For Funders
& Partners
Invest in something living, local and lasting
There are many ways to back this work — from a single tree to a long-term partnership. Every contribution goes directly into the land, the learning and the people who make it possible.
Our mission
Future Oaks is a Community Interest Company (CIC) and not-for-profit rooted at Lopemede Farm. We regenerate people's connection to food, farming and nature — through hands-on learning that follows the cycles of life.
We design and deliver programmes for schools, communities and organisations, and we exist to drive investment into this space: funding fair livelihoods, nature recovery and open access for all.
Our ambition extends across the River Thame landscape — supporting farmers and landholders in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire to open their land to learning, and inspiring a wider movement rooted in place.
We Have Become Strangers
to the Land
— and how we experience the life in it.
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The UK is the most nature-disconnected country in Europe.
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One in five children has a probable mental health disorder.
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Two thirds of under-14s get most of their energy from ultra-processed food.
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Around one in three English households have no access to nature within a 15-minute walk.
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And 76% of school leaders say curriculum pressure is damaging children’s wellbeing.
These aren’t separate problems — they share a root: a generation growing up without meaningful contact with the living world.
The consequences reach beyond people. The UK is among the most nature-depleted countries on earth — in the bottom 10% globally for protecting nature — with wildlife populations and habitats in long-term decline. Disconnection from the land and the destruction of it are two sides of the same crisis.
British farms are facing their own strain. In 2024 alone, English farm businesses lost £889 million to climate-related crop failures. Britain now produces less than 60% of its own food. The system that was meant to feed us is under profound pressure.
But farms cover 70% of UK land. They are the living landscape most of us have lost access to — and they have the potential to be far more than food producers. Farms as a living classroom: places of learning, connection, restoration and community. New models are emerging that reward farms for the wellbeing, biodiversity and community they nurture, not just the food they grow.
Future Oaks exists at that intersection. We believe farms can be part of the solution — and that reconnecting people with the land is one of the most important things we can do right now.
How We Measure Change
— Four Returns
Inspiration
Something shifts. A child who has never touched soil leaves with a question they can’t stop asking. An adult who arrived thinking about their inbox leaves thinking about a meadow. We track this through a nature-connectedness pulse on the day and a follow-up two weeks later.
Social
Connection between people, not just between people and land. Schools that return season after season. Volunteers who sign up after their first Grow Day. Communities who now tend the same hedge.
Natural
Every visit includes a visible care act for a named habitat. Not symbolic — real. Metres of hedge laid, trees tended, species counted, habitat surveys completed. The land is genuinely changing because of the people who come here.
Financial
A programme that can’t sustain the people who run it won’t last. We track revenue against cost, measure community value generated, and build the evidence that commercial investment — not only grants and trusts — can fund nature recovery and connection at scale.
Progress to date
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2019 — A 30-year strategy for the farm is set out, beginning a long-term shift toward nature-friendly, regenerative land use.
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2022 — The Van Tulleken brothers begin filming Operation Ouch at Lopemede.
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2023–24 — Partner services begin. The Roots & Rhythms project introduces life-centred approaches and prototypes Future Oaks’ first nature connection experiences, hosting early visits from Thame Scouts Explorers, Thame Town Council’s Biodiversity Group and DEFRA.
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June 2024 — Lopemede hosts a Six Inches of Soil educational day attended by over 350 people, delivered in partnership with Thame Town Council, Freshwater Habitats and 21st Century Thame.
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November 2024 — Future Oaks is enrolled as a Beacon Farm Partner with the Harmony Project and the Sustainable Food Trust.
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2025 — Lifestyle becomes our first funded partner, supporting infrastructure, habitat restoration, and funded Farm Visits and Grow Days over three years. Two of each have already been delivered.
Our Ambition
We start at Lopemede. But our ambition reaches into the wider River Thame landscape — across Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire — supporting farmers and landholders to offer the same quality of nature-based learning in their own fields, meadows and habitats. We don’t want to be the only place doing this. We want to be part of a movement: sharing what works, growing awareness of what’s possible, and helping others open their land to learning.
Our First Partner:
Lifestyle’s value of Growing Responsibility sits at the heart of everything we do together.
As our first partner, their support is enabling habitat restoration, species recovery, land stewardship, community building and learning at Lopemede.
Here's what that looks like so far:
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A heritage orchard. Lifestyle has funded the planting of 900 apple, pear, cherry, walnut and hazelnut trees — to emerge as one of the largest heritage orchards in Buckinghamshire.
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A wildflower meadow, 30 acres. Restored using both green hay and seed, returning colour, habitat and biodiversity to land that had lost it.
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Field Days, facilitated by Future Oaks over the next three years. Two have already taken place — visits from children and young people with Young Hackney during the May half-term.
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Grow Days, facilitated by Future Oaks over the next three years, for Lifestyle’s staff, partners and clients. Two have been delivered so far.
This is work that unfolds over years, not days.
Lifestyle are part of that journey — not as visitors, but as stewards.
Read Lifestyle’s Own Story of the Partnership.
Rooted in Partnership
We don't grow alone. These are the relationships that make it possible through financial support.
Funding Partners
Companies who fund this work as part of how they operate — with direct returns in nature recovery, community connection and meaningful staff and client engagement. Not a CSR bolt-on. A working relationship with the land and the people who tend it.
Lifestyle is our first Partner and the proof the model works and we thank Thame based business Lucy Electric for their support.
Foundations
& Trusts
Philanthropic investment in nature, farming, community and education — particularly for capital projects, access funding and long-term landscape recovery. We welcome conversations with foundations whose values align with ours.
With thanks to the Rothschild Foundation for their support.
