Deadline: 3-Mar-25
The Neighbourhood Ecosystem Fund Programme supports community groups in Scotland to develop local ecosystem restoration projects.
The Fund seeks to inspire, encourage, and enable communities to explore and develop ambitious ecosystem restoration projects locally. It also seeks to raise awareness about the importance of local ecosystem restoration and address barriers faced by communities.
Supporting Communities to Lead Local Action
- They want to create a more sustainable and interconnected world where nature and people thrive. Communities can and should be leaders in this work. By harnessing their knowledge of, and passion for, their local areas community groups can bring more nature and biodiversity back to Scotland’s diverse places.
- The aim of the Neighbourhood Ecosystem Fund is to help communities develop their ideas for ecosystem restoration into a pipeline of deliverable projects. They know that communities are at different stages of this work and that it can be challenging to get support for the early stages of projects.
- Grants can be used for the development stages of undertaking ecosystem restoration (the design, planning and preparation for ecosystem restoration). Successful community groups will also receive professional fundraising support from the Fund to move their projects from development stage to delivery.
- This Fund is supported by the Carman Family Foundation, the Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund, which is managed by NatureScot, and others. Inspiring Scotland administers this funding.
Priorities
- Your project must focus on one (or more) priorities for ecosystem restoration.
- These are:
- Connecting nature corridors: connecting areas of habitat or patches of greenspaces to support to nature revival and restoration.
- Habitat and species restoration (e.g. creating flower-rich grassland). This includes restoration of unused and derelict land, including farmland.
- Freshwater and wetland restoration (e.g. pond creation or river restoration).
- Coastal and marine initiatives which promote restoration, recovery, enhancement or resilience in Scotland’s coasts and seas.
- Control of invasive non-native species (INNS) impacting on nature (e.g. earlystage community action to plan removal of isolated invasive plant species).
- Urban nature: Enhancing and connecting nature within villages, towns, or cities (e.g. creating pollinator friendly habitat spaces).
Funding Information
- Community groups can apply for up to £13,500
- Successful applicants will receive up to £1,500 in professional fundraising support. This is to help projects obtain funding for delivery.
Eligible Projects
- Your project should focus on activities which promote whole-ecosystem restoration, recovery, enhancement, or resilience
- Projects must be led by their community
- Projects should focus on the development and feasibility stages of undertaking ecosystem restoration, rather than physical delivery.
Eligibility Criteria
- To apply for this funding, you must be a not-for-profit community-led organisation based in a specific place in Scotland.
- Your organisation must be a place-based local community group in Scotland. The purpose of this Fund is to support local ecosystem restoration. You must be able to clearly define your community, the location and size of the area for restoration.
- Your organisation must have an income of less than £200,000 in the last year and its own bank account. This Fund seeks to support grassroots community groups who may find it difficult to access funding for ecosystem restoration. As part of your application, they will ask you to submit a copy of your annual accounts.
- Your organisation must be a not-for-profit organisation. This includes SCIOs, CICs, Community Benefit Societies, Cooperatives, and not-for-profit Companies Limited by Guarantee. Unincorporated organisations can apply, but must have a constitution, a bank account registered in the name of your organisation and require two signatories for withdrawals.
Ineligibility Criteria
- They will not fund
- Projects which do not have a clear ecosystem restoration benefit.
- Projects which have already secured significant funding towards their ecosystem restoration activities.
- Projects which are part of large-scale or regional initiatives.
- Projects already funded by the Nature Restoration Fund.
For more information, visit Inspiring Scotland.