Bringing participatory examples to life

Cairngorms 2030 Com­munit­ies Fund Pan­el Bring­ing the examples to life

1. Col­lect­ive models

Open col­lect­ive

The fund holds an open day at the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship hub in Grant­own. Any­one with a pro­ject idea can come. Forty people show up – applic­ants, pre­vi­ous grant recip­i­ents, com­munity coun­cil­lors, a few people who just heard about it and wanted to see. Each applic­ant has five minutes to describe their idea. Then the room delib­er­ates togeth­er. Ques­tions are asked, con­nec­tions are made. Someone real­ises their pro­ject over­laps with anoth­er and sug­gests they col­lab­or­ate. At the end of the day, every­one in the room – applic­ants included – votes on which pro­jects should go for­ward. The people closest to the work are also the people mak­ing the decisions.

Closed col­lect­ive

Six com­munity devel­op­ment organ­isa­tions from across the park meet quarterly to man­age a shared pot of £150,000 for medi­um grants. They know their com­munit­ies well and between them cov­er most of the park’s geo­graphy. Each organ­isa­tion brings for­ward pro­jects from their area. The group dis­cusses pri­or­it­ies togeth­er, chal­lenges each other’s assump­tions, and reaches decisions by con­sensus. No single organ­isa­tion con­trols the out­come. The fund belongs to all of them.

Rolling col­lect­ive

In year one, sev­en pro­jects receive grants from the small grants pot. In year two, those sev­en pro­ject leads are invited to join the decision-mak­ing group for the next round. They read the new applic­a­tions, meet the applic­ants, and vote along­side the Involve team. They bring some­thing no extern­al pan­el could – they have been through the pro­cess them­selves, they know what the money actu­ally means, and they can spot both the poten­tial and the gaps in what people are ask­ing for. Each year, the cohort shifts. Last year’s recip­i­ents become this year’s decision-makers.

1. Com­munity panel

Eight people sit around a table in Kin­gussie on a Tues­day even­ing in March – a crofter from Lag­gan, a retired teach­er from Aviemore, a young woman who runs a com­munity café in Boat of Garten, a ranger, a par­ent gov­ernor, and three oth­ers. They have each spent the pre­vi­ous week read­ing twelve applic­a­tions. Tonight they dis­cuss them togeth­er. One applic­a­tion is beau­ti­fully writ­ten but the pan­el won­ders wheth­er it really reaches the com­munit­ies it claims to serve. Anoth­er is rough around the edges but describes some­thing none of them have seen fun­ded before. They ask ques­tions, push back on each oth­er, change their minds. By nine o’clock they have made their decisions. The money goes where the pan­el believes it will make the most dif­fer­ence, not where the best bid writer lives.

1. Cri­ter­ia-based assessment

A loc­al Com­munity Devel­op­ment Trust has been apply­ing for grants for fif­teen years. They know the lan­guage, they know what fun­ders want to hear, and their fin­ance man­ager can pro­duce a pro­ject budget before break­fast. In March, they sub­mit a detailed applic­a­tion to the Cairngorms large grants pot – forty pages, three years of accounts, two let­ters of sup­port. The Park Author­ity assess­ment pan­el reads it care­fully against the pub­lished cri­ter­ia. It scores well. It is fun­ded. The Trust deliv­ers a well-run pro­ject that meets all its tar­gets. But in the same round, a small inform­al group from a remote glen sub­mit­ted a one-page let­ter describ­ing some­thing genu­inely trans­form­a­tion­al. It did not score as well. It was not funded.

1. Delib­er­a­tion

In Janu­ary, twenty res­id­ents gath­er for the first of three even­ing ses­sions to hear ideas for pro­jects to pro­mote people and nature thriv­ing togeth­er. They have been ran­domly selec­ted from across the park – dif­fer­ent ages, dif­fer­ent back­grounds, dif­fer­ent rela­tion­ships to the land. In the first ses­sion they hear from loc­al eco­lo­gists, com­munity work­ers and young people about what is hap­pen­ing in the Cairngorms. In the second they meet six pro­ject applic­ants and ask them chal­len­ging ques­tions. In the third they delib­er­ate. One par­ti­cipant comes in con­vinced that envir­on­ment­al pro­jects should take pri­or­ity. By the final ses­sion she has shif­ted – not because any­one told her to, but because she heard some­thing in the second meet­ing that she could not unhear. The group reaches a decision together.

1. Dis­trib­uted dialogue

In Feb­ru­ary, twenty-four com­munity hosts across the park – a postie in Tomin­toul, a youth work­er in Aviemore, a farm­er near Brae­mar – each run a kit­chen table con­ver­sa­tion with six to ten of their neigh­bours. They all use the same three ques­tions: what do you want this fund to do? Who should it reach? What would suc­cess look like in five years? The con­ver­sa­tions last about an hour. Some hap­pen in liv­ing rooms, some in vil­lage halls, one in a sheep shed. The out­puts are gathered by the Park Author­ity and woven into a syn­thes­is that shapes the fund’s pri­or­it­ies for the year. No one had to travel. No one had to fill in a form. The fund came to the com­munity rather than ask­ing the com­munity to come to it.

1. Ideas chal­lenge

In spring, the fund launches a chal­lenge: How might your com­munity help people and nature thrive togeth­er in the Cairngorms? There is no pre­scribed pro­ject type, no long applic­a­tion form – just a two-page expres­sion of interest or a two-minute video. A primary school in Kin­gussie sub­mits a pro­pos­al to rewild their school grounds and run hab­it­at mon­it­or­ing ses­sions. A group of older res­id­ents in Bal­later pro­poses a pro­gramme of guided walks that teaches young­er people to read the land­scape. A com­munity energy cooper­at­ive near Grant­own applies to install sol­ar pan­els and use the income to fund loc­al envir­on­ment­al edu­ca­tion. None of these groups had thought of them­selves as fund­ing applic­ants before. The chal­lenge gave them a door to walk through. This could be com­bined with open col­lect­ive mod­els for a more col­lab­or­at­ive approach.

1. Pub­lic Vote (PB)

In Octo­ber, the Cairngorms fund opens its doors for the autumn round. Forty-two pro­jects have passed the eli­gib­il­ity check. Everything from a com­munity wood­land in New­ton­more to a youth cyc­ling pro­ject in Brae­mar. For three weeks, any­one who lives, works or accesses ser­vices in the nation­al park can vote. Polling sta­tions open at the Grant­own farm­ers’ mar­ket and the Bal­later com­munity café. An online form goes out through the school news­let­ters. By the time vot­ing closes, 2,300 people have had their say. The twelve pro­jects with the most votes share £180,000. The wood­land gets fun­ded. So does the cyc­ling pro­ject. A few estab­lished organ­isa­tions are sur­prised to find them­selves pipped by a small inform­al group who mobil­ised their village.

Mixed options

There are many dif­fer­ent com­bin­a­tions of approaches and meth­ods that you could design. These examples below attempt to bring just a few options to life.

Example 1: Pub­lic vote for small, loc­al pan­el for large

The Cairngorms fund runs two pro­cesses sim­ul­tan­eously. For small grants, any­one in the park can vote – pro­jects are pos­ted online and at com­munity ven­ues every quarter, and the pub­lic decides. It is fast, vis­ible and gen­er­ates real com­munity buzz. For large grants, a trained loc­al pan­el of eight com­munity mem­bers takes over – read­ing applic­a­tions care­fully, meet­ing applic­ants, and delib­er­at­ing togeth­er before decid­ing. The small grants pro­cess reaches people who have nev­er engaged with a fund before. The large grants pro­cess gives com­plex, multi-year pro­jects the scru­tiny they deserve. Neither approach would work as well for the oth­er grant size.

Example 2: Dis­trib­uted dia­logue sets pri­or­it­ies, loc­al pan­el decides

Every spring, com­munity hosts across the park run kit­chen table con­ver­sa­tions about what mat­ters most in their area. The out­puts are gathered and pub­lished as the fund’s pri­or­it­ies for the year – writ­ten in the community’s own words. A loc­al pan­el then meets to read applic­a­tions and decide which ones best reflect what com­munit­ies said they wanted. The community’s voice shapes the dir­ec­tion. A com­munity pan­el holds the decision. From start to fin­ish, no pro­fes­sion­al fun­der makes a judge­ment call about what is worth supporting.

Example 3: Ideas fest­iv­al, then a pub­lic vote

Once a year the fund hosts a Cairngorms Ideas Fest­iv­al – a day of open con­ver­sa­tions, work­shops and pitch­ing across a few ven­ues sim­ul­tan­eously. Any­one can come. Com­munity groups, indi­vidu­als, young people, farm­ers, busi­nesses. The day is not about sub­mit­ting applic­a­tions – it is about mak­ing con­nec­tions, devel­op­ing half-formed ideas, and find­ing col­lab­or­at­ors. Groups that want to take their idea fur­ther sub­mit a short expres­sion of interest in the weeks that fol­low. Eli­gible pro­jects go to a pub­lic vote. The fest­iv­al gen­er­ates ideas. The com­munity chooses which ones get funded.

Example 4: Dis­trib­uted dia­logue into ideas chal­lenge into delib­er­at­ive event

In Janu­ary, the fund puts out a simple invit­a­tion across the park: host a con­ver­sa­tion with your neigh­bours about what would help people and nature thrive togeth­er where you live. A toolkit goes out to any­one who wants to run one – three ques­tions, a simple note-tak­ing sheet, and a post­card to send back. Over six weeks, thirty-one con­ver­sa­tions hap­pen. A post­mis­tress in Tomin­toul hosts one after clos­ing time. A ranger runs one at a path main­ten­ance day near Brae­mar. A teach­er organ­ises one with par­ents at the Kin­gussie school gates. The out­puts come back to a com­munity-led coordin­at­ing group as post­cards and voice notes and scribbled A4 sheets. Three themes emerge strongly across the park: access to land, intergen­er­a­tion­al know­ledge, and the eco­nom­ics of stay­ing rural.

In March the fund hosts a Demo­cracy Day in Grant­own – open to any­one. Sixty people come. Com­munity groups, indi­vidu­als, farm­ers, young people, a few who just heard about it and wanted to see. The three themes from the winter con­ver­sa­tions are on the walls. Groups have five minutes each to pitch an idea that responds to one of them. Then the room breaks into three café-style dis­cus­sions where people can move between tables, chal­lenge ideas, sug­gest col­lab­or­a­tions, and add their weight to what feels most prom­ising. By the end of the day, fif­teen ideas have enough momentum to go for­ward to a full applic­a­tion. The winter con­ver­sa­tions shaped the ques­tions and the Demo­cracy Day sur­faced the ideas.