The Hubbub Foundation UK & Starbucks: Nature Hubs Fund

In partnership with Starbucks, a US company that is among the world’s leading retailers of speciality coffee, the Hubbub Foundation has reopened its Nature Hubs Fund, offering groups across England, Scotland and Wales grants of between £3,000 and £6,000 to develop green space initiatives and increase access to nature through its Nature Hubs grant programme. Groups will be partnered with a local Starbucks store, who will support projects in a number of ways.

Grants are available for registered organisations to deliver projects and activities that create or enhance green spaces within 3 miles (5 kilometres) of a Starbucks store. In particular, projects should promote community cohesion around nature and green spaces.

A map showing the location of Starbucks stores in Great Britain can be found on the Starbucks website. You can use Free Map Tools to draw a radius from any UK postcode.

The fund aims to support groups to create or enhance green spaces that bring people closer to nature and relate to any one or more of the following 4 themes:

1. Bringing People Together – to bring people together and create community connections in/around a shared green space, such as community growing, plant sharing, coffee and chats or youth activities.
   
2. Building Climate Resilience – to make an existing space more climate resilient and engaging the local community on climate issues, such as changes to buildings and urban spaces that increase resilience to heatwaves, drought, coastal flooding, or sea-level rise, while creating community connection in the green space.
   
3. Increasing access – to bring green space to an area where there is limited access to nature, such as by creating or enhancing a community garden, a green roof, increasing biodiversity in an urban area, or other similar ideas, or to encourage a particular demographic who might not otherwise or rarely access an existing green space, and/or
   
4. Upskilling the Community – to teach communities new skills and encourage health and well-being through spending time in green spaces, such as workshops and/or events taking place in green spaces, how-to guides on increasing nature connections, or training around nature-based activities.

The following funding is available:

1.  Nature Hubs Fund – groups can apply for a grant of up to £6,000 to set up or enhance community-led green spaces (groups who received other Hubbub funding such as Community Nature Fund and Food Hubs, Community Fridge funding may also apply).
   
2.  Top-up grants for existing Nature Hubs – if you have received Nature Hubs funding before you can apply for a top-up grant up to £3,000 for the same project site.

Grants of between £3,000 and £6,000 can be used for:

• Display materials, signage and information.
  
• Materials relating to the nature hub activity (such as plants, gardening equipment, tools, and paint).
  
• Services from external suppliers such as building labour costs and garden design.
  
• Staffing costs to cover the time spent planning and delivering any activity (please note that 75% of a grant may be put towards a salary, but 25% must relate directly to creating or enhancing a green space).
  
• Training.
  
• Utility costs that relate directly to the delivery of the project activity, such as power or water, and
  
• Volunteer expenses such as public transportation costs, materials, and refreshments for volunteering days.