Environmental bursaries round-up

Interested in claiming a bursary to help you with environmental support and training costs? Find out all the details for what is available and how to apply.

The final round for applications to Become Green Together is open until the end of September. Based on the size of your organisation, we’ll subsidise the training costs for you to take part, with discounts of up to 75% off.

To help reduce financial barriers to take part, we’re also offering bursaries to cover the remaining cost of training. Our current bursary schemes are:

• Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland: 16 bursaries are available for voluntary, community, and social enterprise (VCSE) sector organisations, with particular interest in organisations with community buildings and spaces.
• County Durham Community Foundation: 30 bursaries are available for small and medium-sized VCSE organisations in County Durham.
• Tees Valley Community Foundation: 15 bursaries are available for varying sizes of VCSE organisations in the Tees Valley.

To enquire about a bursary, email the Project Coordinator, Nathaniel Spain, at nathaniel.spain@vonne.org.uk expressing your interest. Once we’ve reserved a bursary for you, all you need to do is apply through the normal application form on the Going Green Together website, and we’ll take care of the rest!

What is Become Green Together?

Our support programme, within the wider Going Green Together project, has been designed to support VCSE sector organisations working in all areas, and of all sizes and levels of environmental experience, to face the challenges of the climate crisis through making their workplaces more sustainable.

Participants are guided step-by-step through creating and implementing an environmental strategy, and working towards goals to have a more positive environmental impact. They learn how to monitor and reduce their carbon footprint, and demonstrate their commitments through accreditation with the nationally-recognised Investors in the Environment (iiE) framework.

Taking part will benefit you through:

• Examining your energy and resource usage, and finding way to cut costs as well as emissions.
• Meeting the requirements of funders, legislation, and procurement, to ensure you can continue your core work into the future.
• Improving your eco-reputation with your community, staff, and other stakeholders, with iiE’s external audit process meaning you avoid the risk of greenwashing.
• Gaining practical climate and sustainability knowledge you can pass on to your networks.
• Supporting the long-term wellbeing of your community, through joining the regional, national, and global effort to mitigate climate change.

If you have any questions about the programme and what it will involve, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.