Pooled Funding
There is an urgent need to scale up effective funding for environmental conservation across the globe. As a conservation funder, we recognise that collaboration can be extremely challenging. Pooled funding is an approach and an intention around how we fund conservation designed to help like-minded donors to work together to provide more effective funding to organisations that have the greatest impact.
Working together for better conservation funding
Since 2017, Synchronicity Earth has been exploring and developing ways to bring much needed funding to some of Earth’s most overlooked and underfunded regions, ecosystems, and species. Our pooled funding approach currently supports our Congo Basin, Amphibian, and Freshwater programmes, and in 2023 we launched the Chrysalis Youth Fund, to support young people around the world to mobilise and act to protect nature in some of the most biologically and culturally diverse regions on Earth.
Pooled funding allows donors to combine resources to provide critical support for the most effective conservation organisations and individuals working to protect the natural world. It amplifies funding effectiveness, maximises the time smaller, locally led organisations in high priority regions can spend on critical conservation work, and provides a vibrant forum for knowledge sharing, learning, and connection between funders and the people and places they fund.
Synchronicity Earth Pooled Funds
Congo Basin
Synchronicity Earth’s Congo Basin Pooled Fund was launched in 2017. The fund currently has seven contributing donors and provides support for 19 mostly local organisations working in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon.
Amphibians
Two in every five amphibian species are threatened with extinction. Synchronicity Earth’s Amphibian Conservation Fund was launched in 2020, in collaboration with Fondation Segré, to fund organisations helping to reverse this trend.
Youth
The Chrysalis Youth Fund supports young leaders and youth groups to mobilise for the environment. Established in 2023, the Fund aims to amplify funding for young people working to combat biodiversity loss and climate breakdown.
* Images (L to R): Chris Scarffe; Gilbert Adum; Leandro Justen
Why take a pooled funding approach?
Benefits to funders
Pooled funders get access to the research and expertise of our Programmes Team and affiliates on key gaps and priorities in conservation.
Contributors to a pooled fund are connected to smaller local and grassroots groups which are historically underfunded and can be hard to reach, particularly for larger funders.
Building strong long-term relationships and managing grants takes time and commitment when supporting local and community-led organisations. Pooled funding reduces that burden for funders as the relationships are held and grants managed by Synchronicity Earth.
Donors can take part in webinars hosted by Synchronicity Earth with participation from partners on the ground, experts in the field, and other funders. This helps to strengthen understanding of the local context, challenges and impact of funding, and deepens the connection between the donor and the people and organisations carrying out the work.
Members of the local community consulting on manatee conservation with our partner AMMCO, funded through our Congo Basin Pooled Fund. Image © Hermann Peka
Members of Instituto Curicaca, a partner supported through the Amphibian Conservation Fund. Image © Chris Scarffe
Benefits for funded partners
Pooled funding provides a stable source of long-term, flexible income for partners, often providing for core support, one of the most difficult types of funding to obtain for many smaller organisations.
Receiving pooled funding support increases visibility for smaller organisations, giving them access to larger foundations that would otherwise not be reachable. Our partners have often successfully accessed significant funding directly from larger funders as a result of our pooled funding approach.
Pooled funds help to bring both funders and conservation organisations together, providing our partners with opportunities to meet and learn from their peers, strengthen their own networks and nurture new collaborations.
With support from a pooled fund, partners are released from the burden of having to write multiple proposals and reports for donors who may have very different reporting processes and requirements.
“What I really appreciate about the approach is that Synchronicity Earth has been really intentional about learning for both donors and partners. Synchronicity Earth really is the gold standard among re-grantors (…) because it thinks about the needs of grantee partners in a really holistic way.”
Kai Carter, Global Climate Initiative director at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Our Congo Basin, Amphibian, and Freshwater programmes, along with our Chrysalis Youth Fund, all benefit from our pooled funding approach. In 2024, we are continuing to develop our pooled funds with a new regional pooled fund for locally led conservation in Melanesia.
To learn more about our pooled funding approach, or join one of our pooled fund, contact us: