The Our Space Award (OSA) aims to help Londoners clean and green the city through active community engagement and participation, increasing a sense of community ownership over shared spaces.
It supports Londoners of all ages and backgrounds, communities and schools in greening their neighbourhoods, making them inclusive places for all to enjoy. It does this by enabling more groups to access funding for projects.
The activities funded by the OSA will be designed to also make a significant contribution to a number of wider social and environmental objectives, notably:
- Tree planting (each project must plant at least one tree);
- Climate resilience and adaptations to climate change;
- Improvements to water quality and drainage through planting and reducing hard surfaces;
- Ecological and biodiversity benefits;
- Climate education alongside physical improvements;
- Improving air quality; and
- Reducing health inequalities and social isolation
There are three tiers of grants available:
- Small grants of £500 up to £2,000
- Standard grants of £2,000 up to £5,000
- Flagship grants of £5,000 to £20,000.
Any group/organisation can apply to the Small and Standard Grants. Flagship Grants will give priority to those who have previously successfully delivered an Our Space Award project. A maximum of two Flagship Grants are anticipated in this funding round.
Your group does not have to be formally arranged or constituted, but it does need to put energy and enthusiasm into your project.
The fund aims to reach groups who do not necessarily have a track record of fundraising and where the OSA would make up a substantial part of the project’s budget.
It supports projects across all types of open spaces including parks, housing estates, town centres, woodlands and school grounds.
Projects may contain the following (but will not be limited to):
- New tree planting
- Pollinator planting
- Drought tolerant planting
- Rewilding areas
- Nest boxes, rock piles, bug hotels
- Water habitat creation or improvements
- Rainwater harvesting
- Increasing access to nature.
This round of the fund requires projects to be completed by 10 February 2025.
Groundwork London will be running online (Zoom) application workshops to cover the main aims of the fund, going through the application portal and to answer questions on the following dates:
If you are applying for a Small Grant, you have the option of applying via ActionFunder. This is a simple online system that allows the uploading of multiple projects that require funding which can be seen by multiple funders.
You can also contact Tom Lowe at Groundwork for an informal chat about the fund and your ideas and questions on 020 7239 1390 or by emailing ourspaceaward@groundwork.org.uk.
The deadline for applications is midday on Monday 11 December 2023.
Get the full details of the fund from the Groundworks Open Space Award webpage.
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