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An experiment in helping philanthropic funders to enable life-centred economies

The Earth Funding Lab was an experiment running from 2021 to 2025 that sought to create the conditions for progressive funders to unleash deeper and wider change in our economies to be in service of life.

It offered participants the headspace, tools, safety, community and structure to work more systemically — conditions that are difficult to find in day-to-day life. It created trusting relationships and safe containers for genuine collaboration. And it worked to practically shift grantmaking practices to enable partners and projects on the ground to thrive. 

The Lab was rooted in a recognition that: 

  • While progressive philanthropy has achieved many good things, there is a widening sense that the parts are not adding up to a greater sum.
  • Philanthropy is a part of the systems it seeks to change, and we cannot rely on traditional methods of funding alone in order to meet the unprecedented challenges our world faces.

 

Download our practical guide: ‘Funding the Transition Towards Life-Centred Economies’

We believe that to see the fundamental changes our world needs, we must fundamentally transform philanthropy.

— The Earth Funding Lab

Over four years the Lab showed the value of taking time to build the skills of systemic work and consider the bigger picture of both what and how we fund. It shifted funder conversations and practices, led to some genuinely collaborative funding, and supported a deeper level of connection across the system. 

In autumn 2025 we decided to compost the Lab in its current form. Although its model was no longer sustainable, we knew that the need for its work remained, so we decided to lovingly digest what we had built together, tend to the relationships we had formed, share out the fruits and nutrients it had developed, and cultivate fertile soil from which new initiatives could grow. This work has led to the development of a Practical Guide, which brings together the Lab’s practices, tools, insights, innovations and findings into a format that we hope others may pick up and carry forward into their own communities and work.

Download the guide

You can also learn more about the Lab’s three collaborative workstreams: Tax for Life, Rights of Nature, and Beyond ESG Investment and the specific opportunities for funders we surfaced in these 3 videos:

Tax for Life
Beyond ESG Investment
Rights of Nature – coming soon!

We extend our heartfelt thanks to every single one of the many people and initiatives who have taken part in, supported, challenged or inspired the Lab’s work.

As a team, we each remain committed to the Lab’s vision and curious about what new initiatives may emerge from its rich soil. We warmly welcome questions and ideas from those wishing to learn from or build on the Lab’s work.

If you’d like to connect with us, you can reach us on:

“We are going somewhere different. Let’s go there differently.”

— Nora Bateson