7 October 2025
In these challenging times charities need all the help they can get, so here are 5 ways that charities (and indeed consultants who work with charities) can turn to Nature for support and wisdom.
Written by Nicki Davey
- Work in Nature:
Studies show that Nature has significant benefits for individuals, teams, and organisations. Being in or near Nature makes people…
- more tolerant and considerate towards colleagues
- more satisfied with their jobs
- more loyal to their employers
- more positive, innovative, and open to new ideas
- more creative and better at solving problems
- better at learning new skills due to improved memory and cognitive processing
Nature also gives us a greater sense of meaning and purpose in our lives and work and makes us more ethical and conscious in our decision-making. Charities can harness these benefits by…
- Bringing flowers and plants into workplaces
- Using furniture and fittings made from natural materials
- Opening windows so people hear the sounds of birdsong, the wind in the trees etc.
- Playing recordings of bird song, rippling streams, or other nature sounds
- Putting photographs of Nature on the walls
- Holding meetings, workshops and other events outdoors in a natural environment
- Conducting 1:1 meetings and coaching sessions whilst walking in Nature
- Find solutions in Nature:
Nature is an expert problem solver with over 3.8 billion years of experience, research and development – she has found a solution to pretty much every problem on the planet. A great place to start for any challenge is to ask “What would Nature do?”
Nature’s principles, systems and processes principles (such as adaptive cycles, diversity, interconnectedness, and symbiosis) offer lessons and wisdom that benefit charities. Biomimicry is another way of looking directly to Nature to solve problems (visit www.asknature.org for inspiring examples).
- Adopt a living systems approach:
Every organisation is a complex, interconnected, and constantly evolving living system. Just like ecosystems in Nature, everything is interdependent – every factor depends (directly or indirectly) on every other factor, and any change to one part of the system has a knock-on effect for the rest of the ecosystem. Even the smallest change in an organisation will have an extensive impact, so when making decisions and plans, a living systems approach is essential for identifying and understanding the effect on the wider ecosystem.
Using a living systems approach is a powerful motivator as it enables people to recognise that we all have agency and influence and even tiny actions make a difference in the wider world.
- Practice Seasonal Thinking
Nature is not linear but involves cycles of growth, harvest, release, and renewal. By implementing similar rhythms, organisations can generate a healthy process of planning, nurturing, reaping, letting go, reflection, and integration which makes the organisation much more resilient and effective.
- Rewild people
In today’s mechanised, digitised, antiseptic world, people are detached from their instinctive, intuitive, animal selves (they become “unwilded”) but we are at our very best when we reconnect with our natural animal instincts and intuition and are one with the natural world.
Charities can rewild people by promoting their reconnection with Nature and giving them permission to listen to and trust their instincts and intuition. This creates an organisational culture of compassion and care, wise, ethical decisions, and a deep sense of purpose and meaning.
Download free Nature at Work resource book or watch Nature at Work video for more ideas and inspiration.
Written by Nicki Davey