WWF-UK & Land Food and Farming

Great to read these reports. Good to have this validation of results, but the learning is especially important. If we are going to do small grants from WWF-UK to CSOs in the future this is a hugely important reflection to draw on: who, how and for what outcomes.

About the work

Between July 2020 and June 2022 WWF-UK were allocated £2.8 million from the Quadrature Climate Foundation (QCF). The overall aim of the funding was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from UK farming and land use and build a movement around action on climate, food and nature. Part of the Quadrature programme is the Land Food and Farming Fund, which supported organisations campaigning for changes around food, farming and land use by providing grants of up to £25,000, pluswrap around support. The purpose of the fund was to facilitate conversations amongst a diverse range of audiences around sustainable land use and nature-friendly farming

What we did

WWF-UK appointed Shephard & Moyes Ltd to carry out an independent evaluation of the two distinct elements of the movement building strand of the Quadrature programme. For the Land, Food and Farming Fund we first facilitated a workshop with the WWF-UK team and grant recipients, to explore the outcomes for the funded projects, generate research questions and identify appropriate evaluation methods.

To produce the two evaluation reports we firstly co-designed a suite of tools with the successful grantees, in order to collect a standardised suite of evaluation data that would help us to understand who the projects have reached and what outcomes were achieved. We carried out 1-1 interviews with the grantees to develop a better understanding of their projects and what data collection tools would work for them. The interim report focused on the set up of the Fund, its strategic fit and relevance to grantees and progress to date. This final report focused more on the impact of the projects; on the people who took part and the grantee organisations. It also considered the legacy of the Fund. To produce this final report we analysed the data and reports produced by the grantees, visited sessions to speak to participants, carried out 1-1 telephone interviews and facilitated a Learning workshop with the organisations and WWF-UK.

The difference we made

Our evaluation report has captured important learning for WWF-UK on its role in supporting small organisations within the regenerative farming and food production space.  We also provided capacity building support to the grantees, including training in evaluation and peer research, helping to build skills around evaluation in smaller organisations.