Greenlight Funding 2025-26

Greenlight is ECCAN's seedgrant fund for climate action projects delivered by community groups within the City of Edinburgh. This year we have £115,000 to distribute across the city.

Applications open: Monday 16 June 2025

Applications close: Friday 1 August 2025

Last year, we were delighted to award £121,00 to 32 groups across Edinburgh. The results of that work can be viewed in the Greenlight Report 24-25, on our website www.eccan.scot.

Greenlight is designed for small and medium community projects focussed on climate action.

Greenlight will fund local not-for-profit community-led organisations. We accept applications from individuals on behalf of informal groups. This will apply to micro-grants and have an upper limit of funding. Please refer to the FAQs below.

You can apply for a grant in one of the following categories.

  • Grants of up to £20,000 each (large grants for co-designed projects with partner working) – nominally two awards.

  • Grants of up to £10,000 each (large grants – can be co-designed) – nominally two awards.

  • Grants of up to £5,000 each (medium grants) – nominally 4 awards.

  • Grants up to a value of £1,000 each.

  • Small grants of up to £500. For individuals or informal groups the limit is £350.

These buttons will go live on Monday 16th June

Please note that all awards monies must be spent and project delivery complete by end of March 2026. This is a Condition of Funding.

Your group can apply online at ww.eccan.scot/seedgrant or by making a paper application and posting it to ECCAN, Top floor, 14 Forth St, Edinburgh EH1 3LH.

You can download the paper form using the button or call us on 07536 974675 and we will post one to you.

Who can apply?

Eligibility for application and the assessment process

You can make your application online or through a paper application form.

You will need to be a member of ECCAN to apply.

To make your application, you will need the following information:

  • Alignment with the outcomes, outputs listed below

  • Project feasibility, including a clear timeline and budget.

  • Capacity and experience of the applicant

This year, we will be using a democratic online voting system to determine awardees. Anyone who is a member of ECCAN can vote for a project in each of the five buckets. It’s straightforward and fair. One member, one ballot, five buckets.

We have also decided to award three Golden Votes for projects that meet the criteria but have slipped through the cracks

What does our project need to achieve to be eligible for Greenlight?

Projects should aim to achieve at least one of the following outcomes.

  • Mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and damaging environmental impacts.

  • Protect, enhance or increase local biodiversity.

  • Help communities adapt to and build resilience to climate change.

  • Raise awareness of, and prompt, action on climate.

  • Communities, organisations and residents work together collaboratively to address the climate emergency

To help achieve ECCAN’s vision and objectives, we will prioritise projects that:

  • Aim to create long-term system change to combat the climate emergency.

  • Build the skills and capacity of groups or organisations and communities.

  • Support and encourage collaborative working across groups or organisations, communities, and areas.

  • Encourage sustainability through reusing, recycling, and upcycling goods and products.

  • Encourage climate action and a just transition at a community level

  • Mitigate climate change, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce environmental impact

  • Help communities adapt to and build resilience to climate change

  • Protect or enhance local biodiversity through conservation and promotion

  • Demonstrate equality, diversity and inclusivity values (NCVO have a guide to E.D.I. for charities and community groups here)

Projects should broadly align with ECCAN’s stated outcomes

  • Awareness – Communities’ awareness of the climate emergency and what actions they can take increases; and communities’ confidence to take action increases. 

  • Knowledge and skills – Communities’ knowledge and skills to take climate action increases, through collaborative working. 

  • Capacity – Communities’ capacity to take climate action increases, by increased funding, and by access to equipment and volunteers. 

  • Decision-making – Communities are more involved in determining local and national government policy regarding climate action.  

  • Innovation – Communities receive an increased level of benefit from innovations to take climate action

Other things to consider when making your application

ECCAN’s mission statement and values are here (link) - please consider these when designing your projects.

  • We encourage applications that are led by young people or disadvantaged or minority groups.

  • We value a collaborative approach to a project including a clear indication of how the project is meeting community needs and will have a positive impact across all groups.

  • We encourage collaborative applications that embed the artistic voice and vision in the project.

  • We support applications that consider a sustainable approach to procurement including localism, community wealth building, and recycling and re-use.

  • We prefer that any travel expenses would be for active travel (walking/biking/wheeling) or sustainable travel such as public or shared transport.

  • Trees, plants, and seeds should be native, responsibly and locally sourced where possible. Tree planting as a standalone project will not be funded.Our fund will cover staff costs to deliver new projects but not new posts to deliver existing projects. If you have any queries please contact us at greenlight@eccan.scot

  • Projects in public, open and green spaces, or residential amenity areas, should ensure that relevant permissions and agreements are in place to carry out the project.

  • We may be able to provide funding for legal ‘direct action’. However, no part of your project should prevent freedom of speech, incite or promote violence or aggression or promote or facilitate illegal activities.

  • We welcome proposals that will help groups leverage wider funding, including match funding. We require applications to identify specific costs that the fund would cover in the context of match funding.

  • We acknowledge that not all projects will be fully outcome based. Whilst we will not directly fund feasibility studies, we are happy to fund projects with short-term outcomes that have a longer term feasibility element built-in.

  • We support the Living Wage and all paid staff working on Greenlight projects should be paid at least the real Living Wage, including sub-contractors and agency staff.

  • There is a limit of <£5000 on nominal capital spend items – equipment such as laptops, machinery, tools etc.

We will not fund

  • Projects which support market-based solutions to climate change such as carbon trading or carbon offsetting.

  • Projects that extend dependence on carbon-intensive processes (increasing carbon “lock in”) for example, the purchase of equipment that uses fossil fuel.

  • Projects which involve any environmentally damaging activities.

  • Projects that involve any activities that directly or indirectly harm, threaten, or negatively affect biodiversity.

  • Projects that prevent or restrict human rights, incite or promote violence/ aggression, or promote or facilitate illegal activities.

  • Projects that do not sit within a community context.

  • Commercial projects that seek to return a profit

  • Projects of a contentious nature where we receive objections from members of the local community.

Reporting criteria

Challenges, risks and outcomes

We would like to hear how your project developed. It is important at the start of the project to establish a baseline for challenges, risks and outcomes as you commence your work. This information should be scoped in your application.

  • What are the challenges that you might expect the project to face i.e. do you already have volunteer capacity issues?

  • Risks should be defined at the start of the project usually through a short risk register – is the project time critical, for example?

  • Outcomes are what the project seeks to achieve including such things as engagement levels and stories of participation as well as delivery parameters such as delivery dates.

  • The main difference between challenges and risks is that a risk is an event that could possibly occur in the future, while a challenge (also referred to as an issue) is an event that has already occurred or will occur.

  • Lastly we would love to know how many people you want to affect - both directly and indirectly. Data is king!

The voting process

Last year a panel of experts deliberated on the applications to establish the awardees.

This year, to increase democractic engagement in our communities, we have installed an online voting process. Projects will be assigned to ‘buckets’ by value;

1) Up to £20,000

2) Up to £10,000

3) Up to £5,000

4) Up to £1,000

5) Up to £500

We will be using a Single Transferable Voting system. Each ballot will have 5 votes. In each of the five buckets listed above you will be asked to rank your first second and third choices. Failure to do so will render the ballot obsolete.

YOU MUST BE A MEMBER TO VOTE.

Each ballot will be asked for a name and postcode to ensure there are no multiple votes taking place and to confirm ECCAN membership.

You must be a member of ECCAN to vote!

www.eccan.scot/greenlightvoting

Voting will go live on Saturday 2 August 2025

FAQs

  • To apply, you will need to become a member of ECCAN, and to be one of the following: community group (with or without a constitution), registered charity, social enterprise/non-profit, Community Interest Company, Community Benefit Society, or an individual.

    Your project should be run by local people under their direction and for the benefit of their community and the environment.

    If you are applying as an individual, you need a partner organisation with a bank account who is willing to receive the funds on your behalf.  This organisation should be a local community organisation. If you need help to find a partner, please contact greenlight@eccan.scot.

  • The application process opens on Monday 16 June 2025 and applications close on Friday 1 August 2025.

    We hope to announce awardees within two weeks of the closing date.

  • Applying couldn't be easier! Simply click the link and fill out the application form on this webpage. Or download the PDF application form from the website and return it to us in person or by post. If you wish us to post out a paper application form give us a call on 07536 974675

    Once complete we will use the application information to format an online PDF that will be accessible via the voting platform on our website. We will not publish financial information, personal data, or anything else we deem inappropriate.

  • You will receive an automated email acknowledging receipt of your application form.

    We aim to notify successful applicants w/c Monday 18 Aug by email. The email will contain a formal grant acceptance proforma, including bank details. This proforma should be signed, dated and returned to ECCAN within 10 working days.

    Please note that all funding must be spent and projects are substantially delivered by end of March 2026. Your project programme submitted with the application should reflect this clearly. We will NOT accept applications that show delivery beyond this date.

  • ECCAN will contact you by email to confirm the amount and your bank details. Payment is usually made within 7-10 days after we receive the bank details and grant acceptance form.

    Successful projects will be shared on our website with the organisation or group’s name, project description and link to their website (funding amounts will not be publicised).

  • Yes up to a maximum of two successful microgrants and/or one large/medium scale project. We wish to fund as many diverse organisations and projects as possible.

    If Greenlight funds remain later in the year, we will re-open the fund as necessary.

  • ECCAN will be running surgeries to help groups with the application process. Please contact greenlight@eccan.scot for further information on surgery dates and locations or consult the Events calendar on our website.

    There will a Greenlight forum on our Community Board on the website at https://www.eccan.scot/members-forum to ask questions and share the networking experience.

    If any information on this page is difficult to understand we are happy to provide it in other formats, including larger print upon request.

  • Yes, learning from your project is part of the ECCAN process. We are interested in hearing about any challenges you faced with your project, and things that worked well.

    Please do take lots of photos of your project for knowledge sharing and publicity purposes. Please be aware that if you don't provide feedback and evidence of how you have spent the grant, we won't be able to consider you for grants in the future.

    For medium and large scale projects we ask that participants engage in a bi-monthly sharing workshop with a short written report. The online workshop will comprise a verbal report. The bi-monthly reports will then be collated into a project end-report by you, looking at challenges, risks, outputs and outcomes.

    As part of the final report we would love a small video piece of 2mins duration for our use. Please refer to the full guidance document available on award for additional information.

    For small grants, we will ask for a two page PDF report with photos. Broadly speaking this will look at challenges, risks, outputs and outcomes. We love to hear stories as to how the project has made a positive impact on the environment, the community and people’s lives.

    We will issue you with a short form to complete to document how you have spent the money and the impact it has made. Please return this form within 6 months of your funds being allocated. Please send us photographs or photocopies of receipts showing what you have spent the money on.

  • Please contact us to get feedback as to why the previous project didn’t meet the criteria. We will work with unsuccessful applicants to increase the viability of projects with merit within the timescales and capacity available.

    If we believe there are good synergies between your proposal and others we receive (collaborative opportunities that would enhance the impact of both projects), we will contact you with feedback and the next steps you could follow to achieve a successful application through collaborative working.

    If we believe there are good synergies between your proposal and others we receive (collaborative opportunities that would enhance the impact of both projects), we will contact you with feedback and the next steps you could follow to achieve a successful application.

Our feedback process

ECCAN will publish a data-driven report on the voting process for the purposes of transparency.

To request a copy after awards have been made please email greenlight@eccan.scot

Thank you and good luck

Edinburgh Communities Climate Action Network

Top floor, 14 Forth Street Edinburgh EH1 3LH

www.eccan.scot / greenlight@ecccan.scot

Tel: 07536 974675 

Edinburgh Communities Climate Action Network (ECCAN) is a registered Scottish Charity (SC052989) regulated by the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR).