The Double-Edged Sword of Grant Funding

Seminar, 11 December 2012

Emily Creamer

University of Edinburgh

The double-edged sword of grant funding: A study of community-led sustainability initiatives in remote rural Scotland

Community-led initiatives are commonly advocated as an effective way of encouraging individuals to adopt more sustainable lifestyles. Since 2008, the Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) has distributed over £40million in grants to community-led, carbon-saving projects across the country. Drawing on participant observation within two CCF organisations in remote rural Scotland, this seminar examines the assumption that the provision of funding for community-led sustainable development initiatives is necessarily net-positive at the local level. Observations support the notion that grant schemes such as the CCF are more accessible to certain individuals than others, leading to perceptions of an unfair distribution of the benefits of funding throughout the community. This raises fundamental questions about the validity of the term ‘community-led’ in these circumstances. If the purpose is to engender trust and support from the community in question, a positive relationship must exist, and be maintained, between the members of the organisation and the community it purports to represent. The uncritical and inappropriate application of the label ‘community-led’ to any community-scale initiative takes away from the value of such an approach, suggesting the need for a more accurate reframing of these activities.

There is no cost to attend this seminar but please let Claire Livingston know if you plan to attend.