worked. If grantholders believe funders only want to hear about successes, this could lead to a bias in the results reported, compromising the reliability of this evidence.
7. Encourage the dissemination of evidence from funded projects with the wider sector, supported by dedicated funding where needed, to ensure other practitioners and policymakers can benefit; for example, by submitting evidence on the effects of conservation actions to the Conservation Evidence journal, or simply ensuring project reports are openly accessible.
8. Support large-scale, collaborative initiatives, pooling resources with other funders if appropriate; such projects may be more likely to generate reliable evidence, and enable knowledge sharing on evidence generation and use between the different organisations involved.
9. Acknowledge the value (and in some cases, necessity) of qualitative data in addition to quantitative data (qualitative data is non-numeric data, for example answers to open-ended survey or interview questions, audio-visual recordings, and images). While it is worth questioning established practices that have not been rigorously tested, qualitative data can be a key component of the evidence base.
10. Recognise that it is often not a lack of conservation evidence that is holding back progress, but an inability to present this evidence in a way that tells a persuasive story and leads to human behaviour change. This crucial communications and behaviour change work – which, like conservation, is more likely to be effective when it is evidence-based – urgently needs more funding.
While there is clearly much more work to be done, the progress that has already been made in this area by funders and practitioners – and their willingness to share their experiences – was extremely encouraging to see. Initiatives such as Conservation Evidence that bring together funders with practitioners and policymakers, encouraging them to learn from each other and work together to identify solutions, have demonstrated their enormous value in driving conservation progress and we hope there will be many more such opportunities in future.
We look forward to being part of further discussions among this growing community of practice, and the Environmental Funders Network is very happy to help connect any funders who would be interested in learning from others in this area. Do get in touch at info@greenfunders.org if you’d like to discuss further the ideas explored here.
Conservation Evidence acknowledges financial support from the University of Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy Policy Innovation Fund.
