Small Scale Community Initiatives Fund - 2025

The purpose of the Small Scale Community Initiatives Fund (SSCIF) is to support volunteer community groups and individual landowners undertaking ecological restoration through pest animal and pest plant control in the Waikato region.

Applications are assessed against the following criteria:

1. Fit with Council’s regional outcomes, strategic priorities, and policies.
2. Environmental enhancement - How the project will directly promote, enhance or protect the Waikato region’s environment, with a focus on improved ecological and biodiversity outcomes.
3. Community participation and awareness - How the project involves iwi Māori, the wider community and increases public awareness of environmental issues. What is the level of mana whenua and community support for the project.
4. Collaboration and partnership - Whether the applicants have explored and developed any opportunities for collaboration and partnership with others, including any co-funding and support from other parties.
5. Viability - The likelihood of the project’s success and the applicant’s capability to deliver the outcomes of the project.
6. Value to mana whenua - Where applicable and relative to the scale of the project, how the project involves iwi Māori including their cultural values, interests and associations, the effect on Māori historic heritage or the relationship of Māori and their culture and traditions with their ancestral lands, water, sites, wāhi tapu and other taonga including fauna and flora.

To be eligible for the fund your project must align with the above and you must include all requested information.

Before you start filling out this form, please read the guidelines below to help you decide whether you are eligible to apply to the Small Scale Community Initiatives Fund.

Who can apply?

• Individual landowners
• Charitable trusts
• Iwi/hapū
• Incorporated societies
• Community trusts
• Educational institutions
• Limited liability companies

Limitations

• If you are already receiving funding for a project through the Environmental Initiatives Fund or the Natural Heritage Fund in the current financial year then you will not be eligible to apply for SSCIF funding for the same project.
• If you have received a SSCIF grant in the past, you must ensure that you have completed your final accountability report before Friday 9 May.
• Starting from the 2024/2025 round, applicants to the SSCIF may only be awarded funding for a maximum of three consecutive years and will then be required to take a minimum of one years break before applying to the SSCIF again. This has not been applied retrospectively, thus, will not affect potential applicants until 2027.

What can be funded?

• Purchase of materials involved in pest animal and/or pest plant control including traps, lure, bait stations, bait, herbicide, monitoring materials, and personal protective equipment.
• Professional contracted services up to $1,000 (e.g. the services of a qualified herbicide applicator or controlled substance licence holder).

What cannot be funded?

• Plants and planting.
• Projects located outside the Waikato Regional Council administrative boundaries.
• Debt repayments.
• Projects receiving funding from other Waikato Regional Council programmes.
• Projects more appropriately funded through other Council programmes.
• Projects which are core business of other agencies.
• Travel, conference, legal or expenses incurred through participation in statutory processes.
• Landscaping, food gardening and wildlife pond projects.
• Proposals designed to generate personal or commercial profit.
• Purchase of large capital items of equipment or infrastructure.
• Any works/activities that are required as conditions of a resource consent.
• Any project that would have significant adverse impacts on the environment, regardless of the positive impacts.
• Projects that require but have not been granted resource consent.
• Retrospective costs.
• Land purchase.
• Projects that wish to redistribute funds to other recipients.

You must complete all required sections of the application form. Failure to provide the requested information will cause your application to be deemed ineligible.

The application must be completed in this electronic format. Physical or scanned versions of the application form will not be accepted.

Please preview the form before you start, as the required documentation may take some time to prepare. Please do not leave your application until the last minute. 

If your application is successful, you will be required to complete a Health and Safety Joint Responsibilities Acknowledgement Form discussing overlapping duties under with the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.

If you have any questions about your application please contact Renee Denby on 07 859 0907 or email smallscalefund@waikatoregion.govt.nz.