Dartmoor Sustainable Development Fund
Guidance Notes on Completing the Grant Application Form
First of all - before you make a start on the form read the criteria for the Dartmoor Sustainable Development Fund (DSDF) and consider whether your project will:
- further the National Park purposes of:
- conserving and enhancing the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of Dartmoor
- promoting opportunities for the understanding and enjoyment of Dartmoor’s special qualities by the public.
- tackle environmental, economic, social and cultural issues.
- have the support and involvement of communities within the National Park.
- bring people together in partnerships to tackle problems.
- demonstrate innovation and best practice.
- involve young people.
You need to have planned your project carefully. Have you consulted with other local groups and organisations? Have you involved all potential partners? Are you sure that no other group is doing the same thing already? Who will actually do all the work involved in carrying out your project? Have you drawn up a budget and obtained written quotes/estimates? Have you been through the ‘Sustainable Development Fund Checklist’?
You must complete the Grant Application Form and answer all the questions. Additional supporting information can be provided if you wish.
Section A – Applicant details
1. Please give the name of the organisation, company or individual who will be directly responsible for the project and financially accountable for how the DSDF grant is to be spent.
2. The person named should be the main point of contact in relation to this application. It needs to be someone who has been closely involved in developing the project.
3. If they have no official job title, then please state briefly their role in the organisation.
4. Please give the applicant’s registered postal address or, if more appropriate, the contact’s home address, and the main telephone and fax numbers. If you have no e-mail or web site, insert ‘N/A’
5. If you are a community organisation or group, please give the registered charity or company name if relevant. You do not need to be a registered charity or company, but you will need a basic constitution, if only to ensure that everyone is in agreement about the aims and objectives of the group, and that they have in place arrangements for organising meetings and dealing with finances. If you need help with drawing up a constitution, let us know.
6. Your organisation (or one of your partner organisations) will need to have a bank account in its name, so that you can receive grant payments.
Section B - Project details
1. Please give the name of your project, which should be brief and define clearly what sort of work you will be doing.
2. This relates to the town or village that is nearest to your project’s regular activities. If in doubt, please ask.
3. The estimated start date is when you expect to have all the finance and any necessary permissions in place to enable the project to proceed (see guidance for Question B11). The completion date is when you anticipate the project will finish and you have met the projects stated objectives (Question B 5).
4. This is perhaps the most important question, as we need you to describe in a nutshell what your project is all about and for what sort of expenditure you require our grant.
5. This is your chance to explain (briefly) the project’s objectives and how your organisation will meet them, both in the short, medium and longer term.
6. We need to understand how your project will continue beyond the period of grant, what happens to the people you have helped or the place you have worked on? You should show evidence of how the project outcomes will be financed and managed in the future eg. a business plan or evidence of local volunteer commitment to maintain a building or habitat. We will give you further advice on this if needed.
7. Your project may have arisen from an earlier one in your area, or it may be of the same type; or relate to an existing activity. The project may have valuable links with local plans or wider strategies. Do not worry if your project does not relate to other work or strategies, as we are keen to support innovative approaches to issues.
8. It is vital that your project proposal is based on clear evidence of local demand and/or need. This may be in the form of informal but recorded discussions in the community, or a survey of businesses you are aiming to assist. If you have produced or commissioned a feasibility study into the project’s viability, then please include a copy. Remember that we may give grant aid for such research if a project idea is particularly innovative and addresses the DSDF’s key objectives.
9. If you are offered a DSDF grant, you will need to produce progress reports so that we can be sure that you are spending the money as promised. So you will need to establish from the outset, how you will measure and record the progress of your work. This should be helpful in your project planning, as things can go ‘off track’ if not carefully thought through. We can advise you further if required.
10. Projects involving more than one organisation sometimes have a better chance of practical and financial success. Your district council may be offering grant aid or technical advice, or a local business may be donating room space or equipment (also see question C3). Please try to limit this to those directly involved in the project’s implementation.
11. It is important that if your project requires any sort of legal permission, e.g. planning permission or land owner’s consent, you let us know and when you expect to have that agreed or finalised.
Section C – DSDF Criteria
These are the criteria that the Grant Advisory Panel will use to assess your application. Sustainable Development has 3 equal components: Environmental, Social and Economic. Under each point describe in a couple of sentences how or why your project satisfies the specific criteria. You don’t need to answer yes to everything! Just put an X next to any that your project does not address.
1. At least one of the National Park Purposes should be addressed.
2. In order to demonstrate Sustainable Development a project should demonstrate the ability to meet a range of criteria across the 3 components: environmental, social and economic.
3. Your project should be able to demonstrate all of the Criteria for Success.
Section D – Financial details
1. Please list the different types of costs you expect to encounter, which could be staff salaries (revenue), events or workshops, physical works (capital), or a leaflet / web site design. The costs should be rounded up to the nearest £10 and be your best estimate or, ideally, based on written quotations. Most of your expenditure will probably be in cash, but if someone has offered their time, property or equipment free of charge or ‘at cost’ then you should indicate the valued amount in the table. There are nationally recognised equivalent cash values for different types of help. For example donated labour can be costed in at £50 a day. Contact the DSDF officer for more details. It is important to list all donations given ‘in-kind’ materials and labour. The value of these donations can be counted as match funding.
The example below may help you.
A group wants to buy and plant 200 oak trees. The supplier is donating 100 trees (worth £50), so the amount the group will actually have to pay out is £50. The group will provide 10 people to work for 2 days and a local company will prepare the ground at a subsidised cost.
2. We would encourage you to seek financial support from local, regional or national organisations, other than DSDF, which may share the project’s purpose and aims, even if they are not a practical partner. We can give guidance on possible ‘match funders’ for the sort of work you are planning.
Please list these organisations by their full, officially recognised name, and do not use acronyms or abbreviations (e.g. British Trust for Conservation Volunteers, not BTCV). State the amount of funding you are seeking from each one. Refer to the amounts in Question D1 to include both cash and in-kind contributions. Please also indicate if this has been agreed or when you expect to hear the final decision from them. The ‘Total Cost’ of the table in D2 should be the same as in D1.
Should your project not be completed after the DSDF grant has been paid, the amount of grant must be refunded in part or in full at the discretion of the Authority.
3. State how much DSDF grant you are seeking
4. State what percentage of the total project costs the DSDF contribution would represent. Our maximum grant is normally 50% or 75% for voluntary groups, but we may consider a higher rate if an applicant can prove genuine need and innovation.
Section E - Applicant declaration
The signatory should be the Director, Chief Executive, financial manager, office holder or designated co-ordinator of the organisation, and not the contact named in Section A, unless he or she is also in one of the positions named above.
For the final question, please tell us how you became aware of the DSDF. This may have been through local media, personal recommendation, our web site, or other means. This information will help us to evaluate which forms of communication are most effective in promoting the Fund, and to identify additional opportunities.
If you have any queries about any aspect of the application form or the Dartmoor Sustainable Development Fund, or if you need help and support to develop your project - don’t hesitate to contact us!
Please email your completed application to the Dartmoor Sustainable Development Officer
Send your completed application to:
E-mail: dsdf@dartmoor-npa.gov.uk
If you have any quesries please call the DSDF Officer
Tel: (01626) 831067
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