Six years at the heart of funding a movement: Helen Kersley reflects on Farming the Future

Words by Pelin Turgut

When Helen Kersley stepped into her role as Executive Director of the Roddick Foundation in 2020, she joined a network in its infancy. Farming the Future, the UK’s only pooled fund set up to support, connect and strengthen the agroecology movement, was just a year old. “I came to it with no knowledge of food and farming, other than as a regular member of the concerned public, and I think it's been a really fascinating journey,” she recounts.

Now, after six years, Kersley is stepping away - moving on to lead the Open and Trusting Network at IVAR, an independent research charity that works directly with the social sector to strengthen communities, improve grant-making practices, and build fairer organisational cultures. Helen has spent her career thinking hard about how power moves (or doesn't), between funders and the people they fund.

Growing Pains

In its early days, Farming the Future was run with an almost radical collectivism. Everyone was involved in everything. Grant applications were read by all partners. Weekly meetings drew in the full cohort. For Helen, it took up around 40% of her working time.

In year three, something changed. "There's that infancy stage in my mind that takes you to the three-year mark, and then something different is needed," she says, "because it's no longer new." What followed was a deliberate effort to solidify how the organisation was run and in Bonnie Hewson, appointed as director, they found someone with both the mandate and the appetite to do it.

One significant move was introducing sociocracy as a governance method. Helen was initially sceptical. "It felt quite heavy at first," she says. "But I do think I've learned that it has real value, because one of the things it does is equalise voices in the room."

Sharing the decision

Alongside better governance came a deeper commitment to sharing power over funding itself. Farming the Future had begun working with Ambassadors - committed individuals working on the ground in food and farming - to help make grant decisions. Over time, that involvement grew. Today, Ambassadors make all decisions about grant allocation, up from 50% when the system was first introduced.

"I'm very interested in how you can make the work of civil society more of a partnership, rather than funders holding so much power," says Helen. "It's hard to make it completely equal, but I do think it's been very good to experience the Ambassador part of the Farming the Future makeup. The Ambassadors have always been a source of inspiration."

The evolution, she says, pushed forward what's possible with a pooled fund.

"It becomes more equal between organisations that actually do the work and funders that help facilitate that. I think that was really useful."

A brave call

Midway through her tenure, a more fundamental question surfaced: what was Farming the Future actually for? Should it simply back the organisations it believed were most essential to the movement? Or was there something more distinctive it offered?

The answer it landed on was to fund collaboration and connection rather than core organisational costs – but this wasn't an easy call to make. The sector was clear about what it needed. "The sector was saying: we just need money to keep going," Helen recalls. "I think it was quite brave to say, yes, we hear that - and still we want to fund the bit in between, which is the connecting and the collaboration. That was brave. And I think it has achieved really good results."

A focal point for a movement

Looking back across six years, Helen believes Farming the Future has done something genuinely rare in helping a movement to cohere. "I think it’s helping to solidify the concept of a movement for this change, which feels very important," she says.

"The presence of Farming the Future has almost been like a focal point for agroecology, a place to go when you don't know who else to talk to, or who the key actor is."

Her hope for its future is that it leans further into that role - becoming a hub and a store of knowledge for the broader agroecology movement.

What comes next

In her new role, Helen hopes to take what she's learned about systemic change and put it to work at greater scale. The Open and Trusting Network, a network of around 190 funding organisations, is a place she sees potential. "I think it would be brilliant if we could use that as a test bed for better liaison between funders, whether that's around issues, places, or approaches, for the sake of the best work."

And on a more personal note, she leaves with something she didn't arrive with: a genuine passion for agroecology. "I am so grateful to have learned about food and farming," she says. "I was always very conscious of the impact of the agricultural system but learning more about it has been absolutely fantastic and i hope to take that forward in some way."