Glasgow Eco Trust is very disappointed that we have not been recommended for funding from phase 2 of the Glasgow City Council’s Glasgow Communities Fund (GCF). We felt we had prepared a strong application that delivered very good value and clear benefits for the people and communities of west Glasgow where we are based.

All funding programmes are competitive by nature and there will always be winners and losers. It is unfortunate that, on this occasion, we have been unsuccessful with our application. The fund was heavily over-subscribed and the Council were always going to be faced with some difficult decisions as to which organisations and services would and which would not be funded.

That said one source of frustration for us with the Glasgow Communities Fund was that there was no mention of or category for community-led climate action, which is the main focus of our work. The GCF funding proposal reports prepared for the various Council committee meetings all indicate that the proposals will make “No contribution to Glasgow’s net zero carbon target at this time”. We feel that this is extremely short sighted and a huge missed opportunity, especially given that the Council declared a climate emergency in May 2019 and the city hosted the COP26 UN Climate Talks in November 2021.

The Glasgow Communities Fund will see £48 million of much needed investment in communities across the city. Many of the communities that will be supported by the fund will also be the same communities impacted the most by the climate emergency. There is a very real chance that the Glasgow Communities Fund will actually work against the Council’s net zero carbon target thus making things worse for the communities that the fund is set up to support. Hardly an ideal legacy of the COP26 host city.

Our board, staff, volunteers and supporters have worked hard over the past decade to both reduce our dependency on any one particular fund whilst also diversifying our sources of income. By doing this we have developed a certain level of resilience and have built up some unrestricted reserves to help see us through challenging periods such as the one we are now facing.

Whilst the decision does not threaten the immediate viability of the organisation it will certainly have an impact on the level of services that we are able to deliver over the coming months and moving forward. We are currently reviewing what this will look like. We are also waiting on the outcome from other funding applications and will have launched our '23 in 23' fundraising programme, where we are aiming to raise £23,000 in 2023, through donations and funding raising activities from individuals.

We look forward to hearing from the Council team with feedback on our application and details of the support they are offering to organisations that have been unsuccessful.

We will continue to work hard for our local communities and to make a real difference for people, place and planet.

We would like to wish the successful organisations, in particular several of our local partners, all the best for the next phase of the GCF. We would like to thank everyone for their support at this time, in particular the members of the community review panel and the NW Glasgow Voluntary Sector Network. And we are working with NWGVSN with the other local organisations that have either not been funded or only partly funded to better understand the impact these decisions will have on available services and activities for our local communities.

We will be in back in touch with more information in due course.

Many thanks for your continued support.

The Glasgow Eco Trust board.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash