The National Lottery Community Fund (UK wide): Climate Action Fund - Our Shared Future

Overview

Overview of Climate Action Fund - Our Shared Future

The Climate Action Fund is our commitment to help communities tackle climate change. They're supporting communities to be environmentally sustainable.

With Climate Action Fund – Our Shared Future they want to involve more people in climate action. And we want to inspire bold and exciting change.

They’ll only fund projects developed in a formal partnership with other organisations.
They’re looking for partnership projects that reach more people by either:

• linking climate action to the everyday lives and interests of local communities. And inspiring them to take action.
• influencing communities at a regional or national level. Like linking up groups across locations. Or a campaign that inspires change across one country, or the whole UK.

You do not have to be a climate or environment focused organisation to apply

They want to reach people who are new to climate action by funding other types of organisations too. And by using people’s everyday activities as a starting point for climate action.

They're particularly interested in projects that involve people, places and communities experiencing poverty, discrimination and disadvantage.

Area: UK-wide

Suitable for: Formal partnerships, working across sectors. Led by community and voluntary organisations or public sector organisations.

Funding size: The minimum you can ask for is £500,000. They expect to fund most projects for between £1 million and £1.5 million over 3 to 5 years. They may fund a small number of larger or longer projects. Contact us if you would like to discuss this. We aim to fund around 25 projects.

Total available: £30 million

Application deadline

You’ll be able to apply until at least the end of May 2025. They will announce the final deadline nearer the time.

Who can apply

You do not have to be a climate or environment focused organisation to apply. They want to reach people who are new to climate action by funding other types of organisations too. They expect at least one of your partners to have experience of climate or environment work though.You can apply even if you have funding from the Climate Action Fund already, or have applied in the past. If you already have funding they’ll consider how this fits in with any other projects you apply for.

• They’ll only fund organisations working in formal partnership

To get funding, a partner organisation must be a:

• constituted voluntary or community organisation
• registered charity
• charitable incorporated organisation (CIO or SCIO)
• not-for-profit company limited by guarantee – you must be a registered charity or have a not-for-profit ‘asset lock’ clause in your articles of association
• community interest company (CIC)
• school, college, university (as long as your project benefits and involves the wider local communities)
• statutory body (including local authorities, town, parish or community councils)
• community benefit society
• co-operative society – you must have a not-for-profit ‘asset lock’ clause in your society rules and also be registered with the Financial Conduct Authority.

• You’ll need to create and sign an agreement with your partners

You do not need have this in place before you apply. But you’ll need it before you can start your project. You’ll have up to 6 months to start your project after they offer you funding.

You can use their partnerships agreement template (PDF, 229 KB). Or you can create your own partnership agreement.

They're hoping to fund:

They'll fund partnership projects that inspire more people to take climate action - By climate action they mean how people can reduce the impact of human activities on the climate. 

Projects should do this by either:

• linking climate action to the everyday lives and interests of local communities
  They want to get people involved in climate action through their regular activities. This could include communities they are part of and clubs they attend. Or other interests like arts, sports and health.

  They want projects to show that climate action works best when communities have their say. And to help communities share their message. For example, with peers or with other sectors.

• influencing communities at a regional or national level
  Like linking up groups across locations. Or working with public engagement experts on a bold campaign to inspire change. Or helping communities to influence the people who make policies that affect them. This could be in one country, or across the whole UK.

• All projects also need to show how they’ll:

  • get more people to take climate action
  • involve communities, including:
    • responding to their priorities
    • treating people fairly
    • making sure people experiencing poverty, disadvantage and discrimination are supported to have their say.
  • help communities take advantage of opportunities and reduce barriers they face when taking climate action
  • build on approaches that have worked elsewhere
  • bring together organisations from across sectors
  • involve partners with expertise in engagement and communications
  • make a long term change that keeps going after the project ends
  • measure and show their impact, and have expert partners to help do this
  • share what they’ve learned, to help others.

How much funding you can ask for

The minimum you can ask for is £500,000. They expect to fund most projects for between £1 million and £1.5 million over 3 to 5 years.

Eligible costs

• staff costs
• volunteer expenses
• general project costs
• engagement activities
• learning and evaluation, including sharing these with others
• communications and campaigns
• utilities or running costs
• organisational development and management costs
• costs to help you engage with and support communities, or smaller partner organisations
• equipment
• delivering your project in other languages, such as Welsh.

They can fund some political activity and campaigning. But only if:

• the activity is not party political. This means that it must be about policy, practice, or legislation rather than opposing or supporting a political party.
• the activity is meant to help the cause of your organisation and benefit the public or society.

They will not fund projects where political activities are the main purpose. But they can fund projects that are mainly about campaigning.