Ever wonder how real environmental change takes root? In this episode, Douglas Nelson talks with Carolyn Scotchmer, Executive Director of TD Friends of the Environment Foundation (TD FEF), about their unique, donor-driven approach to supporting hands-on environmental projects across Canada. Carolyn shares how TD FEF funds grassroots initiatives, emphasizing community engagement and the importance of on-the-ground action, from school ground greening to local stream monitoring. Discover how they’re empowering communities and the power of storytelling to amplify their impact.
—
Listen to the podcast here
TD Friends Of The Environment Foundation With Carolyn Scotchmer, Executive Director
In this episode, our guest is Carolyn Scotchmer. Carolyn is the Executive Director of TD Friends of the Environment Foundation or TD FEF as she calls it. Carolyn oversees the operations of the foundation and leads a team of regional managers in the delivery of granting programs that support community-based environmental initiatives all across Canada.
She comes from the sector and works as a grantor. In our conversation, she talks about what it takes to be effective in working with grantors, building relationships with grantors, building collaborations, and convening conversations across the sector to be more successful in granting and in your mission. For my fundraisers reading, Carolyn talks about how she crossed the line between seeking funds and being able to give it away, and what she learned in that process. This is a great episode. You’ll learn a lot more about the great work of TD FEF and their client donors.
‐‐‐
Carolyn, welcome to the show.
Thank you.
Overview Of TD FEF: Supporting Grassroots Environmental Projects
We are looking forward to a great conversation. You’re probably not surprised when we have funders on the show. It’s great for ratings, lots of readers tuning in, and getting the secret tips. What does Carolyn want to see in our applications? We’re not going to get into that specifically here in our conversation but I am interested in learning more about the foundation. Let’s start there. Tell me a little bit about TD Friends of the Environment Foundation and the role that you play in that organization.
TD Friends of the Environment Foundation or TD FEF as we like to call it for short, it’s not an easy name, is a national charity that funds projects across Canada. We’ve been around since 1990. 2025 is our 35th anniversary. Our focus is on smaller community-based grassroots environmental projects. I always like to tell people that we fund in the space where communities in the environment come together so a little bit less policy and research and a little bit more on-the-ground hands in the dirt or kids in the classroom type of environmental learning.
One of the things that people don’t necessarily know about us is that while we are embedded within TD, we are largely donor-driven. About 80% of the funds we give away come from customer donors who donate through their accounts into the foundation and then TD covers all of the administration costs. All of our salaries and everything on top of that so that every dollar that our donors donate to the foundation goes out to community groups across the country, which is important to us.
It leads to a level of accountability there to what we’re doing, as opposed to it being corporate funding, and also influences the way we give away our funds. We have regional advisory boards across the country to make sure we’re getting to causes that are important to people locally. We’re working on the ground with smaller but great projects.
Impact Of Client Funding On Long-Term Grant Planning
There’s a lot I want to ask out of that. Having the client funding that’s coming into the foundation and giving that away does have an element of accountability to it. How does that affect long-term planning for the grants that you’re making?
It doesn’t impact it. We are not endowment-based. We don’t have an endowment at all. Our donor base is large enough that there is some stability in the level of donations that we get every month. Most of them are through monthly donations so it’s the steady stream of funding that comes in. To make sure dollars are staying local to the donors, we’re divided up into 36 chapters across the country. Each chapter has its own account, depending on how many donors there dictate the amount of funding we have to give out in each chapter. One role that the bank plays in it, which was 80% funded by donors, is we do receive funding from the bank to top up those areas where demand is exceeding the actual number of donations coming in and it helps stabilize it a little bit if we do see drops in donation for some reason.
The Importance Of Local Focus In Environmental Work
It’s from year to year. Those 36 chapters are partially the answer to my next question, which is the decision to be local. With the work that we do here, we see it in the environmental movement and a lot in health care. It’s intensely local. I want to help the salmon stream that runs behind my house or the park that my children play in close to the community, close hands in dirt kind of a feeling for you. There’s another part of the environmental space that is that higher level international movement advocacy-based work. There’s clearly a role for both. TD FEF stays close to that community basis. Can you walk our audience through why that is and how you keep that focus on the community?
When the foundation came, a lot of work was done both in terms of the issue area, if you will, that the bank wanted to focus on and also how they wanted to do it. One thing that did come up at that point through focus groups again and again was this desire to support at the community level and for customers and the bank to be doing it together, which is fairly unique. We’re not the only one but there are not a lot of people who are operating under that model.
With commitment from day one for local funds to stay local, it’s within the fabric of the foundation. It’s always been the focus of what we do. We have had conversations over time about the space for us and the role that we play but at the end of the day, there is a real need for funding for organizations that are smaller and doing a school ground project, monitoring their local stream, or planting trees in a local park.
To be honest, administering that kind of funding is a lot of work. We funded over 500 projects in 2024. Our team is small but mighty. It’s important that there be funders in that space. Not every organization are large, sophisticated fundraisers. To have something that’s more accessible helps us create a better system for the work that needs to be done.
Not every organization is a large, sophisticated fundraiser. To have something that's more accessible helps us create a better system for the work that needs to be done. Click To TweetBalancing The Impact Of Foundation Work With Community Stories
There’s an important gap that you fill in terms of your funding and that supportive community. I’m curious. A number of our clients and the guests we’ve had on the show are using the “I” word a lot, that impact word and communicating the impact. How do you balance telling the single impact of the work of your foundation with more than 500 great stories that you generated in the community in 2024? How do you put those two pieces together?
It is tough to put together. I’m not going to lie. It’s one of our biggest challenges, especially when you look at the fact that, as the funder, we’re largely dependent on our grantee’s abilities to communicate their impact to ladder it up to our impact. We can talk about dollars given away and projects funded. That’s part of it but to get at the heart of what’s being done, it’s tough when a lot of the organizations you’re working with don’t have a lot of capacity for higher evaluation metrics.
What we found is the real solution to that is storytelling. We can’t tell all 500 stories, unfortunately. We would love to but it’s about conveying to people how much impact this has on the ground and what it means to a community and connecting them with stuff that’s happening in their communities so they can see it, be in it, and be like, “This is important. This needs to be done.”
Every social profit organization is striving to do a better job. Some of them do an exceptional job. Some of them have some room to grow. You’re thinking about the cumulative impact of your work on any given year or over the years you’ve been around. Thinking about that cumulative impact, what are the go-to stories that you share with colleagues or client donors to the foundation?
The most impactful stories that we’re looking at come at the heart of where the community and environment come together. We fund a whole spectrum of work. Some of it is perhaps a little bit more passive in nature in terms of how people are participating and getting active. Some of it is very active. We do a lot of work with schools where we have teachers and community members coming together to create amazing school ground projects.
Our strongest stories are those spaces where it has those three elements so the action, the people, and then the environmental or nature outcomes. The more visible, the better. We need to be looking at all of it. You can’t always see what needs to be impacted. If people can see the change, it resonates a lot more. We’re always aiming to have a certain portion of what we fund fall into that category.
Environmental Change: Our strongest stories are those spaces where action, people, and environmental outcomes come together. The more visible, the better.
When you’re working with these organizations that are looking to have a hyper-local impact and you’re explaining that’s the focus of the foundation, how often do you have to say, “That’s what we mean?” Do they take it at face value that you want to be that hyperlocal?
Yes and no. There are thousands of people across the country who have experienced it. There is some level of understanding there. I can’t even tell you how many times I meet somebody and tell them what I do. They’re like, “You funded X down the street, my kid’s school, or the park by my house.” There’s a significant number of people who understand it because they’ve lived it.
Having said that, when we look at our applications and the applications we get out of every round, in which we had a deadline, there are people in there who are not necessarily picking up on that. We get applications for all kinds of things, amazing local projects, and then some things that maybe aren’t such a great fit, in which case, if it’s a good project, we can maybe suggest another alternative for them.
Transitioning From Fundraiser To Funder: A Personal Journey
I want to shift to you. You have the job that every fundraiser wants. Going back to when I started in this field as a fundraiser in my early twenties, one day I want to be a funder. I’m going to go on the other side and give the money away for change. I’ve had countless conversations with fundraisers over the years about that. Carolyn, how did you find the golden ticket? How did you find your way to the other side?
I spent years fundraising. Before I ended up in this chair, I worked with nonprofits and charities in a couple of different cities in Canada working on environmental projects. Honestly, the first fundraising application I ever wrote was to TD Friends of the Environment Foundation. It was funded. It’s a full-circle moment. I was successful. It was exciting. I don’t know if people remember their first successful grant application but it’s a bit of a moment.
At the end of the day, as it is for so many people, it was having built a reputation and a bit of a presence in this space and then being in the right place at the right time. The organization I was working for prior to TD FEF used to receive TD FEF funding. It was an organization where I certainly couldn’t take sole responsibility for their amazing abilities to tell their story.
When I started there, I recognized what they had and did my best to nurture it, which meant funders came to us to help us tell their story. In receiving funding from the foundation, we had a number of opportunities to help them tell their story, which means when the role came up, they knew who I was. They knew that I could speak on behalf of them because I had been in it. It happened to work out.
Right place, right time, and do good work.
That helps.
Lessons Learned From Early Granting Cycles As A Funder
It’s an important detail for our audience. Do a good job at what you’re doing. It’s easy to say, “The transition from raising and seeking money to giving away money is going to be all rainbow and sunshine.” You probably have your feet on the desk most of the time, smoking a cigar, and deciding where the money goes. If you can take yourself back to those first few granting cycles, what did you learn as a funder that you wish you’d known when you were seeking funds as a fundraiser?
One of the most important things that you learn pretty quickly is unless you have the means to set up your family foundation to be doing whatever it is that you want every day. For most of us who are working within other funding organizations, there are restrictions and boundaries in place. There are a lot of reasons for this. Some of them you can poke and prod at, work through them, and see if they need to be there but some of them need to be there.
We’re bound by our bylaws and CRA regulations as a charitable foundation. Every funder needs to pick their lane a little bit or else there’s no containing it. It’s figuring out what those are, who benefits from those, and who maybe should be benefiting from those but are missing and figuring out how to work within that system. It’d be nice if it was a free for all but it’s never going to be a free for all. Everybody has to make their own choices. Somebody is always being told no. Who is that? How is that working?
I don’t think organizations, whether they’re seeking funds or getting funds, would enjoy a free-for-all for very long.
It’s true.
If you’ve got the entire universe of potential donors and funders to seek funds from, you’re going to get pretty tired pretty quickly before you find the ones that are a good fit for your organization. I’m curious. If you could go back to Carolyn, the fundraiser before you were Carolyn, the funder, what advice would you have for yourself and environmental fundraising and people who may be seeking funds maybe from TD FEF or other organizations?
There are a few things, certainly. Some are missteps that I didn’t necessarily make but I could have. One is that not all funders are networked but a lot of funders that people are familiar with within their sector are networked. We talk to each other. It doesn’t mean we’re sitting around badmouthing the groups that are on the ground.
No hot sessions.
Generally no. Mission drift is a real thing. If you’re an organization that’s chased after a fund that maybe wasn’t your best fit and therefore struggled to deliver properly, there’s going to be some awareness of that, which leads me to my other piece of advice. The number of people who spend their time on applications is never going to be successful because it’s not the right fit for what you’re looking for.
It would be so much more valuable if people would. This isn’t all people but people looking for funds often spend a little bit more time figuring out where their best matches are. It doesn’t mean that you can’t occasionally lob a ball in the mix and see if it works but we see a lot of people spending a lot of time on applications where they’re not meeting our eligibility requirements or our focus area. Their time could be better spent in other ways.
It would be so much more valuable if people looking for funds would spend a little bit more time figuring out where their best matches are. Click To TweetRecognizing Amoebic Mission And Its Impact On Organizations
That’s a great point about the resource capacity and resource constraints that funding-seeking organizations have. Spend your time on what’s likely to be successful and not other places. The other thing I’ve seen in the environmental space, and I’ve seen it in other parts of the social profit sector too, is amoebic mission. The mission grows where the funding is.
You can see it in some organizations more obvious than others where the sum of the grants is successfully caught and captured rather than the sum of their purpose. It can be hard for those organizations five years down the road to articulate what they’ve accomplished because they’ve chased that funding. When you see an organization that maybe has that amoebic mission condition, other than saying, “Stay away, we’re not going to fund that,” is it obvious to you as a funder when an organization is stretching to hit the criteria?
I won’t say we always catch it but often it is. Often there are questions we’re looking for when that happens. Sometimes there are legitimate gaps that groups need to grow to fill but one thing that we’re aware of, and honestly, I wish all funders were, and I’m not sure all are, is where a group is stretching to fill in a space that’s already full or occupied in a way where it’s meeting the need.
I then feel like we have a responsibility to poke into that a little bit and make sure that we’re not undermining strong local groups that are already in existence by funding groups that are under that amoebic mission and who will wander in and wander off again. If that smaller pre-existing group doesn’t make it, then there becomes a gap.
The reason I ask that is often we’re often working with organizations that are looking to strengthen their fundraising capacity. We want to fill this project. We are fundraising and granting, which is a fairly common thing in the environmental space. Our advice is typically to be more narrow, sharpen the point, don’t flatten it out, don’t expand, and be clear.
It’s often difficult for organizations to make those selections about exactly where they’re going to prioritize or what that narrow focus needs to be. From your perspective as a funder and someone who has come out of the space working for those organizations that are funding, what do you see as an opportunity for organizations to sharpen the point or narrow their focus?
I’m not sure there’s one. I wish there was a magic answer. If there is, I don’t know that I know it. There’s an opportunity for groups, whether it’s through strategic planning or other exercises, to get together with their board, the staff, and the leaders, and identify. Even within the impacts you’re trying to achieve, what would success ultimately look like?
There is that interest in maybe reaching a new audience or rethinking your program in some way to do their homework, take their time, and build relationships. Figure out who else is doing similar things in this space. I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve had people approach me with their unique challenge or approach to something.
Environmental Change: Organizations should take their time, build relationships, and figure out who else is doing similar things in this space.
We’re a national funder. Ninety percent of the time, they’re not unique. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t space for them to do that work within the community they’re working but they would be very well served by checking out people who are maybe doing similar work in other parts of the country, what they’ve learned, how they’ve gone about it, and what their challenges have been.
I spend a lot of time in the cancer fundraising space and cancer research funding space. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there are a few cancer organizations around. I’ve been on the consulting side. One of the things I hear is, “We know there are a lot of organizations but we’re unique.” Carolyn, I’m convinced that we’re all unique and that’s what makes us the same. People are looking for that point of distinction.
Waving A Magic Wand In The Environmental Sector
I can see the appeal of your model of being hyperlocal. You can be very unique and specialized with a hyperlocal focus. That may be a little more challenging if you’re looking across a province, region, or certainly in the entire country. You asked about a magic wand. Here’s one of my favorite questions to ask on this show. I haven’t found it either but in the environmental space that you are so expert in, if you did have that magic wand but it would only work once, what direction would you wave that wand?
At the heart of it, there are a lot of issues in this space and big challenges that people are working to address, which means there are all kinds of directions. I could wave my magic wand but I tend to think that maybe we would get farther and faster if there was a better understanding of the importance of relationship-building and collaboration across all communities and sectors. It’s not something that can be contained within a nutshell.
The people who are finding the solutions come from all sectors. I get a question a lot from people, “I’m interested in the environment. What field should I study?” It’s like, “Whatever is interesting.” Whether you’re an accountant or comms major, there are jobs in the field for everybody. If the population as a whole had a better understanding of that and what the opportunities become if everybody’s all working together rather than feeling competitive or threatened by the inclusion of more people, then we probably get farther along.
Measuring Success As An Executive Director
That’s a good use of the magic wand. I appreciate that. We’ll put that in and hope when the magic wand finally starts working, that’s one of the wishes that gets granted but that’s not how it works. You’ve been with the organization for a while. At the end of a day or year, how do you know that you’ve been successful as an executive director?
Technically my job is about working with my team to make sure that we are running granting programs that are meeting needs. We’re a learning organization. We’re always taking into account how the world’s changing things. We’re figuring out who’s not at the table and who should be at the table, filtering off what I always think of as shiny fundraisers. We’ve all seen proposals that are incredibly well-written and may lack content versus proposals where the applicant has little experience fundraising but it’s such a wonderful gem of a project.
Beyond that, one of the things I’m focused on is given my background and the background of people on my team who have also come from the sector, thinking about how we can use our positions as fundraisers. As a foundation that sits within a bank, where can we have additional influence beyond the dollars we’re giving out? Where can we be part of conversations trying to move the sector as a whole forward? We certainly can’t do that alone but we do have some resources at our disposal that make that a pretty great opportunity.
What Carolyn Scotchmer Is Looking Forward To
That’s good. Thank you for sharing that. As we come to the end of our conversation, I get to ask my favorite question. Carolyn, what are you looking forward to?
Many things. I feel like we’re surrounded by a lot of negative news. There’s a lot going on in the world. Through the work I do, the communities we connect with, and the young people we see coming up through this project, there’s so much hope. There are so many people with so many great ideas who get what needs to be done and are willing to invest the time and energy into doing it. What I’m looking forward to is seeing that continue to play out and seeing those wonderful projects continue to take place and people continue to focus on the things that make our communities great.
A lot is going on in the world, but there's so much hope. There are so many people with great ideas who get what needs to be done and are willing to invest the time and energy into doing it. Click To TweetThe work done well and more of it. That’s for the future. Carolyn, thank you so much for being a part of the show. Thank you for the time you spent and for all the work that you do on behalf of local organizations trying to improve their environment all across the country.
Thank you.
