Funding

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Many organisations and public bodies are able to support nature conservation activities, either directly for its own sake, or indirectly, as part of achieving other social, environmental or economic aims. Some potentially useful links and contacts are given below. Between then they operate many different funding schemes at many different scales, targeted at a variety of activities. These schemes are changing all the time, hence the pointers here to the websites rather than to the schemes themselves.

Big Lottery Fund is responsible for giving out half the money for good causes raised by the National Lottery, giving it a budget of about £630 million a year. Their funding covers health, education, environment and charitable purposes. They are committed to bringing real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need.
http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Community Spaces

This is a Big Lottery Fund delivered through Groundwork UK. The website says "Community Spaces is a £50 million open grants programme funded through the Big Lottery Fund’s Changing Spaces initiative and managed by Groundwork UK on behalf of an experienced national consortium.

The programme empowers community groups to improve public spaces in their neighbourhood. It responds directly to people’s aspirations to have better places on their doorsteps – more interesting places for children to play, safer places for people of all ages to sit, greener spaces where people and nature can grow and flourish.

The Community Spaces programme aims to:

Create better local environments

Increase people’s access to quality local spaces for interaction, play and recreation
Increase the number of people actively involved in developing and running a practical environmental project that is visible in their community
Improve partnerships between communities, support organisations and local authorities.

To successfully apply for a Community Spaces grant, applications must show that projects will improve local neighbourhoods and environments.

Types of projects can include for example;

Community gardens and parks
Informal sports areas and multi-use games areas
Nature reserves
Squares and village greens
Churchyards
Ponds and projects which improve the local community’s access to green space".

To find out more and download an application form go to http://www.community-spaces.org.uk

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) was created on 5 May 2006 with a powerful remit to promote community cohesion and equality, as well as responsibility for housing, urban regeneration, planning and local government. At the core of itsactivities is one overarching aim. This is to create thriving, vibrant, sustainable communities which will improve every one’s quality of life. It defines a sustainable community as one where people want to live and work now and in the future. http://www.communities.gov.uk

Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is the host department for a number of important agencies, including Natural England and the Environment Agency. http://www.defra.gov.uk/funding/index.htm

GrantScape

GrantScape is committed to improving the natural environment and the quality of life of local communities through its grant programmes. Since 1997, the charity has awarded grants totalling over £65 million to a wide variety of deserving projects. Of this figure, £8 million has been awarded through our very popular “Biodiversity Challenge Fund” to support major nature conservation projects across England and Wales.

All of these Challenges have been heavily oversubscribed. The profile of the Biodiversity Challenge Fund is also now very high, and the charity's end-to-end application process has been highly praised by several major nature conservation charities.

In 2008, GrantScape intends to commit a further £1.7 million to UK nature conservation projects. As part of this, it has set itself an exciting new objective – to increase support for urban nature conservation projects which bring local communities closer to nature. GrantScape has therefore recently earmarked £300,000 for a special Inner London grant programme, as this is an area where dedicated funding for such projects is particularly hard to find. This will be launched later in 2008.

Details of how to apply will be on its website, http://www.Grantscape.org.uk

The Heritage Lottery Fund enables communities to celebrate, look after and learn more about our diverse heritage. From great museums and historic buildings to local parks and beauty spots or recording and celebrating traditions, customs and history, Heritage Lottery Fund grants open up the nation’s heritage for everyone to enjoy. http://www.hlf.org.uk

Local Biodiversity Action Plan Partnerships now exist in most parts of Britain. Although rarely able to offer direct funding themselves they often know about local funding opportunities for community and voluntary nature conservation organisations.
http://www.ukbap.org.uk