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The Funding Landscape: Navigating the Shifts

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The Funding Landscape: Navigating the Shifts

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The donor landscape is shifting. Let’s map it.

Start by reviewing the short presentation: "WWF Public Sector Partnerships: Landscape and Issues." It gives a quick overview of the current PSP landscape and some of the key challenges we're navigating together.

Then,

Choose an image/emoji that depicts your “Donor Mood"

Example: “Mood = Stormy. We’re seeing rapid shifts in donor priorities, but using it as a chance to rethink long-term partnerships.”

What challenges or opportunities are emerging in your PSP landscape?

How are you adapting?

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WWF Public Sector Partnerships_ Landscape and Issues.

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Dear PSP and conservation practitioners!

This Padlet is your mission briefing space as we prepare for the upcoming PSP Global Virtual Retreat in June. It will take you less than 30 minutes to complete.

Here you’ll reflect on your context, engage with others, and share what you’re seeing in the field.

Instructions:

Complete each Checkpoint by adding a post (click the ➕ under each column).

You can write text, upload images, or even link to something that inspires you.

Come back anytime before the retreat to update or explore others’ reflections.

Let’s mobilize for nature — together possible!

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Time to report from the "PSP field"!

Share a recent success, challenge, or insight from your PSP journey.

You can upload a photo, link a resource, or share a (video) story. Let others learn from your experience.

Example: “We used the 5R framework to facilitate a powerful dialogue between communities and local funders. Here’s what we learned…”

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Use this space to connect with others!

Share questions, ideas, or give a shout-out to someone’s insight.

Share examples of the great PSP work you are doing and inspire colleagues!

Respond to posts using the comment or reaction buttons.

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The pressure on resources pressures us to be creative. For example by mobilising resources amongst Moroccan diaspora in the Netherlands for the Morocco office or exploring options for funding for carbon sequestration by seagrass meadows.

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To me, one of the most inspiring recent development is the start of a collaboration between WWF-NL and WWF-Norway on the Green Finance space for a Norad funding opportunity. As PSP funding become more scarce and our job more difficult, I believe that collaboration and learning from each other is the best way to continue advancing.

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In my six months at WWF-Philippines, I’ve been exposed to opportunities to identify and build donor partnerships. I recently joined meetings with embassies and organizations like IUCN, learning about donor priorities while introducing WWF’s mission. Johanna’s PSP Pathway reflection in Checkpoint 1 resonates with me: though donor relationships take time to build, they yield long-term value. I hope to continue developing these connections and joining events to explore alignment opportunities for WWF.

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Basecamp Briefing: Reconnect with Our Shared Direction

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Basecamp Briefing: Reconnect with Our Shared Direction

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As we set up basecamp, take a moment to revisit the PSP Strategic Framework (2023–2030) and reflect on where you are in your journey.

Start by watching the video! Johanna, Juliana, and Simon will walk you through a quick refresher on the three Pathways of the PSP Strategy.

Then, share your reflections:

Which part of the PSP strategy still rings most true for your work today?

Why does that matter in your current context or region?

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Discover the PSP Pathways: WWF’s Strategy for Long-Term Impac

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To me all three pathways (donor engagement, partnerships and people) remain as relevant as a few years ago. The growing pressure on donor funding makes alignment, particularly with progressive donors and funders important to jointly find ways to tackle the negative trends and find new opportunities for funding.

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This is not about giving up. It is about taking a step back and reflect on the changes that we face. Changing donor priorities force us to demonstrate the relevance of our work for other other areas of work; migration, sustainable development, energy, water security. We do have a lot to offer here.

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As a new member of WWF-Philippines, I find Pathway 3 most relevant to my work. Learning about resource mobilization, donor engagement, and project design has been especially rewarding. Strengthening PSP staff capacity and sharing resources lays the groundwork for a vibrant community that exchanges vital funding information.

PSP training is increasingly essential in the Philippines, where climate risks are high and funding opportunities, such as those from USAID, have recently declined.

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📚 reflects the shift in donor priorities toward stricter alignment with national goals, pushing WWF’s PSP team to deepen expertise in technical areas like Just Transition and blended finance. This may involve engaging technical consultants and adapting project designs while staying true to conservation goals, we can still grow skills in AI, green energy, and innovative financing models and bankability.

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I think that Pathway 3 is the most important. If we create the right conditions for our staff, foster learning opportunities and create the right support for PSP work, we will be in much better position to achieve our objectives.

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At least when working with the Dutch government at the moment we are all a bit Travolta. Looking from one side to the other, trying to understand what are the new emerging priorities of our donor.

I think in order to ensure a healthy stream of PSP funding, we need to build new partnerships and look at funding that is not earmarked to nature protection.

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The recent USAID cuts have left most stunned but they seem to reflect a growing mood in most donor countries to implement ODA cuts.

With many donors going this route and an unclear landscape of how these gaps will be filled, this is call for action for us to start thinking in a more serious and concerted manner about how to improve our PSP and other fundraising across the network.

We need to find other and equally reliable sources of funding, nurture south-south funding partnerships and think seriously about innovative ways to fundraise for our programmes.

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The three pathways are connected and interdependent, of course. In relation to my work area of Standards, Quality and Compliance, Pathway 3 resonates most strongly with my day-to-day priority activities; we need our people to have the capacity to manage according to the expected standards, and we need those standards to be effective and efficient.

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In applying for a new donor accreditation, with great coordination from the PSP team we have been able to mobilise our internal response to their 'due diligence' request pretty efficiently and demonstrate our credibility.

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I think that all three pathways work symbiotically - the process of engaging with local partners will prove more effective when relevant network offices provide guidance and support on how to best engage with them. Having the necessary data and tools in place (Pathway 3) will aid in building a data driven strategies and approches - seeking to highlight our strengthens so as build a case a for us being a partner of choice - so that we are able to effectively influence PSP partners. One cannot work without the other.

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Donor Mood = Unpredictable

I think we're seeing a global shift in country priorities, specially with the Trump administration's decision to shut down USAID along with reducing defence funding for EU and NATO with the ripple effect being felt in other important donor countries. In light of this massive hit to existing PSP resources, I think it is time that we look inwards in order to guage what has worked and what hasn't, specially in trying to guage the impact of our project interventions post project closure. Often at times, the impact of our activties cease once the funding ends. As a first off, we need to start identifying best practices from the network where work we did 10 years ago continues to yield benefits for both nature and communities to this day and seek to replicate those in other network offices and future project proposals. Second, it is crucial that we embed exit strategies, along with the relevant financial schemes + the capcity of local communities and government partners to enusre the continued impact of project interventions. We need to work towards the financial sustainability of our work.

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I agree that all three P's are key, but for me the key challenges are PSP funds and Partnerships, People, WWF people are committed, intelligent, open to challenge so we rise to the occassion with our without skills and we build them on the way. I think that the creativity, long term investment and strategy, and leadership required for 1 and 2 are our most urgent and relevant challenges

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GCF may be the greatest obstacle and most amazing opportunity

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GCF may be the greatest obstacle and most amazing opportunity

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Although our office did our best to understand and prepare ourselves for the GCF the long, obstacle ridden nature of the opportunity had discouraged us. Now GCF is "knocking on our door" and I want to be hopeful that it may prove to be a new "matured" opportunity

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It seems like pathway 3 is about WWF capacity (people), which I agree is important. However, building PSP systems and capacity should include and extend to the local partners at the same time, with the same information and training. The resulting systems (built collaboratively) would then work for both us and our partners, and would allow transitioning more funding and more conservation work to local partners.

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As all tree pathways are interdependent it is difficult to prioritize. However, I see the highest potential for fruitful discussions within the retreat are pathway I and pathway III as it is strongly embedded in in our day-to-day work. Pathway II strongly overlaps with the political department, which is not part of the PSP-team. Further, I see the best potential of streamlining the WWF-work in pathway III. As all pathways are linked it seems important, the interfaces of the pathways are revised.

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The times of plenty are over. There will be a reduction in public funding in the coming years. Furthermore, a stronger intersection with the German private sector is wanted. Localization is playing an increasingly important role in this.

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Due to the sensitive financial situation within WWF-Germany the PSP-portfolio was focused on projects with low own contributions. This amongst other factors lead to a decrease in the PSP-pipeline. As WWF-Germany is more stable now it seems that own contributions is not as decisive of a factor for internal approval as is was for the last financial year.

Further, the PSP-team is now embedded in the department Funding for Nature, therefore synergies between Payments for Environmental Services, Bankable Nature Solutions can be leveraged.

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Investing in People and Partnerships to yield more Resources?

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Investing in People and Partnerships to yield more Resources?

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Since we see reduced funding levels and increasing competition we may need to invest more in Pathway 2/Partnerships and Pathway 3/People to unlock new opportunities in Pathway 1/Resources?

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WWF definitely has an advantage compared to many other ODA funded organizations, given that we have had corporate partnerships for a long time. Merging corporate and public funds into the same project is however a challenge, where it seems that both the PSP donor and WWF will need to learn along the way.

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AP 30: We're working on Green Diplomacy, and focusing on philanthropic funding.

Japan: situation is quite unique - the Japanese Government policy is to support humanatarian assistance. Try to link our existing funding call with biodiversity - we're working with Save the Children, for example, and trying to integrate biodiversity as well.

Pacific: 2030 Strategic plan has been developed - so close to sending it for review to the AP30 team, we're tyring to move away from our conventuonal funders, such as Austrailia, UK, etc, and move towards Asia. We're quite lucky in Fiji - Korea and Japan are key partners. Its about trying to align with both their priorities and but also balancing to make sure that our priorities are met as well.

EPO: Focus on private sector actors, working a lot with EIB and that's something we need to work better on. Working increasingly with the finance practice to work on biodiversity and wildlife credits. EU is shiftnig away from the Calls for Proposals, and giving funding to EU intermediaties like GIZ, FID, or UN organisations, like FAO, UNDP, and we have to work behind the scenes. There is very publically unavailable vialble documentation, so need to have very strong partnerships: in sum, banks, private secotr, fiance sector, and

Pakistan: 1. Thematic prurotieis, and 2. Geographic priotoeis. In Pakistan re: 1 a lot of forest and biodiversity is no longer enought. Geograhic context: shift to different geopharpies, Pakistan is not a priority, one such example is the EU. With the passage of time, we need to adopt to the situation.

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PSP Funding Priorities and Shifts

-Changes in ministerial PSP-Donors due to new government.

BMZ and BMWK were the biggest PSP-contributors within Germany. The BMZ will have less funding opportunities, while the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) has changed to Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy of Germany (BMWE). Therefore, less focused on climate action. The results for PSP will show soon.

-Localisation getting more priority

-Shifting geographical and thematic priorities

Opportunities to Strengthen PSP

-Find more partners to go together (SDG 17 building more partnerships) to enable shift away from small projects to larger programmes.

-Articulate WWF value for money to private sector stakeholders.

-Leverage PSP funding to get other funders on board

-Impact communication and visibility of results and outputs

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Shifts and new opportunities: Lesser calls for proposals for sustainable consumption (plastics) and sustainable production (food). NBS and Blue Carbon is mainstreamed. Due to budget cuts.

Opportunities for strengthened engagements: Partnerships with Local NGOs and building rapport with Embassies.

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Sweden has decreased direct focus on biodiversity in development cooperation - it has been sorted in under climate aid - so still some opportunities for WWF, but less visible.

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Shift with USAID stopping long term funding;

Increased competition

Opportunity:

working with diaspora on conservation is an interesting point for Africa country offices

bring funds from other sectors that have not been explored so far e.g. private sector as a leverage point - rubber plantations to mitigate environmental & social impacts and improve their CSR

cooperate with the private sector (e.g. Legacy Landscape Fund)

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Biodiversity might be receiving lesser focus, but is more mainstreamed and can contribute significantly in various topical focuses. EU-internal funding streams have not been diverged, there is still a great deal of opportunities both in LIFE and in ERDF-programs. Bankable NBSs is a rising star in fact (that I am not sure we are so good at utilizing). High co-financing rates are a challenge, and the fact that we need to build diverse consortia (diverse across sectors and competence, not diverse as "all WWF offices in EU"). Restoration objectives present a significant opportunity, albeit pressing funding focus back to the national level sources.

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Opportunities ahead - private sector engagement

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Opportunities ahead - private sector engagement

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WWF has several strong corporate partnerships to build on, but we will need to explore how to manage private sector engagement jointly with ODA funding.

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Not discussed in the group - but this could be our movie title. It seems there is some unchartered territory for WWF to explore and find new funding opportuniies

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Many public sector funding programmes in Europe are undergoing review processes, with their future uncertain -> we should find out more after summer.

Climate (finance) seems to still be a priority for governments, particularly larger funds, with smaller (local) environmental funding programmes facing de-prioritization.

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Summary of general PSP trends: more work / competition (accreditation, more complex projects, less transparancy) for shrinking resources (budget cuts)

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shifting priorities

Localisation is becoming more important

Competition is intense and funding is shrinking

Shifting donor focus to domestic priorities and less international aid.

Opportunities

strong partnerships with our allies (other INGOs) to join forces in programme design and implementation.

Embrace localization and leverage it to influence and mobilize resources for conservation (not necessarily ensuring finances only go through our books)

Re-evaluate our structures as an INGO, to ensure we are fit to deliver on private sector funding or blended finance (demonstrate Return on investment - ROI, ensure strong capacity in these areas) and robust systems and processes that will not slow down delivery of resources)

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Together, We Can: Champions of Adaptability 

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Together, We Can: Champions of Adaptability 

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Fundraising amidst conflict; navigating opportunity loss and gaining back the donor trust

Rising donor trend towards climate, agri food, water, gender

More focus on "Localisation, Inclusivity and Sustainability"

Partnership approach; work together and closely with other NGOs and CSOs

Donor mapping in collab with Programme Heads

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Global gateway (For Nature Africa, we need to repackage our work to focus on links to green economy and identifying income streams at the landscape level, identifying big value chains to work wth private sector actors (like cocoa, coffee

Indirect management funding and reduction in calls for proposals. The EU is giving big money to pillar assessed entities (like UN) and need for WWF to position with these pillar assessed entities as partner of choice

Big cut in national level funding in Africa.

more and more towards large-scale investment programs

Working through Banks and private sector actors

Opportunities

Strategic partnerships with EU member state agencies (GIZ, AFD) and international organizations (UNDP, FAO) and inter-governmental organizations.

Building partnerships to accompany private sector actors to understand our work as they venture into this space and conservation sectors like the Forest Forward initiative, pertinent in the Congo Basin

Understanding biodiversity credits to influence the development of opportunities in this area of work

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1. work more directly with CSOs, beneficiaries, communities, grassroots

2. synergy with other donors and blended finance (they don't like to go solo), and co-financinc

3. transboundary

4. sustainable financing of the programmes/projects (not just grants)

5. Multilaterals are key - ADB, ASEAN, AIIB

6. build capacity and engagement with AP PSP sources - Aus, NZ, Middle Eastern, China, Japan, Korea

7. collaboration with INGOs

additional challenges - cost recovery is more difficult, and co-financing requirements are getting higher/tougher (15-20%)

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Challenges: reduction in the budgets of call of proposals. 

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Challenges: reduction in the budgets of call of proposals. 

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Opportunities: Create and develop alliances with other organizations (local) to apply to different proposals .  

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Opportunities: Create and develop alliances with other organizations (local) to apply to different proposals .  

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Migration - do we want to access anti-migration funding? How do we interact with other humanitarian organizations? Peace nexus / conflict.

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We are seeing an uptick in consortia and mixed funds (government, MDB and private sector). Importance of collaborating with the private sector with the right due diligence.

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Different offices experiencing different levels of optimism and uncertainty across network as priorities shift and elections come up. We discussed opportunities which include learning from other offices in the network, especially around grants management and scaling up offices in a way that doesn't rush important process development. We discussed leaning into the knowledge we already have in the network for this growth. We also discussed expanding funding focuses to partner with non-environmental organizations to access funding not earmarked for nature. This may allow us to further our priorities through partnership in new areas and with other funding sources.

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The ODA Pivot: Most PSP donors are reallocating funds under traditional ODA structures—towards fragility, governance, and humanitarian assistance. WWF must speak this language without losing its conservation DNA.

Migration & Political Optics: Global North donors are increasingly using development funding to contain migration. WWF’s programs must position conservation as a stabilising force—supporting livelihoods, reducing displacement triggers, and enhancing resilience.

WWF’s Countermove: Don’t chase trends blindly. WWF must stay rooted in its long-term goals, while smartly aligning its narrative with shifting donor KPIs. Strategic adaptation, not strategic abandonment.

Value Addition is Non-Negotiable: Every proposal must now answer: “How does WWF enhance outcomes across development, security, climate, and equity?” The days of purely ecological framing are gone.

Philanthropic Pivot: To capture philanthropic capital, WWF must design socio-economically meaningful projects. It’s no longer enough to save species—we must also build economies, empower communities, and de-risk systems.

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Everything Everywhere All at Once… But with Metrics

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Everything Everywhere All at Once… But with Metrics

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Across the board, PSP donors are shifting toward results-driven funding. There's growing pressure for clear metrics, tangible outcomes, and long-term sustainability beyond the grant period. The approach is being reframed—less talk about climate, more about measurable co-benefits.

Also, political instability and delayed local decision-making are slowing progress, but local partnerships are gaining importance.

Donors demand strategic alignment, robust KPIs, and accountability. There's also a rising trend toward integrating private sector engagement, blended finance, and locally led development.

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As funds are more limited, collaboration among NOs and CO is essential to identify opportunities and create synergies. Work along our Transformative initiatives.

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Opportunities lie in WWF evolving its role—less as a sole implementer and more as a facilitator of impact.

There's still bipartisan conservation support and chances to re-engage through multilateral funds.

Collaboration with the UN and NGOs like CARE offers entry points while local capacity builds.

WWF can serve as a trusted intermediary to manage and allocate funds to local actors, leverage blended finance, and co-design nature-positive investment models with donors like CAF. The moment is ripe to position WWF as a connector across sectors, scaling both credibility and conservation impact.