Derbyshire Wildlife Trust

Our previous commitment had three objectives. Below is a small snapshot of the actions we have completed against the objectives set.

Objective 1: Be an organisation that represents our communities within Derbyshire.

• Sharing, learnings, and evaluations around community organising with new and existing community groups.
• Established new volunteering opportunities and create community volunteering groups, to increase diversity and accessibility, by developing a recruitment campaign that shares stories and experiences from a wider range of voices.
• Use learnings from our EDI projects and initiatives to develop an inclusive recruitment model.

Objective 2: Everyone feels valued and empowered.

• Ensure accessible company documents are being produced for external and internal use, always reflect and are adjusted to the needs of users.
• Better our imagery and language. Use a range of audiences and groups to inform content produced, ensuring our content is accessible and representative.
• We want to further acknowledge and support disability in the workplace. We know that disability, visible and invisible including mental health, needs to take front and centre more than ever.

Objective 3: Inclusion is our everyday.

• Build a sustained training programme around EDI and development including an inclusive leadership and governance programme for trustees and senior leadership team.
• Produce and use an audit to support the integration of EDI considerations into the project start-up process /scoping – to ensure we consider EDI in project design.
• Produce and use an audit to support the integration of EDI considerations on our reserves.

• We are part of a range of networks: Wildlife and Countryside Link EDI working group, Raven Network and Natural England East Midlands Inclusion Hub.
• We also work with the ‘The Wildlife Trust’ and support/champion their national reach on EDI.
• We also champion and are part of wider initiatives such as: RACE Report and Real Living Wage Foundation.

• Our work on EDI has enabled us to receive recognition in 2024 as a Sunday Time Best Places to Work.
• In 2024 94% of our people thought we were an inclusive place to work, an increase from 62% in 2021. Indicating our strong commitment to EDI.
• We have also moved to level 2 in the Disability Confident Scheme and are now a Disability Committed Employer.

We have six core milestones and currently proposed SMART objectives (we are still in the process of co-creating these).

1. Understand – Understand how inequitable practices show up in our work and how they drive inequity.

   Objective: By end of 2026, deliver EDI training and coaching to 100% of staff and implement a monitoring and evaluation framework to assess understanding of inequitable practices, with at least 80% of participants demonstrating improved awareness in post-training assessments.

2. Empower – Be an empowered organisation capable of addressing inequalities and driving systemic change.

   Objective: By end of 2026, integrate anti-racist practices into at least 90% of organisational policies and procedures, and embed the new organisational values into all staff onboarding and performance review processes.

3. Commit – Embrace and champion commitment to inclusivity and equity.

   Objective: By Q3 2025, partner with external equity networks, with at least three formal partnerships and quarterly engagement events, ensuring 75% staff participation and feedback indicating increased alignment with the organisation’s equity goals.

4. Action – Remove key structural barriers to opportunity.

   Objective: By mid – 2027, address at least three key structural barriers through revised decision-making frameworks and inclusive engagement practices, with measurable improvements in access and participation rates from underrepresented groups.

5. Accountability – Ensure we do our work on equity and justice without overburdening those already impacted.

   Objective: By Q1 2026, establish a board- and SLT-led accountability mechanism on EDI (e.g., quarterly reviews, public reporting), and ensure 100% of leadership complete allyship training, with annual progress reports published and shared with stakeholders.

6. Justice – Deliver a justice driven approach to natures recovery.

   Objective: By end of 2027, co-design and implement at least two programmes that reflect diverse cultural perspectives and address systemic marginalisation, with impact evaluations showing positive outcomes for at least three priority communities.

• We currently contribute to the RACE Report and wider wildlife trust annual diversity survey.
• We are also working on way to measure impact organisation wide to enable reporting to board and leadership.