Glossary

Accreditation means that an organisation has been formally assessed against recognised quality standards for its advice services. 

For example, the Advice Quality Standard (AQS) assesses organisations providing social welfare advice across areas such as housing, welfare benefits, debt, employment and immigration. 

Some areas also have specialist regulation, such as the Immigration Advice Authority (IAA formerly OISC), Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), or Money and Pensions Service frameworks MaPS) for debt advice, and Lexcel or SRA regulation for legal advice. 

Accreditation assures that an organisation’s advice services are delivered to a consistent, high-quality standard.

These explanations are from the Advice Services Alliance.

• Information – general guidance to help people understand their options
• Advice – providing free expert guidance tailored to an individual’s circumstances, including some practical support – not one-off advice.
• Advice with casework – includes all of the above, but also requires the organisation to take action on behalf of the client to progress the matter, such as negotiating with third parties, following up, and supporting the client until the matter is resolved.
• Accreditation (for social welfare advice) – an organisation has been formally assessed against recognised quality standards for its advice services. For example, the Advice Quality Standard (AQS) covers organisations who provide advice on housing, welfare benefits, debt, employment and immigration.

Some areas that also have specialist regulation:

• Immigration advice – regulated by the Immigration Advice Authority (IAA), formerly known as the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC).
• Debt advice – may require Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) authorisation or adherence to Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) quality frameworks.
• Legal advice (in any area) – may be subject to Lexcel (Law Society quality mark) or regulation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).

By this we mean understanding climate change and environmental harm as social justice and human rights issues. It recognises that the people and communities who have contributed least to climate change are experiencing its most severe impacts, including poor housing, heat, flooding, pollution and food insecurity, often shaped by wider inequalities such as poverty, racism, disability and migration status.

Our approach to climate and environmental justice centres the lived experience, leadership and agency of those most affected. It supports action that improves everyday life while addressing the systems and decisions that drive unequal exposure to climate and environmental harm. 

Social action is often the route to systems change. For example, advocacy, campaigning, and community organising (social action) can lead to policy reform or shifts in narrative (systems change). Both aim to address root causes, but systems change focuses on how systems operate, whereas social action focuses on who is affected and how to mobilise for change. Social action work may include, but is not limited to, advocacy, campaigning, community organising, evidence gathering, research, and strategic communications. 

We have taken the definitions below from Sistren Legal Collective’s ​‘Just Words’ toolkit.

• “Advocacy is the act of representing, supporting or promoting a particular cause, influencing public policy, and/​or educating voters and society about issues affecting select communities or society at large. While there are many different types of advocacy, in the context of charities, NGOs, and activists, advocacy usually means influencing government policies, laws, and public attitudes to create systemic change.”
• “Campaigning is a means for an organisation to further their purpose by organising activities to raise awareness of an issue or to call a community to action over a relevant cause. A campaign typically involves planning and organising a series of activities aimed at achieving a certain change within society. Campaigning activities can take many forms, from online social media campaigns to hosting community yoga and meditation wellbeing workshops to raise awareness of public health matters. Charities in England and Wales need to be aware of particular guidance by the Charity Commission when campaigning.”

Note to applicants on advocacy and campaigning: In this programme, we will not fund one-off campaigns that advocate for people without supporting them in acting on their own behalf (external advocacy). We will fund only campaigns that build long-term community power, leadership, and agency. 

This definition of community organising is taken from the Community Organisers’ website. 

• Community organising ​“When communities work together, the possibilities for positive change are endless. Community organising is the work of bringing people together to take action around their common concerns and overcome social injustice. Community organisers reach out and listen, connect, and motivate people to build their collective power. When people are organised, communities get heard, and power begins to shift, creating real change for good.” 

By community-led, we mean work shaped and driven by the people most affected by climate and environmental harm through community leadership, lived-experience insight, decision-making power, long-term relationships, or shared governance. We’ll prioritise organisations who can demonstrate the following:

• Decision‑making power resides within the community (they are not merely consulted), e.g. through community members in governance roles, lived experience in leadership, participatory decision‑making structures, and community ownership of assets. 
• Lived experience shapes strategy, priorities and solutions, with communities defining the problems and solutions, e.g. shifts in organisational strategy driven by community input and paid roles for community researchers, storytellers or organisers.
• Accountability is to a specific community or locality, for example, through a long-term presence in a place, location or community, and includes structures for accountability, such as community forums. We want to know, in practice, how an organisation’s work responds to the needs and lives of the people it aims to support. 

We understand that organisations need flexible, longer-term funding that is adaptable and responsive to the realities of their work. This enables them to meet the evolving advice needs of Londoners, strengthen their capacity, engage in social action and drive systems change.

Our grants can be used flexibly over the grant period. Organisations will need to demonstrate how they will use flexible funding to support their core costs and long-term strategic objectives, and how they will develop their social action work to bring about systems change. 

These costs may include:

• Core costs, such as staff salaries, wellbeing, overheads, and infrastructure.
• Programme activity, including direct advice provision and using insights from advice work to catalyse social action and systems change.
• Organisational development, such as time to reflect, learn, and adapt.
• Collaboration and movement-building, including connecting with other organisations, sharing insights, and building collective power.
• Community organising, advocacy and campaigning, drawing on frontline experience to influence policy and practice.
• Data and storytelling, to capture impact and amplify the voices of those affected.

As long as their work aligns with the programme’s purpose, grants can be used in whatever ways make the most sense within the organisation. We expect the work we fund to evolve, particularly within the 3- or 5‑year period. We’re comfortable with uncertainty, and we’ll be flexible along the way. We aim to continually support organisations in meeting the needs of their communities.

Organisations will need to demonstrate how they will use flexible funding to support their core costs and long-term strategic objectives, and how their work contributes to systems change. These costs may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Core costs, such as staff salaries, wellbeing, training, overheads, and infrastructure
• Programme activity, including frontline service provision and using insights to inform social action and systems change work
• Organisational development, such as time to reflect, learn, and adapt
• Collaboration and movement-building, including connecting with other organisations, sharing insights, and building collective power
• Community organising, advocacy and campaigning, drawing on frontline experience to influence policy and practice
• Data and storytelling to capture impact and amplify the voices of those affected 

Intersectionality describes how social identities and systems of power intersect to shape lived experience and outcomes. Ignoring these intersections can render certain forms of injustice invisible. Working at the intersection of climate and other social justice issues means addressing climate change in ways that recognise and respond to its unequal social impacts while actively advancing fairness, equity, and human rights. 

In practice, it involves designing climate solutions that tackle structural inequalities, including poverty, racism, health disparities and housing insecurity, ensuring that climate action does not impose disproportionate burdens on those least responsible for the crisis. It is an approach that:

• Treats climate change as a social, economic, and political issue, not only an environmental one 
• Centres the experiences and leadership of the communities most affected by climate impacts and social injustice 
• Seeks outcomes that are both low‑carbon and socially just, improving lives while reducing emissions 

Our definition requires 75% of the Board of Trustees or Management Committee, and at least 50% of senior staff, to self-identify as being from the specific marginalised community or protected characteristic that the organisation serves. 

Alongside this threshold, we expect organisations to tell us about their accountability to the communities they work alongside and/​or represent. Specifically, how their work responds to the needs and lives of the people they aim to support, and how these people contribute to decision-making. We are open to applications from organisations who may fall just outside the 75% and 50% thresholds, as long as they can demonstrate strong community accountability and representation within their work.

There is some flexibility around this requirement, particularly if an organisation can demonstrate a strong commitment to progressing towards this level of representation over time. Or where contextual factors – such as the size, location, or stage of development of the organisation – make meeting the threshold challenging in the short term. 

Organisations should demonstrate their accountability to the community they serve – for example, through inclusive governance structures, participatory decision-making processes, or other mechanisms that ensure lived experience informs leadership and strategy. 

Lived experience in the context of ​‘led by and for’ organisations is relevant to the community or protected characteristic that the organisation serves.

We refer to the definition from Sistren Legal Collective’s ​‘Just Words’ toolkit: 

“Refers to the knowledge, insights, and perspectives gained through direct personal experience of specific life events, social issues, challenges, or personal conditions. Lived experience teaches and informs an individual’s identity and worldview in a way that can be difficult to replicate or to understand through theoretical knowledge or from the perspective of others who have not shared similar experiences.” 

Lived experience within ​‘community-led’ organisations is relevant to the community or protected characteristic the organisation serves. In this programme, lived experience refers specifically to the experiences of people and communities affected by climate and environmental harms, such as heat, poor housing, pollution, flooding, food insecurity, and lack of access to green spaces. 

This lived experience provides insight into how people experience climate and environmental challenges in everyday life. We recognise this as a form of expertise that should inform solutions, decision-making and systems change. 

When we use the term ​‘marginalised communities’ in the context of climate and environmental justice, we refer to communities who experience structural inequalities, limited access to power, resources or opportunities, and are disproportionately affected by climate-related harm and environmental challenges. 

In London, this may include communities affected by poverty, racial inequity, disability-related barriers, insecure housing, migration-related exclusion, age-related inequality, or unequal access to healthy environments and green spaces.

We recognise that overlapping systems and identities shape experiences of marginalisation and may vary across communities and places. 

Our grants will prioritise organisations who support, represent, and empower marginalised and underrepresented groups comprising identities such as race, disability, religion, socioeconomic background, gender identity, and sexuality. Intersectional diversity will also be taken into account when a person’s identities span multiple underrepresented identities.

When using this term, we: 

• Understand the complex social, economic, and political systems at work. There are diverse ways of understanding how power and privilege operate, as well as how certain groups may feel excluded from resources, opportunities, and rights. We do not wish to oversimplify these dynamics but to provide an entry point for examining the structural inequalities that shape our society. 
• Understand that these dynamics are intersectional – that different forms of oppression, such as racism, sexism, ableism, and classism, intersect and compound to create harmful experiences of exclusion. These forces push certain groups to the margins of society, denying them access to wealth, political power, and social capital. 
• Aim to highlight the structural barriers that maintain these inequalities while also recognising the resilience and agency of those who are fighting against them. 
• Seek to reflect the complex dynamics of power and oppression across various contexts, including systems of exclusion like institutional racism and other forms of systemic injustice.

The term refers to community‑led action grounded in the lived experience of people in specific places or locations, whether a neighbourhood, borough or a clearly defined community across London. 

It responds to climate‑related harms and environmental challenges as they are experienced locally and is shaped by those most affected. Organisations must demonstrate a clear, accountable connection to local realities, lived experience and strong community relationships, even when operating across multiple locations or at a London‑wide level. 

For example, a community‑owned renewable energy initiative (such as shared solar power) rooted in specific London neighbourhoods and supporting communities facing fuel poverty. 

This refers to transforming how climate change is understood, discussed, and acted upon, starting from lived experience and local relevance, and influencing wider narratives. It involves changing the underlying stories and assumptions that shape public attitudes by creating spaces for communities to define what climate justice means to them. 

We are looking to fund community-led storytelling, documentation of lived experience, narrative research, and efforts to counter targeted misinformation, rather than generic media outreach. 

For example, this could involve working with creatives and campaigners to counter misinformation narratives about climate change through collective stories based on lived experience of climate injustice, or by inserting climate justice narratives into mainstream storytelling. 

Social action is often the route to systems change. For example, advocacy, campaigning, and community organising (social action) can lead to policy reform or narrative shifts (systems change). Systems change focuses on how systems operate, while social action empowers those affected to organise and mobilise to change the system. Social action may also involve gathering evidence, conducting research, and engaging in strategic litigation.

Systems change is about transforming the structures, processes, and mental models that sustain inequality. It goes deeper than addressing symptoms – it aims to shift how systems function at their core. We use the iceberg model to illustrate this:

• Events (i.e., someone being denied benefits)
• Patterns (i.e., repeated denials for certain conditions)
• Structures (i.e., flawed assessment processes)
• Mental models (i.e., societal beliefs about disability or poverty)

In practice, systems change can involve redesigning policies, rules, and services; shifting narratives and public mindsets; building collective power and collaboration; and supporting long-term, structural transformation.

Sistren Legal Collective and Community Organisers provide definitions of social action and systems change in our downloadable Funding Guidelines. 

These definitions are from the London Funders’ 2024 Mapping Funding for Social Welfare Advice in London report. 

• Housing: access to social housing, advice on housing rights and eviction (including around the management and condition of accommodation), access to assistance when facing or experiencing homelessness.
• Welfare benefits: eligibility and access to welfare benefits, income maximisation (focusing on promoting the uptake of welfare benefits).
• Debt: advice and guidance on how to avoid debt and how to deal with it when it becomes a problem.
• Employment: rights at work, for example, around unfair dismissal, unfair treatment, and withheld pay.
• Immigration: the provision of advice on immigration issues, which is subject to its own regulatory framework.

Systems change is about transforming and shifting the structures, processes, and mental models that perpetuate inequality. Examples of mental models include:

• Assumptions that communities lack the expertise or capacity to lead solutions
• Lived experience is undervalued relative to institutional or scientific expertise, with marginalised communities expected to adapt to systems not designed for them
• Climate is treated primarily as a technical, scientific or environmental issue rather than a social justice and human rights issue, thereby separating ​‘people issues’ from ​‘planet issues’
• Fear‑based narratives, alongside political polarisation and misinformation, that alienate frontline groups

In a climate justice context, systems change means addressing the root causes of climate and environmental inequality by shifting policies, practices, power dynamics, relationships, and the underlying narratives that shape people’s lives. It goes beyond short-term fixes. It invests in the long-term capacity of communities most affected by heat, damp, mould, pollution, flooding, and lack of access to nature, to influence and transform the systems around them. 

Systems change might include: 

• Influencing policy, planning or services: Using lived experience and community evidence to inform decisions on issues such as housing conditions, heat resilience, flood planning, air quality, and local climate adaptation.
• Building community power and leadership: Supporting the communities most affected by climate and environmental harm to organise, develop leadership and influence decisions that affect their lives.
• Shifting narratives around climate-related harm and environmental challenges: Reframing how climate issues are understood by centring lived experience and everyday realities through storytelling, community media, or cultural work that challenges misinformation and highlights climate as a social justice and human rights issue.
• Developing community-led solutions that inform wider change: Designing and delivering local responses to issues such as energy, food, housing or green space, and using them to influence policy or wider practice.
• Strengthening collaboration and infrastructure: Building alliances, networks and shared learning to support collective action, reduce isolation and strengthen the broader climate justice ecosystem.

We understand systems change will look different depending on an organisation’s size, role and stage of development. We will assess this proportionately.

We expect all organisations to explain how their work contributes to longer-term, structural change, in ways appropriate to their context. This may include strengthening lived experience in leadership, gathering evidence, building community voice, or creating spaces for collective action. 

This is proof of credible experience in climate and environmental work, including evidence of trusted relationships with communities, proof of relevant delivery, and the ability to learn from and adapt to the work an organisation does.