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Nature-Based Grants as a Catalyst for Resilient Communities  

Discover the impactful role of community-led nature-based grants in fostering resilience. CLEVER Cities’ Making Space for Nature Community Fund in South Thamesmead, London, exemplifies this by empowering locals with small funds for transformative projects. Co-creation, a key element, involves diverse stakeholders in decision-making, fostering effective solutions reflective of community aspirations. Nature-based grants not only build skills but also create cooperative networks crucial for community resilience. From art installations to organic gardening, these projects showcase community creativity, forging closer bonds and a greener, happier environment.

This article was written by Dulcie Ruttley-Dornan and Sean Bradley

Community nature-based grant schemes are an innovative way for communities to learn to lead the change in their neighbourhoods. Having access to funds, even in relatively small amounts, enables local people to realise the projects they see as most valuable, empowering them to bring their ideas to life. This results not only in impressive transformations and countless co-benefits, as outlined below, but also contributes to an increased sense of ownership and confidence in stepping into the public sphere as agents for positive change. Furthermore, leading small local projects allows people to develop new skills, particularly with respect to the coordination and organisation needed to establish the local connections that can support resilience.

An example of this has been CLEVER Cities’ Making Space for Nature Community Fund, delivered as part of an effort to investigate the relationship between co-created nature-based solutions and improvement in local health and well-being. CLEVER Cities, funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme and supported in its delivery by Groundwork London, Peabody, the Greater London Authority, and the Young Foundation, has been spearheading community-led design in South Thamesmead, London.

Nature-based solutions are planned and designed natural features, such as rain gardens, green walls and other green spaces, implemented in a way that can help address urban challenges. CLEVER Cities worked to position nature-based solutions as a means to improving public health, social cohesion, citizen security and increasing economic opportunities.

Co-creation refers to the process of active participation of multiple stakeholders in decision making. Making Space for Nature has utilised this process of fostering diverse perspectives to generate insights, identify the community’s needs, and realise actions that are more reflective of the aspirations of local people and, as a result, lead to solutions that are more effective. 

Making Space for Nature mural project by local artist Gary Drostle in London

Making Space for Nature mural project by local artist Gary Drostle. Photo: Rachel Davies

Nature-based grants are a specific co-creation method with the highest levels of participation, as recipients have control over the process, including the organisation and management of volunteers and the administration of funds. This form of co-creation clearly demonstrates the collaborative nature of community-led regeneration, which can be an integral part of improving social cohesion and, in turn, helping to build more resilient communities.

Nature-based grants programmes can:

  1. Encourage individuals and groups to become comfortable managing funds to initiate change in their community

  2. Help local people deliver project ideas that are important to the community

  3. Lead individuals to engage with their own community to work together, share knowledge and skills and help each other

  4. Involve community members in the decision making process for project selection.

  5. Set up sharing and cooperative networks that are a key component of community resilience

Nature-based projects are often positive catalysts for bringing people together and they can combine well with local cultural expression ranging across a number of areas including green space improvement, nature art, dance and meditation and other well-being initiatives, foraging and food workshops and more. The creativity in communities is limitless.

The Making Space for Nature community projects that Peabody and Groundwork London have fostered range across the spectrum, from art installations to organic gardening, to engaging children in outdoor activities, all of which, in some way, have helped to forge a closer connection within the community and with the local environment. Collectively, the projects have made a huge impact and received significant positive feedback, showing the power of people and nature in creating greener, happier communities.

In short, programmes like the Making Space for Nature Community Fund use small, diverse actions to create stronger community connections and empower new advocates for positive local change. Project leaders, equipped with acquired skills and experience, demonstrate tangible results on the ground, countering apathy and the feeling of inaction. Grant programmes, by visibly illustrating effective change, lay the groundwork for more cohesive and integrated communities. 

A local community gardening event in Thamesmead, London.

A local community gardening event in Thamesmead. Photo: Richard Hearld Photography.

This innovative programme hopes to serve as an inspiration and a tool for learning about nature-based solutions, co-creation and community grants as processes to lead the change in communities. To see some of the exciting projects undertaken in Thamesmead, you can check out the Making Space for Nature booklet. The diversity of the projects shown is only the beginning as future funding will integrate both greening and cultural grants. These represent only a few possible ideas for other communities, local authorities and landowners to adopt in their areas.

If you’re interested to know more about Groundwork London’s involvement with co-creation programmes, visit us here.

About the authors:

Dulcie Ruttley-Dornan is a writer and editor with over five years of experience producing strategic communications and campaigns in the not-for-profit sector. Both her personal and professional work is dedicated to creating positive social and environmental impact. Dulcie’s work focuses on volunteering and nature-based solutions as positive ways to connect communities and tackle social and environmental issues. Her portfolio consists of writing and editing articles, social media management, content creation and website development. Dulcie is a lifelong volunteer, having led development projects around the world, including Nepal and the Caribbean, she is a dedicated environmental activist and supporter of intersectional feminism.

Sean Bradley is a Sustainable Urban Designer focused on the development of healthy, socially cohesive neighbourhoods that act as the core of future sustainable cities. He is the CLEVER Cities Programme Manager for Groundwork London leading the community-based approaches for the collaborative design and implementation of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) that bring multiple benefits to communities and ecosystems. He is also a coordinator of Pathway 06 of the UNFCCC programme Resilience Frontiers: Healthy Cities: (Eco)systemic Approaches that focus on innovative and transformative solutions critical to the development of healthy and resilient communities facing the challenges of preparing for and dealing with climate change.

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