Sponsor a species
Donate to sponsor a rare bumblebee species today and help support urgent action to secure their future.
Choose your species
Donate to one of our rare bumblebees below. When you click, you’ll be taken to our Crowdfunder page to make your donation.
Why do rare bumblebees need our help?
Bumblebees are in crisis. In the last century, the UK has lost 97% of its wildflower meadows, leading to the extinction of two bumblebee species. Today, eight species risk that same fate.
At the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, we’re leading the fight to save bumblebees. We’ve developed a Species Recovery Programme to help secure the future of rare bumblebees, but we need you help to do it.
By sponsoring a species, you’ll be supporting our work to:
- Map the abundance and distribution of rare bumblebees in the UK
- Carry out scientific research and fund knowledge gaps
- Define areas most in need of conservation, targeted at rare bumblebee species
Tried and tested approach
Thanks to funding from Neal’s Yard Remedies and support from project partners, our Shrill carder bumblebee programme is well underway. Find out more about how we’re safeguarding the future of this rare bumblebee, and how we’ll use this learning to protect other rare bumblebees with your help.
FAQs
Can I sponsor a different bumblebee?
At the moment, we’re trialling the sponsor a species donations with two of our rare bumblebees. We hope to include all eight rare bumblebee species in future so you have more control over where your donation goes.
In the meantime, if you’d prefer to make a general donation to cover all our areas of work including rare bumblebee conservation and projects across the UK, you can do so on our donation page here.
What is Crowdfunder?
Crowdfunder is an online fundraising platform, which allows us to bring our community of supporters together to raise vital funds for rare bumblebees.
You will be able to see how much has been raised so far for each bumblebee, and contribute to our overall fundraising target.
100% of the money you donate to our sponsor a species projects will go directly to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
There is an option to add a tip to Crowdfunder to help cover their administration costs, but this is entirely optional.
What will my sponsorship support?
Your sponsorship will help fund our Species Recovery Programme, aimed at halting the decline of the eight rare bumblebee species in the UK.
This consists of three core elements:
- Species recovery review
- Delivery of conservation work
- Long term monitoring
The species recovery review is the first step, and is needed to help us understand the needs of each bumblebee species.
The outcome of this review will help guide our conservation work helping us to define areas for habitat creation or restoration, increase habitat connectivity, evidence data, identify any threats, and increase our understanding of the needs of these rare bumblebees.
What if you raise more than the £5,000 species targets?
If more donations are raised than the target for either species, then the excess funds will be used to support our core work.
This core work includes our ongoing work with farmers, land owners, and communities to provide information on how to best support our bumblebee pollinators; creating and restoring wildflower meadows; researching bumblebee population trends and ecology; supporting schools and educating the next generation on the importance of bumblebees; as well as supporting our core fundraising and charity administration costs.