John Lewis Partnership Foundation: Nature Fund

Overview

The Nature Fund exists to support projects that protect UK species and habitats, and the restoration of natural spaces. Projects must be UK based and will be considered on the basis of their scope for positive impact.

Currently, the Trustees are investing in UK projects which work to understand, protect and restore the natural world in a socially just way.

For more general guidance, the Trustees are looking for projects that:

• are sustainable and create a quantifiable legacy
• demonstrably protect or conserve UK species and habitats or work to restore nature
• renew people’s connection with nature
• encourage diverse and inclusive engagement with UK nature
• get young people involved with nature

The Trustees are happy to co-fund projects with other donors, but will prioritise projects where the Nature Fund is the majority funder. For this reason, Trustees prefer to fund a discrete project or discrete area of a larger project rather than provide top-up for shortfall funding.

Eligibility

Applicants need to be able to answer ‘yes’ to all questions to be eligible for John Lewis Partnership Foundation Funding.

• Is my organisation a registered charity or a Community Interest Company, or can I demonstrate that my project is a charitable activity?
• Does the project focus on an area of need within UK Nature?
• Does the project focus on understanding, protecting or restoring UK Nature?
• Is the project inclusive?

You also need to be able to answer ‘no’ to the following questions:

• Does the project aim to promote religion or politics of any kind?
• Does it exclude any part of society?
• Is the main objective to:
  • purchase or renovate a building or any other capital item?
  • fund consumables, recreation, holiday or respite care?
  • fund courses or conferences?
  • provide sponsorship for an individual or group?
  • Is my organisation seeking funding for core costs or on-going activities?

How will the Trustees assess your project?

• Leverage: can you demonstrate how your project could leverage other funding streams – public or private? This could be to share project costs or improve an individual project’s impact, relative to the financial contribution.
• Innovative and difficult projects: is this an opportunity to fund a project that’s innovative, or to target difficult issues that don’t normally attract funding?
• Chances of project success: what is the likelihood of success based on previous projects, background studies, and the details of the proposed work plan?
• Impact: Trustees prioritise projects that deliver the maximum positive impact to the greatest number of beneficiaries.
• Sustainability: how sustainable is the initiative? If the project is already ongoing is it solely reliant on funding from the Foundation to succeed? Trustees prioritise projects that demonstrate plans to become self-resourcing.
• Project management: can you demonstrate how your project will be managed, benchmarked, and evaluated?