We’re celebrating after being awarded £1,226,000 in National Lottery funding to help put communities at the heart of climate action in North Yorkshire.

Over the next three years, we will be working with strategic community-based partners to inspire, empower and connect people across the region to take meaningful steps in the fight against climate change. This could involve anything from helping a village hall to install energy efficient tech to reduce carbon emissions, to encouraging a group to plant a community garden.

“Just think of the impact hundreds of hands-on, community-led activities can have, focused on sustainable living, energy saving, and reducing carbon footprints – and think of that happening in your local patch,” said Jane Colthup, Chief Executive at Community First Yorkshire.

“Many people want to take climate action, but they remain silent – feeling they’re in the minority. This is your chance to make an environmental difference and spark real climate action change in your community.”

Partners in the project include:

• Howardian Hills National Landscape
• North Yorkshire Sport
• North Yorkshire Together
• North Yorkshire Youth
• Rural Arts
• Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust
• Yorkshire Energy Doctor.

How to get involved

People can get involved at the very beginning of this three-year project by joining the Community First Yorkshire team. Apply to be a Climate Action Project Manager, Climate Action Officer (2 posts), or Monitoring & Evaluation Officer by 29 June.

Find out more about the Village Green project here.

About how the project is funded

The new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest community funder in the UK, will see Community First Yorkshire working with community-based partners to share funding for climate action projects, as well as providing advice and guidance on how groups can get their environmental improvement ideas off the ground.

The National Lottery Community Fund recently launched its strategy, ‘It starts with community’, which will underpin its efforts to distribute at least £4 billion of National Lottery funding by 2030.

As part of this, the fund has four key missions, which are to support communities to come together, be environmentally sustainable, help children and young people thrive and enable people to live healthier lives.

National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. Thanks to them, last year (2023/24) The National Lottery Community Fund awarded over half a billion pounds (£686.3 million) of life-changing funding to communities across the UK, supporting over 13,700 projects to turn their great ideas into reality.

To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk.

Notes to Editors

About The National Lottery Community Fund

We are the largest non-statutory community funder in the UK – community is at the heart of our purpose, vision and name.

We support activities that create resilient communities that are more inclusive and environmentally sustainable and that will strengthen society and improve lives across the UK.

We’re proud to award money raised by National Lottery players to communities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and to work closely with government to distribute vital grants and funding from key Government programmes and initiatives.

As well as responding to what communities tell us is important to them, our funding is focused on four key missions, supporting communities to:

1. Come together

2. Be environmentally sustainable

3. Help children and young people thrive

4. Enable people to live healthier lives.

Thanks to the support of National Lottery players, we distribute over £600 million a year through 13,000+ grants and plan to invest over £4 billion of funding into communities by 2030. We’re privileged to be able to work with the smallest of local groups right up to UK-wide charities, enabling people and communities to bring their ambitions to life.

National Lottery players raise over £30 million each week for good causes throughout the UK. Since The National Lottery began in 1994, £49 billion has been raised and more than 690,000 individual grants have been made across the UK – the equivalent of around 240 National Lottery grants in every UK postcode district.

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