Post session 6 - Survey responses (anon)

Should applic­ants be able to apply to the fund more than once? Do you think match fund­ing role in this fund?

What does mean­ing­ful bene­fit to the Cairngorms com­munity mean to you? Is there any­thing else you want to say about eli­gib­il­ity fol­low­ing your dis­cus­sion in the last ses­sion? How might geo­graphy fea­ture in decision-mak­ing? What role do you see for mem­bers of this pan­el on an ongo­ing basis? Please select all that apply. What should a decision-mak­ing pro­cess pri­or­it­ise when choos­ing between applic­a­tions? Is there any­thing else you want to say about com­munity decision-mak­ing, fol­low­ing our dis­cus­sion in the last ses­sion? For small grants, what inform­a­tion do you think an applic­ant should need to provide? For medi­um grants, what inform­a­tion do you think an applic­ant should need to provide? For large grants, what inform­a­tion do you think an applic­ant should need to provide? What should the fund ask of people once they’ve received a grant? (report­ing and account­ab­il­ity) What would suc­cess look like for this fund? What would put you off apply­ing to this fund?

Yes it should be encour­aged but not required, at any grant size Yes repeat applic­a­tions could be a bar­ri­er for the No-requir­ing match fund­ing could be a bar­ri­er for the people this fund is try­ing to reach Yes repeat applications

I’m not sure — I’d like to dis­cuss Yes-repeat applic­a­tions this in Ses­sion 7 In prac­tice this means that whatever pro­ject is put for­ward must bene­fit the Cairngorms as a place and the people liv­ing there. The com­munity (well rep­res­en­ted, both in num­bers and demo­graph­ics) should find a bene­fit in it, after dis­cus­sion research of Oppor­tun­ity, inclus­iv­ity, sus­tain­ab­il­ity, well­being for those liv­ing in and con­nect­ing with the Cairngorms The pro­ject must offer an improve­ment in some aspect of life for the Cairngorms com­munity whilst still meet­ing one of the Cairngorms 2030 aims: For example, mak­ing travel easi­er, cheap­er or more flex­ible for res­id­ents and vis­it­ors. For cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion or adapt­a­tion meas­ures this might be help­ing res­id­ent cut their energy use or use energy more effect­ively (espe­cially as liv­ing in such a rur­al area makes energy more expens­ive most homes will be heated with oil or cal­or gas for example). Art based pro­jects may improve res­id­ent and vis­it­or wellbeing.

No Encour­aging applic­ants to provide clear meas­ur­able poten­tial bene­fits (e.g. sci­entif­ic research and/​or com­munity sur­vey) I think match fund­ing could be a require­ment based on cer­tain eli­gib­il­ity cri­ter­ia I would rather see this fund enable pro­jects from indi­vidu­als or smal­ler organ­isa­tions and groups or indi­vidu­als rather than gov­ern­ment­al bod­ies or large NGOs

decision mak­ing should include record­ing of the community/​ies reached, and suc­cess will mean the £1m will have been pro­por­tion­ally spread across the park Cer­tain pro­jects could get high(er) score by improv­ing the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment (e.g. emis­sion trans­ports, etc) Pan­el mem­ber­ship should have the option to be part of decision-mak­ing. Ideally the deciders should be paid; in this case one can­not be a pan­el­ist twice (incl. mem­bers of this present pan­el). If not paid, then no restric­tion. I think geo­graphy mat­ters at the out­reach, applic­a­tion and decision-mak­ing stage. We need to account for smal­ler com­munit­ies not hav­ing enough people (who aren’t already involved in loc­al com­munity coun­cils) to rep­res­ent them and be in a pos­i­tion to access fund­ing. I think we could divide decision mak­ing pan­els based on area, but also have a cent­ral decision mak­ing pan­el made up of all these smal­ler loc­al pan­els. I think the out­reach stage is the most import­ant time to draw in applic­a­tions from under fun­ded areas there’s not much point in hav­ing a geo­graph­ic­ally diverse decision mak­ing pan­el if there are very few applic­a­tions from smaller/​under fun­ded areas. At the decision mak­ing stage, I feel sim­pli­city might be key. Try­ing to co-ordin­ate loc­al­ised input might be too time and resource con­sum­ing com­pared to select­ing one diverse pan­el. How­ever, I’d hap­pily dis­cuss this and see what every­one else thinks How well it is bene­fit­ing the com­munity and if it will leave a leg­acy and some­thing that will still be giv­ing back to the com­munity in years to come com­munity impact, envir­on­ment­al sus­tain­ab­il­ity Is this an applic­ant that has applied for fund­ing before? Do they receive fund­ing from else­where already? How does this pro­ject bene­fit people from mar­gin­al­ised groups? Does this bene­fit people who LIVE in the park? Does this allow people who may not oth­er­wise get to ACCESS the park? How does this improve the well­being, sus­tain­ab­il­ity, oppor­tun­it­ies, and inclus­iv­ity of the park? How does this pro­ject demon­strate leg­acy? Firstly: Bene­fit delivered to the Cairngorms com­munity. Secondly: Avoid­ing the approved pro­jects all being centred on the lar­ger com­munit­ies (who I sus­pect usu­ally get most fund­ing). Does the pro­ject devel­op skills and know­ledge with­in the Cairngorms com­munity? Does the pro­ject improve access to people, places and/​or facil­it­ies that will bene­fit the well­being of mem­bers of the Cairngorms com­munity? What is the long-term reach of the pro­ject likely to be how many people will it bene­fit both dir­ectly and indir­ectly, and for how long? No How they intend to use the money and if it will bene­fit the com­munity and how. They should also state how they intend to carry out said pro­ject and also if it fits with our 2030 themes. fair rep­res­ent­ativ­ity of pan­els, make research and dis­cus­sion man­dat­ory quanti­fy com­munity impact (can be through sur­veys) + envir­on­ment­al impact/​sustainability Basic inform­a­tion, a cov­er letter/​video/​voice note/​portfolio How much money is sought, what it is to be spent on (in broad terms), what it will deliv­er and how this bene­fits the com­munity (in the widest sense). Some idea of how it relates to EDI applic­a­tion A sum­mary of what their pro­ject is and how it ties into the themes of Cairngorms 2030. To keep updat­ing on how the pro­ject is com­ing along The com­munity hav­ing great­er oppor­tun­it­ies with­in 2 years and for there to be some ele­ment of leg­acy. The broad­ness of the fund. The applic­a­tion pro­cess fund match­ing, paper­work, dehu­man­iz­a­tion of the fund­ing process

Yes repeat applic­a­tions size Yes it should be encour­aged but not required, at any grant To me, this has two mean­ings. Firstly, skills and know­ledge are being developed with­in and passed on to mem­bers of the Cairngorms com­munity as a res­ult of pro­jects fun­ded by the CCF. Secondly, mem­bers of the Cairngorms com­munity will have access to people, places and/​or facil­it­ies that improve their well­being as a res­ult of pro­jects fun­ded by the CCF.

I do not believe this fund should be avail­able for any­one under 16 to apply. This doesn’t exclude any­one young­er, who can have an applic­a­tion sub­mit­ted on their behalf. Don’t be too pro­script­ive on eli­gib­il­ity cri­ter­ia but give guid­ance on who would be most likely to be eli­gible, when the applic­a­tion is being assessed any applic­a­tion from someone less likely has less chance of suc­cess but is not going to be ruled out of being con­sidered. No, I don’t think so at this stage

Agree with the last state­ment, but don’t hold any firm opin­ion on any oth­er aspect. Agree with all of the above. I think there has to be someone from each ​‘corner’ (ward) of the park involved at both the applic­a­tion & decision mak­ing stage. I like the infer­ence of estab­lish­ing & mak­ing known right from the start that £1M is ​‘Up for Grabs’ for any deserving pro­ject with­in Com­munit­ies Clear evid­ence that fund­ing is aimed towards full geo­graph­ic­al spread I don’t think geo­graphy should fea­ture in the decision mak­ing. I think if the pub­lic are allow to have a heavy vote, then areas highly pop­u­lated and sup­por­ted will win the vote, rather than based on the pro­ject mer­its. Lim­ited votes for a pub­lic steer and funds based on mer­its, rather than areas A pro­ject should be evid­ence based, have a feas­ible deliv­ery timeline, and be able to have a meas­ur­able impact. This should be across all three grant sizes and really isn’t too much to ask for. It can be some­thing as small as a declar­a­tion from the applic­ant of a small grant, a timeline deliv­ery plan for medi­um grants, or all of the above and more for the large grants. Sim­il­arly the CNPA should be impos­ing their reg­u­lar cri­ter­ia based judge­ments onto these applic­a­tions. I don’t see this fund as an oppor­tun­ity for applic­ants to cut corners, but some­thing that can be access­ible through vari­ous chan­nels, with guid­ance and a wide impact. Link­age with the com­munit­ies the applic­a­tion comes from, like­li­hood of suc­cess of aims of the applic­a­tion, any bene­fits to the group/​individual car­ry­ing out the pro­ject being fun­ded, longev­ity of out­come of the pro­ject, The biggest bene­fit to people/​area not neces­sar­ily the largest group of people Maybe, use a sim­il­ar ​“Rat­ing’ sys­tem as you would when look­ing for poten­tial in Human Resource Applic­a­tions for Employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies; ie (1) Does the Applic­a­tion describe spe­cific­ally the reas­on for apply­ing for this Grant & is this feas­ible in rela­tion to the Grant being applied for? YES or NO?(2) Does the Applic­a­tion clearly out­line & jus­ti­fy the viab­il­ity needed for such a Pro­pos­al? YES or NO?(3) Can Deliv­ery & Pro­gress be eas­ily meas­ured & mon­itored? YES or NO? etc. etc. Demon­strable loc­al com­munity bene­fit They can be part of the decision mak­ing, but they need to be on this for the right reas­on. they have a skill set that allows them to bring some­thing to the table (hos­pit­al­ity, farm­er, build­er, com­munity work­er, career etc) Along with hav­ing no input or con­nect­ing to any­one apply­ing for a grant Val­ues, impact, return

Same as small, + at least 2 per­sons involved as applic­ants. Inter­view As above, plus testi­mo­ni­als, accounts, con­sti­tu­tion or oth­er suf­fi­cient evid­ence of organ­isa­tion­al struc­ture, pre­vi­ous fund­ing. There is prob­ably some more inform­a­tion that would be sens­ible to gain but I’m not sure! How it might bene­fit the com­munity as per my pre­vi­ous answer. Name, age, loc­a­tion, address (the basics). A clear descrip­tion, includ­ing reas­ons why the grant is required and what they hope to achieve with it. Wheth­er they’ve received fund­ing before. How much money they require and how they got to that fig­ure. How does this bene­fit their com­munity. I believe that the com­munity decision mak­ing pro­cess should come once applic­a­tions have gone through the first cri­ter­ia and judge­ment stages by the CNPA and/​or a loc­al pan­el. Par­ti­cip­a­tion in com­munity activ­ity is not largely demo­crat­ic, it is self select­ing as to those that come for­ward but they are usu­ally the ones that will be most likely to see pro­jects through to com­ple­tion. There are people in all com­munit­ies that have par­ti­cip­ated in an elect­or­al pro­cess (com­munity coun­cils, CNPA ward rep­res­ent­at­ives) while may or may not have actu­ally involved a large pro­por­tion of the poten­tial elect­or­ate at least were pre­pared to be elec­ted so should have a role in the decision mak­ing pro­cess of oper­at­ing this fund. N/​a No, not yet thank you.

Same as medi­um + con­sti­tuted group detailed time plan and budget catch­up pro­gress as 121 meet­ings with 1 or 2 pan­el­lists. pro­por­tion­al geo­graph­ic­al rep­res­ent­ativ­ity, car­bon 0 impact, sur­veys and inter­views of com­munity mem­bers about the pro­jects out­comes. As above, depend­ing on the upper lim­it of the grant. As above with the addi­tion of a timeline of how they expect to use the money. The nature of the pro­ject includ­ing how it meets the Cairngorm 2030 key themes. how it bene­fits the Cairngorms com­munity, how much of the grant will be spent with­in the CNPA area (on goods, ser­vices and labour), what the spend pro­file plan is, what makes this pro­ject dif­fer­ent from exist­ing pro­vi­sion with­in the CNPA area A report of any kind (photo/​video/​presentation/​written) which demon­strates what they’ve done Pro­gress reports should be sub­mit­ted at 6, 12 and 24 months. These should be simple nar­rat­ive descrip­tions for the small grants and more pre­script­ive for the large grants. I am uncer­tain what they should com­prise for medi­um grants. Small grants some­thing short and more like a testi­mo­ni­al for the fund, ie a short video or a few Medi­um and Large — A report to account for how all the money has been spent which should be shown in receipts, and a diary to add some con­text. I don’t think there’s a real need to ask people to get quotes for work. This should mean people can keep a simple spread­sheet run­ning through­out the pro­ject along­side a diary which should not be extens­ive, just a couple of lines when any­thing of note hap­pens. As above, with a timeline plus some way of show­ing they are an estab­lished group/​project/​organisation (would like to dis­cuss how you would do this), and some way of show­ing pre­vi­ous spend­ing per­haps? I think there needs to be a way of mak­ing sure they will be account­able but I’m not sure exactly how to go about it. An estim­ated time­frame, how do they want the money provided (lump sum or instal­ments), who will be man­aging the money, fort­nightly or monthly check ins per­haps for mon­it­or­ing Account­ab­il­ity for mon­ies spent, an agree­ment of what is needed to mon­it­or pro­gress on a pro­ject that takes place a longer peri­od, an agree­ment on what meas­ures are to be used to meas­ure the suc­cess of the pro­ject Suc­cess would see fund­ing applied across a wide spread of the geo­graph­ic Nation­al Park and a sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of fun­ded applic­a­tions with a spread of val­ues includ­ing some unex­pec­ted pro­jects but with most provid­ing endur­ing bene­fit for the com­munity. Fail­ure could be because little real bene­fit was delivered, because most of the fund was spent in a few small geo­graph­ic parts of the Nation­al Park and/​or If I did not know about the fund being avail­able, if I little of the money went to recip­i­ents who had not received grant fund­ing for pro­jects before. That there is some form of leg­acy from it Wheth­er that means more people apply­ing for fund­ing in the future, pro­jects still run­ning in years to come, skills and know­ledge being passed on. I want this fund to have a pos­it­ive impact and provide for many pro­jects as pos­sible. I also want it to show how funds can be delivered when access­ib­il­ity and gentle guid­ance is offered. I think this can be used in a really pos­it­ive way by the CNPA, both for com­munity out­reach, pub­lic per­sona, and for meet­ing its goals for Cairngorm 2030 in an innov­at­ive and col­lab­or­at­ive way that makes them more for­ward facing to the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion of the Nation­al Park. A spread of types of activ­ity and areas of bene­fit across the Park with all money spent. To see people/​businesses improv­ing Nation­al Park. felt apply­ing was not worth the hassle involved or that qual­i­fy­ing cri­ter­ia did not fit me, if I had too little spare. If I thought it wasn’t meant for me. I think ​‘case’ examples should be giv­en to show people how a range of pro­jects can fit the Cairngorms 2030 themes. That people don’t believe they actu­ally need it. It should be clear that this fund isn’t just here to help those in the most dire situ­ations. It is there to deliv­er a pos­it­ive impact to a wide range of pro­jects and pro­ject sizes. Any feel­ing of inab­il­ity to achieve the suc­cess­ful out­come of a pro­ject. Lack of sup­port from CNPA staff in com­plet­ing the pro­ject as quickly and smoothly as possible.

Yes repeat applic­a­tions No-requir­ing match fund­ing could be a bar­ri­er for the people this fund is try­ing to reach Yes repeat applic­a­tions Yes it should be a require­ment for large grants No-fund­ing should be Yes it should be a require­ment for large grants Yes it should be encour­aged but not required, at any grant size Yes repeat applic­a­tions Some­thing that cre­ates a notice­able dif­fer­ence. This is some­thing spe­cif­ic to every com­munity and dif­fer­ent for every pro­ject, and isn’t dir­ectly phys­ic­al. It just means that a pro­ject achieves what it sets out to do. Com­munity is a broad term, and a bene­fi­cial impact for one per­son, a small group, or a whole area can be seen as a mean­ing­ful bene­fit. Some­thing will hap­pen that is not at the moment fully covered by exist­ing activ­it­ies, it might not be a new idea but many people in the com­munity will either dir­ectly bene­fit or think that it is a good idea that oth­ers will gain from the applic­a­tion. Bring­ing people to the Cairngorms for work or pleas­ure. Based on the ​‘mer­its’ of each Applic­a­tion; with clear cut, tan­gible evid­ence & con­sensus found for this to pro­ceed. Demon­strably bene­fit loc­al people Helps the com­munity you live in, a group of people you are con­nec­ted with, an event that brings people, oppor­tun­ity and rev­en­ue into your area, a leg­acy in a build­ing, green space or per­son that helps that body of people or area for a con­tin­ued peri­od of time. Makes people’s life that little bit easier.

Open dis­cus­sion and open shar­ing of applic­a­tion inform­a­tion includ­ing list of applic­a­tions approved and rejec­ted. Match fund­ing I believe will be a stick­ing point for many across the group. There should be Match fund­ing pre­ferred for cer­tainly some of the grants. This shows com­mit­ment from the applic­ant and group they rep­res­ent, with a bet­ter out­come of suc­cess as it shows people are behind it. Pre­ferred not essen­tial are per­haps word­ing labours: Cer­tainly, over­see­ing the fruits of our labours; pos­sibly util­ising indi­vidu­al strengths or even con­sid­er­ing geo­graph­ic­al cov­er if zones were cre­ated? I am open to any sug­ges­tions if they can be val­id­ated as fall­ing into our set para­met­ers! Pan­el mem­ber­ship should have the option to be part of decision-mak­ing. Pan­el mem­ber­ship should have the option to be part of decision-mak­ing: Not handed over to Cairngorm Nation­al Park for fund­ing decisions or fil­ter­ing of applications.

Pan­el mem­bers should be able to return in a non-vot­ing, advis­ory capa­city only Pan­el mem­ber­ship should rotate reg­u­larly so fresh per­spect­ives are brought in I’m not sure. I see no reas­on why mem­bers of this pan­el should be excluded from help­ing decide applic­a­tions I do think applic­a­tion determ­in­a­tion pan­el mem­ber­ship should rotate and include people from both with­in and out­side the main Cairngorms com­munit­ies (Aviemore, Brae­mar etc) Pan­el mem­ber­ship should have the option to be part of decision-mak­ing. Pan­el mem­bers should be able to return in a non-vot­ing, advis­ory capa­city only: Once someone has served on a pan­el they should step back entirely Pan­el mem­ber­ship should rotate reg­u­larly so fresh per­spect­ives are brought in I think people should have an oppor­tun­ity to be part of the pro­cess going for­ward, but I do not believe it should be in a decision mak­ing capa­city as this seems bias and may give more of a neg­at­ive view to the gen­er­al pub­lic regard­ing this pan­el and the fund. I also think it would be very easy for cer­tain mem­bers of the pan­el to take an oppor­tun­ity to be involved more than they should be and pur­pose­fully influ­ence oth­ers to do the same.

There needs to be a focus on enga­ging the people who don’t oth­er­wise nor­mally par­ti­cip­ate. This is an oppor­tun­ity to do some­thing DIF­FER­ENT! I feel like we can try some­thing new and find a bet­ter way of decision mak­ing than the norm. I am look­ing for a sense of fair­ness in the way the fund works but it is hard to describe what this looks like in detail.

The idea, how it would be car­ried out who will do it and rough idea of cost. Who in and how will the com­munity bene­fit. Details such as bank accounts, detailed cost­ings, pre­vi­ous pro­ject exper­i­ence, audited accounts etc. should only be reques­ted once grant is offered and if deemed appro­pri­ate to the nature of the pro­ject. Their idea, how it will be car­ried out & hoped res­ults. Tem­plate for the basic require­ments needs to be pro­duced. Half a page A4 simple pro­cess. Name, age, loc­a­tion, address (the basics). A clear descrip­tion, includ­ing reas­ons why the grant is required and what they hope to achieve with it. Wheth­er they’ve received fund­ing before. How much money they require and how they got to that fig­ure. How does this bene­fit their com­munity. How will they man­age the suc­cess of the pro­ject. As above for small grants but more detail on how need for pro­ject has been estab­lished and how the suc­cess­ful bene­fit of pro­ject will be demon­strated Their idea, how it will be car­ried out & hoped res­ults. The Basics + addi­tion­al Sub­stan­ti­ation Tem­plate illus­trat­ing the ​‘Break­down of Costs’ involved. and fin­an­cial inform­a­tion As above for medi­um grants

hoped res­ults, time­frame & bene­fit to the com­munity. A com­plete Busi­ness Plan with attach­ments. Full fin­an­cial plan, stress test­ing of viab­il­ity, match fund­ing proof Quarterly reports. Pan­el mem­bers invited to see fin­ished result/​completed job. Pro­gress Tem­plates to be returned in a timely man­ner. Based on Rat­ing Tem­plates sent back. Simple grant simple Evid­ence of imple­ment­a­tion, Open and trans­par­ent pub­lish­ing of grant applic­a­tions includ­ing those suc­cess­ful and those rejec­ted. Too much info over­load !?! If Cairngorm Nation­al Park fil­ter­ing and award­ing grants.