Natural England

To be eligible to apply for a grant, your organisation will need to meet certain criteria.

Access to Nature will only award grants to:

• Community groups governed by a written constitution
• Registered charities and trusts
• Statutory bodies, including schools, colleges, local authorities, town and parish councils, health organisations
• Companies that are not registered charities but have a charitable purpose and a community focus (for example, a company limited by guarantee and some community interest companies or social enterprises, where any surpluses are mainly reinvested for community benefit)
• Mutual societies
• Charitable or not-for-profit companies
• Church based and other faith groups.

We will not award a grant to:

• Individuals and sole traders
• Profit-making organisations, except social enterprises
• Companies limited by guarantee whose main purpose is not community-focused.

We will not normally award grants to organisations that:

• Are in poor financial health
• Have demonstrated poor management of previous Big Lottery Fund grants
• Are not established in England.

If you are not a statutory body (ie appointed by government) you must have a governing document (for example, a constitution, set of rules, trust deed, or for companies, memorandum and articles of association). Community groups who would like to apply but are unable to satisfy this requirement are encouraged to apply in partnership with an established voluntary/community sector or public sector organisation, who would then be the lead body.

To qualify for funding, organisations must show evidence of partnership working and how they intend to involve the people they are trying to reach in developing, making decisions about and implementing the project.

Find out more about What we will fund.