Royal Countryside Fund’s New UK-Wide Grant Programme to Open 10 January
/The new Supporting Rural Communities grant programme will open to applications from across the UK on 10 January 2025.
The Royal Countryside Fund has announced that this ‘new differentiated funding will support transformative, community-led initiatives across the UK, unlocking the huge potential for positive change in rural communities’. The aim is to support innovative solutions that will ‘power up, not prop up’ communities, inspiring change and encouraging economic vibrancy.
Not-for-profit community organisations with an income of less than £500,000 a year can apply for grants of up to £25,000 over a period of 24 months to deliver activities along the themes of:
Keeping young people in the countryside
Powering up rural communities
Increasing environmental sustainability
Building emergency resilience in rural areas.
Support will be focused on isolated rural areas where the activity is required due to a lack of alternative services. Projects must be community led and show that they actively listen to, understand and respond to the needs of their local community.
The funding is for communities to create tangible change. This could be a project that generates a new income stream for the local community, or the delivery of training to develop skills opportunities for young people. It could also be activities to increase community awareness and engagement in the local environment, or an initiative to bring the community together to plan for the impacts of climate change.
The grants can be used for direct costs, organisational development, core or fixed costs, refurbishing or developing of land and buildings.
A webinar for prospective applicants will be held on 17 December 2024 (18:00). Registration is required and can be done on Zoom.
Expressions of interest for the grant will be accepted from 10 January 2025 to 21 February 2025.
For more information, please visit Supporting Rural Communities - The Royal Countryside Fund
