April 2026 newsletter
Welcome to East Suffolk Trust’s April newsletter. In March we went live with our first grant scheme, and we’ve been really excited to listen to your ideas. Details about our grant scheme, including eligibility criteria and how to apply, are available on our (shiny new!) website.
Our mission is to lead the way in funding for nature and people in Suffolk, and we've been busy working through how we can deliver on this. We’ve been learning from people and organisations who are experts in grantmaking and evidence-based conservation, and I’ve provided an update on how we are engaging with some of these initiatives below.
If you have an idea for ambitious work that delivers for nature and people in Suffolk, and haven’t yet got in touch, we’d love to hear from you. Our email address is enquiries@eastsuffolktrust.org.
I hope you are enjoying the start of spring, and look forward to seeing lots of you over the coming weeks and months.
Warm wishes,
Lewis Spurgin
Chief Executive
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OUR ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS
As part of our commitment to transparency, we set out to have our first set of annual accounts audited and published as early as possible.
We’ve now completed this for our initial period of operation, covering up to 31st December 2025. This includes our first two years of donations from Sizewell C, alongside our initial spending to establish the charity.
You can view the full details on our Charity Commission page
WE ARE AN EVIDENCE CHAMPION
Conservation Evidence is the authoritative source of information about the evidence underpinning conservation interventions.
As part of their efforts, the team behind conservation evidence run an accreditation scheme for ‘Evidence champions’ - organisations who have signed a commitment to use evidence in their conservation practice. We have registered as an evidence champion funder. We're committed to using conservation evidence in our application and decision making approaches, and look forward to adding to the evidence base where we can.
You can find a full list of Evidence Champion Funders here.
WE ARE AN OPEN AND TRUSTING GRANTMAKER
The Institute for Voluntary Action Research has done some excellent research on maximising the impact of funding through open and trusting grantmaking.
They have distilled this down into eight principles, that funders can sign up to, and provide evidence of how they are working to these principles. We’ve signed up, and you can see our commitments, alongside other funders, here.
OUR NEW BRAND AND WEBSITE
Finally, you may have noticed our new logo and branding gradually coming into place over the last month or so.
This work is now complete, and we’ve launched our new website as well. Huge thanks to the wonderful folks at Spring in Southwold for their excellent work to deliver this.
