Public parks lie at the heart of communities around the world, providing green spaces that welcome everyone. They offer a natural resource and release from the pressures of modern urban life. However, like many publicly provided services, the UK’s public parks are under increasing financial pressure, with limited resources available to adapt to changing circumstances. 
Big Lottery Fund, Heritage Lottery Fund and Nesta are once again partnering to invite applications to a new Rethinking Parks fund that will support innovative ideas to address the challenges parks face.
The aim is to help parks innovate to ensure they can sustain and develop as free, open and truly valued community spaces for the future.
The fund will focus on two areas; to support parks innovators to replicate and adapt promising models for operating parks, and to test new ways of using digital technology to contribute to the sustainability of parks.
• Replication award: Grants of up to £200,000 over two years aimed at supporting organisations to set up, run and learn from innovative, tested, operating models for parks
• Prototyping award: Grants of up to £100,000 over 9-15 months to support testing and learning from digital and data innovations with the potential to address challenges that parks face
The process for selecting ideas to work with will have two stages, the first application stage, and the second a development of ideas stage. Applications for Rethinking Parks Replication awards are open until 27 February and the Prototyping awards are open until 28 March.
Potential applicants are encouraged to engage with the fund team and with potential partners and to attend the webinars that will be hosted.
For further information and to apply, visit: www.nesta.org.uk/blog/rethinking-parks-fund-helping-parks-innovate