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What's fixed and what's flexible

C2030 Com­munit­ies fund

Fixed and flexible

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Explor­ing the Cairngorms Nation­al Park © Vis­itScot­land / Luigi Di Pasquale

Key facts

  • £1 mil­lion grants for dis­tri­bu­tion by 30 Septem­ber 2028
  • The fund must help people and nature thrive togeth­er under the four deliv­ery themes of Cairngorms 2030
  • The Park Author­ity will not decide the exact fund­ing cri­ter­ia, the applic­a­tion pro­cess, or the pro­cess for award­ing funding.

Enabling lim­its

  • The pan­el has broad free­dom in shap­ing how the fund will oper­ate, its design must align with the Cairngorms 2030 vis­ion, includ­ing all four themes.
  • Vis­ion: By 2030, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park will be an exem­plar of people and nature thriv­ing togeth­er in a rap­idly chan­ging world.
  • Deliv­ery themes:
    • empower­ing communities
    • trans­form­ing transport
    • restor­ing and enhan­cing landscapes
    • improv­ing people’s health and wellbeing

What are you deciding?

  • The funds object­ives and how they deliv­er the pro­gramme vis­ion and com­munity aspirations
  • Types of pro­jects to prioritise
  • The levels and types of grants offered
  • Eli­gib­il­ity cri­ter­ia (with­in The Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund rules)
  • Applic­a­tion assess­ment approaches and decision mak­ing processes
  • How to ensure the fund is access­ible, fair and transparent
  • Mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­ation require­ments aligned to the programme
  • How the above shapes a fund that deliv­ers against cli­mate resilience

Fund object­ives

Para­met­ers and ques­tions to consider

  • The Cairngorms 2030: Com­munit­ies Fund is a com­munity co-designed fund that sup­ports loc­ally led pro­jects which con­trib­ute to the Nation­al Parks jour­ney towards net zero.
  • The pan­el has free­dom to shape how the fund works but must do so with­in NLHF require­ments and the stra­tegic frame­work of Cairngorms 2030s vis­ion and four deliv­ery themes.

Types of project

Para­met­ers and ques­tions to consider

  • Things that can­not be fun­ded are explored on the handout.
  • What can be funded?
  • Fund­ing should have demon­strat­able bene­fit to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and those that live with­in it.
  • Applic­a­tions from organ­isa­tions or indi­vidu­als out­with the bound­ar­ies of the Nation­al Park should show clear bene­fit to the com­munit­ies of the Nation­al Park.
  • How best to achieve the aim of 10% of the total value fun­ded con­trib­ut­ing towards equal­ity, diversity and inclusion?

Level and type of grants

Para­met­ers and ques­tions to consider

  • The pan­el should con­sider how this fund fits into what fund­ing already exists.
  • There isn’t unlim­ited resource to deliv­er the fund­ing, for example 20,000 grants of £50 would not be possible.
  • Is match fund­ing required?
  • Is this mul­tiple fund­ing pots of dif­fer­ent scales?
  • Do all pots have the same require­ments for match funding?
  • How do we ensure value for money?
  • How do we assess the capa­city of com­munit­ies to deliv­er pro­gramme outcomes?
  • Who makes decisions?
  • How do we make sure that money bene­fits loc­al people?

Eli­gib­il­ity criteria

Para­met­ers and ques­tions to consider

The C2030 pro­gramme tar­get audi­ences are:

  • Com­munity groups
  • Farm­ers and land managers
  • Interest groups
  • Loc­al businesses
  • Under-rep­res­en­ted groups
  • Young people.
  • Who can apply?
  • With­in that, is there a focus on com­munity organisations?
  • Are busi­nesses eligible?

Assess­ment and decision making

Para­met­ers and ques­tions to consider

  • Who decides on applications?
  • Con­sider the capa­city of both the organ­isa­tion (admin­is­trat­ing the funds), and the capa­city to make decisions – i.e. the volume of applic­a­tions that will need to be read, con­sidered against a set of cri­ter­ia, and then decisions made. Volun­teer or paid decision makers?
  • The Park Author­ity is the account­able body for the fund­ing, which means we need to report back on value for money, are in charge of repu­ta­tion­al risk if a grant ​“goes wrong” and will man­age the leg­acy of the fund­ing in leg­al terms.
  • What hap­pens if applic­ants dis­agree with a decision?
  • Is it pos­sible to appeal a decision?
  • Who con­siders that appeal?

Access­ible, fair and transparent

Para­met­ers and ques­tions to consider

  • Con­sider how dif­fer­ent people inter­act with fund­ing guid­ance, and how that will impact this process.
  • How will both the fund and even­tu­al grant awards be promoted?
  • How best to achieve the aim of 10% of the total value fun­ded con­trib­ut­ing towards equal­ity, diversity and inclusion?

Mon­it­or­ing and evaluation

Para­met­ers and ques­tions to consider

  • The Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund must be acknow­ledged in the fund­ing awards, in line with their guidance.
  • How will we ensure value for money?

The Park Author­ity needs to know:

  • What organ­isa­tion or indi­vidu­al has received the money?
  • What the money was inten­ded for,
  • What the money did,
  • What impact the money had
  • How each pro­ject con­trib­utes to at least one of the four deliv­ery themes
  • How does a pro­ject con­trib­ute mean­ing­fully to cli­mate resi­li­ence primar­ily, and/​or nature recov­ery and com­munity outcomes

“But what about the fund and what will that look like?”

Broadly, we don’t know. What we do know, is it is rooted in com­munity. Now we have the people who will shape this