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Catchment Collective Action Drive

Together with you we want to create more effective collective action for catchment resilience worldwide to generate better lives for people, resilient economies and markets and to protect and restore our natural environment.

To do this, we have started here by sharing our practical experience in catchment collective action. The idea is to make things as easy, as real and as concrete as possible. Please use all the information here and get active in real catchment collective action. In return, we invite you to join us in the sharing of experiences, lessons, approaches.

The way this will work is that we will regularly post on our company LinkedIn page on our findings in carrying out catchment collective action. These posts link to here, where we share systematically our pratical experiences for concrete catchment collective action. You will find these in the links on the right side of this page.

Learn, share and get active in catchment collective action!

Like almost anything that people create, also catchment collective action starts with somebody, somewhere having an idea. Often the idea originates from previous work or projects done in the catchment, these could be water stewardship activities or other.

The key here is that we need to move from the idea to reality. This may sound obvious but often great ideas remain just ideas and do not become reality. Generally, the first step in moving an idea to reality is that somebody starts sharing the idea with others to check if it resonates with them. The somebody becomes the communicator or champion of the idea. The communicator speaks to others, builds relationships and connections to create a small group of interested parties or champions that supports the idea. Key in this process is that at some point financial support or seed funding becomes available for the design of the catchment collective action (we will get to this later).

Do you have an idea for catchment collective action? Start sharing it. Want to start immediately, why not reach out and share it with us? Maybe we can help to make the idea a reality!

So we have started the process to get to catchment collective action. The champions are on board, they are committed and supportive of the idea. It is time to move one step further. In most of our catchment collective action work, we started with creating a joint understanding of the catchment.

For this we use the Catchment Passport Methodology. The methodology provides a way to collect, structure, condense, publish, share and validate catchment information in the form of an offline catchment passport or better even an online catchment information repository. The methodology is easy to apply and leads to a first concrete output of the work on catchment collective action. The catchment passport provides a common base of information to all stakeholders based on official, science-based and reliable data. The catchment passport is a key input in kicking off stakeholder engagement.

A catchment passport:

is based on authoritative clearly referenced information sources like global and local data, scientific papers, government reports,
is not exhaustive but condenses in clear messages the state of the catchment, the challenges, risks and opportunities for action
is not final, it can always be revised if new authoritative information becomes available through a transparent and independent process of revision
provides an overview of the stakeholders in the region.
is fully aligned with the relevant water stewardship standards.

If done professionally, the catchment passport can be an extensive and expensive activity. Often however, there is already a lot of information available with the champion or group of champions in the catchment. Then the catchment passport helps structuring the information, condensing it and drawing some quick conclusions on the challenges in the catchment and the opportunities for action.

Do you want to create a catchment passport for your catchment please take a look a the 3-page Catchment Passport guide. Do you need some help, please let us know, we will see how we can support you.

A lot of things can be done with little to no money but if you really want to have impact in catchment collective action, what is needed is money. There is obviously no guarantee that your collective action idea will obtain the finance it requires. However, there are some key things that can be done to increase the likelihood of finding money for the catchment collective action project.

The first thing about finding money is that we need to fully understand that people and organisations only spend money on things that they are important to them, things that interest them, things that will provide benefits or value to them. Thus it is important to position the catchment collective action project in terms of the value and benefits that a potential financier may obtain. The more direct the benefit or interest is, the easier it is to convince people to spend money.

The second thing to understand is that money is not found everywhere. Certain people and organisations are more likely to have and willing to spend money then others. When looking for money, we need to focus on those people and organisations that have money to spend and are likely to have a willingness to spend it.

The third thing is that money attracts money. Meaning that when you find the first monies that are put in the project, these funds make it more likely that you will find other financiers that also want to spend money. Often, the most difficult task is finding these first monies. Once they are in, they can be used to attract the interest of other potential financiers.

Finally, money is money, in the frame of catchment collective action with a societal aim, small donations are often as valuable as larger ones. Many small donations not only provide finance but also provides a form of proof about the commitment of a group of financiers and/or partners.

How to get started with raising the finance for the catchment collective action project?

The key in fundraising is knowing what you need, why you need it and what is the value to the person that you are talking to. To prepare yourself, it is handy to create a brief pitch document with convincing arguments on the benefits and value and the cost of obtaining these. The document could address various types of funders or funding. The types of funding that we have encountered in our catchment collective action projects are:

Foreign Embassy funding in agricultural or water programmes – typical low level of funding that often requires a level of co-financing (can often be provided in kind)
Environmental NGO funding – typical not very high seed funding for starting the programme
Water and agriculture sustainability initiatives like IDH and WRAP – these initiatives group funding from value chain contributions to the intiatives
Private corporate foundations – typical medium level one off or multi year funding aligned with sustainability targets and policies of the company concerned
Direct funding from companies in the catchment, often part of the sustainability funding or CSR programme
Government funding in line with water, environmental and agricultural policies and programmes, often larger sums of funding with co-financing requirements
Private family foundation funding, typical longer term financing with clear societal objectives
Private donations – low level and often one off funding from individuals

Any activity on fundraising needs to be an integral part of the overall networking and relationship building by the project, it is not a separate task. The group of champions (in How to Start?) is key in the process, they should actively ‘sell’ the project to generate potential fundraising leads. The coordination of the fundraising activities and the consistent follow up of leads is a continuous task of the project leader in the initial stages of the project.

We hope this helps you to get started, if you have questions or require some support please reach out to us, we will do our best to support you or even bring you in touch with potential financiers that we know off.

The term collective action is quickly becoming a catch-all label for new methods, frameworks, and approaches. To better ensure that a catchment collective action initiative works towards improving the health of our catchments, we felt the need for a few basic principles as a guide. These principles support the way we talk about the intiative, how it is designed, how the work is organised and carried out and what what to work on and what not. We use the principles as a checklist to keep us on the right track. Here we share them, not as an eternal truth but as a learning to use and adapt to the specific context and need of your catchment collective action initiative.

For us a catchment collective action initiative...

Has the catchment as its client, it does not seek to respond to the interests and objectives of a particular sector, organization or stakeholder group, but addresses the catchment as a whole. It seeks to improve the health and resilience of the catchment by involving bringing a wide variety stakeholders to address shared catchment water challenges.

Is neutral, apolitical, science-based, and non-judgmental. the initiative shares science-based information to build a shared understanding and vision for the catchment. It creates capacity stimulates stakeholder engagement (see understand the catchment).

Advocates for full legal and regulatory compliance, this compliance is non-negotiable recognising that this is fundamental for reaching the objective of achieving a more resilient and healthier catchment.

Is evidence-based, avoiding the risk of capture by specific stakeholders, by keeping dialogues open and actively listening to the needs of the catchment and responding to the broadest range of stakeholders possible.

Does not duplicate efforts, and builds on existing frameworks and programmes, collaborates with like-minded and aligned initiatives and engages public sector to work toward shared goals.

Is inclusive and transparent, through providing access to information that is openly and freely accessible, easily understandable to all stakeholders, seeking inclusive stakeholder engagement in and creating and driving a shared vision with all involved.

Is locally owned, locally led and self-branded, members or partners will be showcased as being part of the catchment collective action initiative but the objective is that it is not “housed” by a particular stakeholder, but rather by the initiative itself.

We have used these principles to guide the development and implementation of the catchment collective action initiatives we support. Please tell us know what you think about them. We would be happy to hear from you.

In catchment collective action initiatives, investors want to understand how the initiative will achieve its impact, they want to know: what is the theory of change? Our experience is that a theory of change of a project is never truly the way in which change takes place. It is merely a theoretical starting point of the work. And as the actual work starts, reality collides with theory and directly shows the assumptions underlying the theory. Despite this limitation of any Theory of Change, we have identified three key elements that create change and impact in catchment collective action initiatives and are fundamental parts of the theory of change that we use.

The first key element is the continuous creation, growth and maintenance of social capital to support the joint work towards a shared catchment vision. In practice this means connecting, engaging and bringing together stakeholders, from the locality and from value chains that source from the locality, to create strong relationships and systematic connections between them around a shared vision, goals and values.

Like financial capital, social capital can be depicted as having assets and can therefore be assessed, valued and monitored. For example, a social capital asset is the address list of stakeholders in the catchment collective action initiative and the level of inclusiveness of stakeholders. The ease of access to these stakeholders, recurring stakeholder meetings, workshops and working groups are all social capital assets. And, the shared vision, plans and working principles created and shared by the stakeholders are also assets.

Once generated and maintained, the social capital assets provide the foundation for connecting with even more stakeholders, and including stakeholders that may initially have been more difficult to engage, for accessing key knowledge and information, for co-designing and implementing joint activity in light of the vision, for locating and accessing sources of finance, and addressing the more polarised critical challenges in the catchment and the value chains.

The generation and expansion of social capital is directed towards creating a self sustaining multi-stakeholder platform. This platform will enable the continuous growth and maintenance of social capital, enable the communication, coordination, exchange and collaboration between stakeholders with the objective to steer and drive the implementation of the catchment collective action towards the shared vision.

While working on the creation of social capital, it is important to create a level playing field of knowledge and information between stakeholders. We do this through the development of a catchment passport or online information repository (see Understand the catchment). The open access to authoritative and independent information on the situation in the catchment levels the information playing field and enables joint debate about the shared catchment challenges and potential solution routes. It provides the foundation for joint visioning and goal setting and planning. Also, it serves to identify inspiring tangible short term field level action that could be undertaken jointly. The repository or catchment passport is a key social capital asset that underpins catchment collective action.

Social capital comprise also intangible and even emotional assets like stakeholders that become inspired, feel confident and believe in the catchment collective action initiative and its vision. Our experience is that especially the implementation of inspiring concrete joint collective action on the ground is key for this. Working together in tangible on the ground activity that creates visible (small scale) impact in light of the shared vision and goals generates positive emotions with the group of implementers as well as with the larger stakeholder community through communications. The activities, however small, enable the initiative to show how it may generate tangible outcomes. For example, the restoration of a small piece of land in an ecological corridor by multiple stakeholders together stimulates the believe and trust through providing evidence that working jointly in light of the shared vision will generate impact. People believing that results can actually be achieved is a critical social capital asset to create impact through catchment collective action. Concrete and inspiring visible action is fundamental to stimulate and expand this belief among stakeholders in the initiative.

The three concrete elements above are for us a critical part of any Theory of Change for catchment collective action and key to deliver the envisaged outcomes.

Do you agree or have additional points? We would would love to hear your perspective.