Helping County Durham voluntary and community organisations to tackle the climate crisis
We’ve partnered with County Durham Community Foundation to create a bursary scheme for the VCSE sector.
County Durham Community Foundation and the National Lottery Community Fund are supporting a pilot scheme designed to provide voluntary, community, and social enterprise sector to meet the challenges of the climate crisis and make their organisations the environmentally sustainable workplaces our future needs.
Become Green Together is a programme within this wider project, providing twelve months of support to organisations of all shapes and sizes, and at any stage in their environmental journey. Participants are guided through creating a practical sustainability strategy, with the help of expert environmental consultants genee and SmartCarbon, and will come away with a deeper understanding of the climate emergency, the carbon impact of their activities, and nationally recognised accreditation with Investors in the Environment.
County Durham bursary scheme
Voluntary and community organisations in County Durham further benefit from a generous bursary scheme created in partnership with County Durham Community Foundation to cover the full costs of taking part. You can find out more and apply for a bursary by emailing the project coordinator, Nathaniel Spain, at nathaniel.spain@vonne.org.uk.
We know many grassroots projects that are already playing an important role in reducing food waste and clothing landfill, but we think the right funding could help many think even more ambitiously, by giving them the support they need to look at ‘green’ options. Everything has an environmental impact, so our job as a funder is to help local communities run wonderful projects that enrich lives in a sustainable way.
We hope that our funding of the Going Green Together project will encourage and support more County Durham organisations get started with greening their organisations and developing climate action projects.
— Michelle Cooper, Chief Executive, County Durham Community Foundation
Over 40 organisations across the North East and Cumbria are already taking part in the programme, and are benefiting from a wide network of peers, supporting and learning alongside each other. Applications to join Become Green Together are open in two final windows, running April-May and July-September 2023. You can read more and apply to the programme through the Going Green Together website.
We have had excellent feedback on the programme so far, and are looking forward to expanding the network further, to increase the impact of our work and support a wider range of organisations to tackle the climate crisis, as well as deepening our learning about the best ways we can support you.
As a small social enterprise, our capacity to undertake the highly urgent work required to understand our Carbon Emissions and subsequently address the Climate Emergency is limited. Through participation in Become Green Together and the expert guidance and support of programme delivery partners SmartCarbon and Genee, I have been able to prioritise my tasks and make this previously daunting task feel achievable.
Alongside this, the chance to speak to peers running a broad range of businesses, roughly at the same stage as ours and with their own unique challenges, has contributed to a sense of positivity and overall optimism about the nature of the work… I urge any small business interested in accessing this opportunity to grasp it and jump on board.
— Jack Ward Burton, Creative Director, Jack Drum Arts
Applications to the current round of Become Green Together close on the 31st May. Bursaries will be allocated on a first-come-first-serve basis.
