In 2021 The Wildlife Trusts (TWT) committed to an ambitious 10-year strategy, with part of this being a community organising programme to engage and empower people to act for nature's recovery - this approach was initially called "Team Wilder". Meaningful Measures Ltd was commissioned to evaluate the impact of pilot sites of Team Wilder. The first audit report was published in 2023 (available in the appendix at the end of this report) and we are pleased to now be publishing the second audit completed in 2024.

A mixed methods approach was used to collect data in two phases:
1. A workshop with Wildlife Trust CEOs and Mentimeter poll for managers (October 2023)
2. A survey audit of progress of individual Wildlife Trusts conducted online between April and May 2024.

Results
Four main areas were identified in the results: (1) culture change; (2) equality, diversity and inclusion; (3) impact measures; (4) support from central team and collaboration.

Culture Change
There is progress with culture change since 2021, with increased numbers of WTs onboard with community organising. There was a significant increase in the number of communities that WTs are engaging with using a CO approach and a noticeable increase in the diversity of these communities. Most WTs feel that they are more inclusive. Just under half of all WTs have monitoring data to show that more people are taking meaningful action for nature in their communities.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI)
Good progress has been charted for EDI. There was a noticeable improvement in how WTs are integrating children and young people into their Trusts at a range of levels. The levels of confidence in managing safeguarding issues remain the same as previously. Qualitative comments highlighted a clear positive impact of the EDI support provided by RSWT to the individual WTs. Improvement in the awareness of the anti-racist status of the TWT was predominantly seen at the senior leadership team level, but not at a manager level. Whilst there are still more improvements to be realised in terms of EDI, it is important to acknowledge the distance already travelled since 2021.

Impact Measurement
There is a need to use measurements that are appropriate to working in a personalised community-led context. Trying to capture what is important and meaningful to the community vs what commissioners and funders want to see has proved challenging across the sector. This is a culture change and requires time, training, and testing to see what works best.

RSWT has provided training to teams of people in WTs on collecting qualitative story data and using outcomes data to demonstrate the impact of the community organising approach. More work is needed in this area of improvement for The Wildlife Trusts and other initiatives are currently underway at the time of writing this report.

Support from Central Team and Collaboration
Collaboration across the Wildlife Trusts is greatly improved since 2021, and this has largely been facilitated by the central team. Central support was well received by Wildlife Trust staff and is a core part of the process of enabling the individual WTs to implement and scale a community organising approach. The
central team have continued to provide support in the form of one-to-one discussions, centrally produced resources and networking and training opportunities, adapting content as new support needs are identified. Training has been mostly received by managers, but this needs to be widened to SLT and board members. Central team support should remain in place at least at the level currently being offered.

The full report, including recommendations, is available to view below or download via The Wildlife Trusts website.