Initiatives
VONNE Climate Action Alliance - Empowering nonprofits to take action against climate change
INT-937-772
About
Why the work is being done
The VONNE Climate Action Alliance is a group of 17 community and charity organisations based in North East England.
Together we want to encourage and support other not-for-profit VCSE (voluntary, community and social enterprise) organisations to take action to address the climate crisis.
Through this Development programme we want to provide the tools, resources and knowledge to support the VCSE sector to take positive action both at an organisational level, and through their work with marginalised communities.
Problem to solve
We know that there is a willingness from environmental and climate action organisations to connect and work with 'mainstream' VCSE organisations in order to share skills, resources and knowledge, and at the same time extend the reach of these climate action groups into marginalised communities who they have struggled to engage with.
We have also discovered there is very little bespoke support, advice, tools and training for VCSE organisations to take action against climate change.
More and more funders are expecting clear sustainability plans and actions from VCSE organisations to secure income.
We have also discovered there is very little bespoke support, advice, tools and training for VCSE organisations to take action against climate change.
More and more funders are expecting clear sustainability plans and actions from VCSE organisations to secure income.
Who are the users and what do they need to do
We have discovered through the Definition programme user research, prototyping and testing, there is a strong appetite from VCSE organisations to accelerate their actions in response to the climate emergency, ecological collapse and ensuring a just transition for all people and communities to a green economy.
Organisations that we have engaged with include a neighbourhood based community centre with community garden, youth organisations, organisations working with refugees and asylum seekers, and older people's groups amongst others.
Some have their own buildings which they want to improve the energy efficiency of and others have other challenges e.g. Fareshare North East that have a fleet of diesel vans to deliver food to food banks across the region.
VCSE organisations wish to act at an organisational level to reduce their own carbon emissions and support nature. Over time, they also want to integrate climate action, nature based activities and green skills/employability activities into their core work with beneficiaries as well as encouraging and ensuring disadvantaged and those 'seldom heard' in this space have a voice.
Key outputs:
- A fully functional and accessible resource platform, either building on the current WordPress site or utilising another low-code/no-code alternative, with additional features and content to address the challenge outlined include a map/ directory of network members.
- A communications and engagement strategy and digital tools to support engagement to grow the network and communications across the network
Key outcomes:
- VCSE organisations have the tools, knowledge and support to take measurable and impactful organisational environmental action - they are enabled to take their first steps and build confidence.
- Create connections between VCSE organisations and environment groups both on and offline and enable sharing of skills and knowledge leading to partnership work and broadening the reach and impact of environmental organisations.
- We want to build a VCSE collaborative movement of organisations working in this space, enabling collective bravery, open working and peer support to increase the impact of this work.