Alongside some basic organisational details, we will ask the following questions . These areas are most likely to influence an application and may need more time to complete.
Section 1: Organisation details
What is your organisation's purpose and objectives?
We want to understand what your organisation exists to do, who you work with and why your work matters. Please set out your core purpose and objectives and your key priorities over the next few years.
Please provide an overview of your organisation's activities from the last two years. What has changed as a result of your work (for people, places, policies, ecosystems)? What are you most proud of?
This helps us understand where you have focused your efforts recently and the difference this has made. This could include changes you have seen for people, places, practice or policy, as well as learning along the way. Please focus on what feels most important or meaningful to your organisation.
Where does your organisation operate?
Please tell us where your work takes place, including the geographical areas where you deliver services or engage with communities. This could include specific locations, catchments, regions or wider areas that are relevant to your work.
How do you measure impact and how does this inform the services you deliver?
We are interested in your overall approach to monitoring, evaluation and learning. This might include why you measure impact, how you do so in practice, and how what you learn influences decision making or service delivery. Proportionate approaches are welcome.
Please use this space to provide any additional information about your organisation’s finances
In particular, we welcome updates that are not reflected in your most recent published accounts, including anything that has changed since those accounts were prepared.
Section 2: Your resilience
Tell us about recent activities you have undertaken to build your organisational resilience
This could include steps you have taken to strengthen your organisation, such as strategic planning, governance development, reviewing systems or bringing in external support. We are interested in what you have already started to explore or put in place.
What factors are currently affecting your organisation’s ability to remain resilient or build resilience?
By resilience, we mean your ability to continue doing your work, while also anticipating and preparing for future challenges and opportunities. Please tell us about any internal or external factors that are influencing this at present.
What value do you expect your organisation to gain from participating in the programme’s core resilience activities?
This includes activities such as programme webinars, resilience analysis and goal setting. We are interested in what you hope these activities will help you understand or do differently.
How would unrestricted funding, alongside funding specifically focused on resilience, enable your organisation to strengthen its resilience in ways that would not otherwise be possible?
We are not looking for a detailed spending plan. Instead, we want to understand how this funding would complement your participation in the programme and help create flexibility, capacity or headroom to build resilience.
Peer learning and networking are an optional but impactful part of the rolling resilience activities. What value, if any, do you think peer engagement with other freshwater organisations could bring to your organisation?
Please tell us how connecting with peers might support your learning, confidence or approach, if this feels relevant to your organisation.
How would the targeted consultancy support help your organisation build its resilience through this programme?
We are interested in where focused external support could add value, for example by helping you explore a specific challenge or develop practical approaches that can be embedded over time.
Section 3: Programme engagement
How much involvement from your CEO or senior leadership team would be feasible and what would this look like in practice?
Please consider existing workloads, current and upcoming priorities, and any capacity that might be freed up through unrestricted funding. We are looking for a realistic picture of leadership engagement.
How would engaging in a resilience programme fit alongside your existing priorities and strategic plans?
We want to understand how this programme aligns with your current direction and whether it supports what you are already working towards.
What challenges do you anticipate around engaging with the programme? How might you address them?
Please be open about any potential barriers to participation and how you would seek to manage or mitigate them.
Who in your organisation would lead engagement with a consultant and how would learning be shared or embedded more widely?
We are interested in how responsibility would be held and how insights from the programme would be shared across the organisation, including with trustees where relevant.
