Breaking down barriers

The Embracing Everyone Action Area prioritises projects that have genuine inclusive outcomes and drive long-term change. One of our aims is to break down barriers and reach out to those currently underserved by BTO. Instead of making assumptions around what these communities might need and want, we are working collaboratively and offering tailored opportunities to engage.

This approach has been particularly valuable in our Together Through Nature project in Thetford, Norfolk, where we are working with Civil Society Consulting and local partners to provide opportunities for local residents who do not normally engage with birds, nature or science.

Plans and progress

Supporting our BTO Community in understanding the value of our inclusion work, why it matters for BTO and for birds. In order to achieve this we regularly share progress amongst staff, Board and sub-committees of the Board, and are communicating about this in different formats with our members and volunteers. We are creating spaces for staff to come together, learn from each other and support one another. For instance, we have a very active neurodiversity staff group, where we are all learning to support our staff’s different ways of working.

Raising the profile of BTO with a focus on welcoming and valuing everyone. At BTO, we are interested in using stories as evidence for change. This is particularly useful when it comes to evaluating the impact of our inclusion work, as quantitative data are useful but qualitative data like stories can also tell us about how we are progressing in a much more engaging way. We want to share our community’s stories and successes widely to inspire others to make a difference for nature and birds. Over time, we hope that the stories will better reflect BTO’s increased diversity.

Broadening our reach by developing engagement projects that are aimed at people who have never heard of BTO before to learn more about what we do and get involved. Our “Together Through Nature” project enabled us to connect with our local community where BTO headquarters are based in Thetford and support organisations who are already doing engagement work here. This project showed us that BTO has lots to offer to its local community and that there are mutual benefits in co-producing engagement projects.

Sharing & encouraging ideas, celebrating contributions and listening to feedback so we understand different perspectives. This means we are better equipped to keep inclusion practices in mind when developing engagement and volunteer-types of events and initiatives. Co-production is an approach to working collectively that we value at BTO, where every partner involved has an equal voice and equal involvement in making decisions. We think co-production is a really valuable way of thinking and relevant to many different projects at BTO. We are providing staff with guidance on how to apply these co-production principles to their projects.

Forming strong alliances with new and existing partners who are all striving to become inclusive, for instance Civil Society Consulting with whom we worked to connect with local community organisations in Thetford for the “Together Through Nature” project. 

Featured work