Building Climate Confidence in the VCSE Sector

To help strengthen the skills, confidence and capacity of community-led organisations to respond to environmental challenges, we’re delivering a series of Climate Conversations workshops through a partnership project funded by the Lloyds Bank Foundation and The National Lottery.

About Groundwork’s Climate Conversation Workshops

Our Community Climate Resilience Lead, Amy Wright, is delivering short, interactive online workshops designed to help charities and VCSE organisations build knowledge, confidence and practical skills around climate and sustainability. Each session lasts two hours and focuses on a different aspect of climate action:

  • Understanding the climate crisis: What climate change is, the risks facing communities, and the role the VCSE sector can play.
  • Implementing action: Practical ideas to reduce environmental impacts, save money and take positive organisational action.
  • Influencing wider change: Communicating confidently, power mapping and working with others to create community‑level change.

The sessions are deliberately kept small to encourage open discussion, shared learning and space for each organisation to explore challenges in depth.

Installing solar panels

Impact so far

The first cohort, which ran in August 2026, included organisations such as The Burnside Centre, The Good Shepherd Centre and The Broughton Trust, all keen to strengthen their environmental understanding and embed climatepositive practices into their work.

Feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive:

“The course was enjoyable and well delivered. It felt more like a chat with friends and I think that has made it stick in my mind more.”

“As small community organisations, we sometimes have to balance our main purpose of supporting local people with ensuring that we do this in a way that has as little negative impact on the environment as possible. Hearing how other organisations approach this… was particularly useful.”

“I plan on sharing things from the course with both other staff and trustees. I am going to be working on our action plan with the centre director and reviewing our policies.”

Participants have left the workshops with:

  • Clear climate understanding
  • Practical actions they can implement immediately
  • Confidence to communicate about climate issues
  • Stronger organisational resilience
  • A supportive network of peers facing similar challenges

Upcoming climate workshops

Future cohorts will run on:

  • Tues 29 September 2026, 1–3pm
  • Tues 6 October 2026, 1–3pm
  • Tues 13 October 2026, 1–3pm

The workshops are open to any organisation that has received a National Lottery Reaching Communities Grant and a limited number of additional places may be available.

Eligible organisations include those who:

  • Applied but aren’t yet ready for funding
  • Hold a grant and could increase impact
  • Are nearing the end of funding and planning next steps

To enquire about our upcoming workshops or book a place, contact Amy Wright via amy.wright@groundwork.org.uk