The Our Local Nature Grant

The Our Local Nature Grant does something refreshingly simple. It hands small amounts of money, up to £1,000 per project, to young people so they can lead nature projects where they live. Over the last five years the scheme has put around £30,000 into 49 projects across the UK, empowering more than a thousand young people directly, with roughly four thousand more benefitting from taking part.

The point is not the size of the cheque. It is the ownership. “That ownership generates responsibility,” Dan told me, “and it increases the likelihood that they’re going to then go on and look after that space beyond the project.” Compare that to the way nature usually shows up in education, as a one-off lesson you have half forgotten an hour later.

This is a philosophy we recognise at London National Park City. Our own small grants start at up to £1,000 for exactly the same reason: a modest amount is often enough to prove a concept, build a bit of confidence, and give someone the taste for asking for something bigger next time. Think of it as seed funding for local nature.

The London Wave and blue infrastructure

There is a London twist this year. Thanks to support from the Mayor of London through the Green Roots Fund, projects in the capital fall under the London Wave of Our Local Nature Grants, with a focus on nature and blue infrastructure.

Blue infrastructure is simply the flow, movement and management of water. Almost everything in nature connects to it, so the aim is not to narrow your idea but to find the water angle. A pond speaks for itself. So do rain gardens, water butts and planting around sustainable urban drainage. Those sad, forgotten SuDS plantings outside so many schools and colleges, with nobody looking after them? A perfect small project waiting to happen. We even got onto bucket ponds, and yes, there is a free guide to building one in the show notes.

I will admit a soft spot for this theme. Only last weekend I was out on the River Lee pulling all sorts out of the water on a litter pick from a boat, which is somehow even more fun than it sounds. London’s blue spaces are everywhere once you start looking.

The Youth Panel: real money, real decisions

Here is the part I find genuinely radical. The Linnean Society does not choose who wins the money. Young people do.

Each autumn the Society recruits a Youth Panel of 16 to 18-year-olds, trained to review applications, shortlist them, and decide both who gets funded and how much they receive. This year there are two panels, one national and one for London under the Green Roots Fund. Dan’s role is to facilitate, not to steer: “I’m strongly not going in with an agenda… I want them to take the process, for young people choosing stuff for young people.”

It is a serious responsibility and a serious opportunity. Panellists get training in evaluating grant applications, real insight into how ethical grant-giving works, and a reference from the Linnean Society for the future. In a green sector that runs largely on grant funding, understanding what funders are actually looking for is a rare head start, whichever side of an application you find yourself on later. London panellists get more still: chances to visit and volunteer on the projects they funded, a project surgery in the spring, and a summer showcase to see the impact first-hand.

What makes a strong application

If you are thinking of applying for a grant, Dan’s advice was clear. The strongest applications are the ones that are genuinely designed and run by young people, and that stay achievable. “If it sort of feels like the young people have actually thought of and wrote the application, those are the ones that really stand out.”

A few things he flagged:

• Keep it simple and realistic. A thousand pounds is a lot to deliver against, so resist the urge to over-promise. In Dan’s words, “try not to over deliver, because that’s a lot of pressure.”
• Build in flexibility. You do not need every penny pinned down in advance. Showing you can adapt is part of what convinces the panel you can pull it off.
• Make the nature real. Sensory gardens are lovely, but the panel wants to see genuine benefit to nature, wildlife-friendly planting, and a clear water angle for the London Wave.
• Think legacy. A simple sign, a launch event or a bit of interpretation can turn a one-off into a lasting change in how people treat a space.

Past projects have ranged from £150 for bird boxes or a camera trap right through to fuller community efforts, from a youth club running a litter-picking game to tackle antisocial behaviour in a local green space, to a student union reviving neglected planters with wildlife-friendly plants and a proper launch.

Dates to know

The clock is ticking on both opportunities:

• Youth Panel applications close 20 September 2026, 23:45.
• Grant applications close 25 October 2026, 23:45. Applicants hear back in early December, with projects running from winter into summer 2027.

Whether you are 16 to 18 and want a real say over where funding goes, or you work with a group of young people who have an idea for their own patch, this is one of the more genuinely youth-led funding routes out there.

Listen and apply

Find out more and apply:

• Youth Panel: linnean.org/learning/beyond/youth-panel
• Our Local Nature Grant: linnean.org/the-society/medals-awards-prizes-grants/our-local-nature-grants