Funding permaculture education

We have created a Fair Shares fund for permaculture education. We put money in this fund from our profits every time we run a teacher led version of our Design For Resilience course. 
 
We hope to provide equitable opportunities for education, for our Educator members and our education community.
 
Each teacher led course has a set fee per learner with a maximum of 20 learners per course. Wherever we have more than 14 students on a course, we make a small profit for the charity. We may not make a profit on every course, but every time we do, we promise to put aside 10% to the Fair Shares fund. 
 

Who can use this fund?

The Fair Shares fund is open to all Educator members at the Permaculture Association. These members are part of what we hope will become a Commons. These Commoners can manage this fund transparently, putting in proposals to spend this money. There is currently over £600 in the fund.
 
The proposal must meet our charity’s strategic aims, with a particular focus on equity and inclusion for education. Read more about our vision for the commons below to help guide proposals. 
 

Our Vision for the Commons  

Mission - To create and manage a common pool resource that makes permaculture accessible, accelerates learning about permaculture, shares and develops permaculture practice and supports the Permaculture Association to become a smart, effective, socially responsible and sustainable organisation.
 
Purpose - to support activity that:
  • Provides relevant education and training to members and the wider public
  • Brings permaculture educators together to work collaboratively
  • Identifies and spreads best practice in permaculture education
  • Strengthens the skills and livelihoods of permaculture educators
 

More detail on the Commons 

The Commoners are the Educator members of the Permaculture Association. All new Educator members are automatically entitled to membership of the Commons. 
 
Educator members can choose to participate in the Commons to whatever extent they wish, subject to the remaining rules set out and to any other written agreements.
 
There is much detail left to refine over time and we hope to work with the Commoners to do this. 
 

Equity focus

We will pay particular attention to proposals that relate to our stance on equity and access within permaculture. 
 
Alongside this work, we are offering bursary places on our teacher led courses.
 
For more information about this aspect of our work, please follow this link. 
 
Please get in touch with our Education Lead if you have any ideas or suggestions for how we can improve equity in permaculture education. 
 
If you are an Educator Member you can use the form below to submit a proposal for how you would like to see some of these funds spent... this is one step towards developing a self managing educator commons. When the educator's have some proposals to work with next steps can emerge.