Young Naturalist Fund
The Cameron Bespolka Trust is pleased to present the Young Naturalist Fund. This fund provides monetary and personal support for young people who are working on (or have an idea for) a project that will benefit nature.
Funding Update
Thank you for all applications. We have now allocated all funds for 2024.
Please check back in January 2025.
We are passionate about helping young people to kickstart their wild careers and we want to help you to engage others with the natural world. Your project can be anything – big or small! We simply want to support you with advice and funding to make your project the best that it can be, turning a seed of an idea into a giant flower.
To apply for the Young Naturalist Fund, all you have to do is fill out the form on our website explaining who you are, what your project is and why you need funding. We will get back to you as soon as possible. Don’t worry if your project is not fully fleshed out yet, we can help you with that too – a general idea of what you would like to do will suffice, although the more detail the better!
Our hope is that, during your project and once it is complete, you will send us a few updates along the way and give a shout out to the Trust –- sharing the fund with other young people who could use our help and support.
We can’t wait to hear from you!
Some ideas for a project
- Creating a wildlife garden at school.
- Installing a nestbox/birdbox.
- Buying bird feeders.
- Making a bug hotel or hedgehog house.
- Buying equipment for a wildlife club at school.
- Writing a nature book.
- Beach clean-up.
- Equipment for a wildlife club at school.
- Fieldwork equipment for a trip.
Please note that funding is only available for projects that take place in the UK.
If you have any further questions about the Young Naturalist Fund please get in touch with us info@cameronbespolka.com.
Projects approved for funding
April 2024
The Plants of Iron-Age Pig-Rooted Areas
This project aims to investigate the impact of Iron-Age pig rooting in woodland on …
April 2023
A collection of illustrated nature poems
Britain is a diverse tapestry, comprised of colourful plants, animals, fungi, and …
March 2023
Bird observatory warden training week
Bangor University Birdwatching Society gave 10 members a Bird Observatory Training week …
March 2023
Bird ringing equipment
Izzy is a 17 year old trainee bird ringer hoping to go for her C-permit this summer. She …
October 2022
Saw Horse for School
The Youth Naturalist Fund kindly helped me to purchase this sawhorse for my forest school …
June 2022
70 Nest Boxes for 70 Years
In celebration of the 2022 Platinum Jubilee I created this project for 70 schools in the 3 …
Alasdair
Meet our Board Trustee, Alasdair Robertson. He will be overseeing the Young Naturalist Fund and guiding fund applicants through the process, answering any questions they might have
Alasdair is a marine ornithologist working for Natural England. He is a former student at Winchester College and was the secretary of the school’s Natural History Society in his final year when Cameron joined. He was inspired by the incredible enthusiasm and highly developed birding skills that Cameron brought to the trips they both went on to nature reserves around Hampshire. Growing up in the Sussex countryside, Alasdair always loved being in nature, but it was at Winchester that his knowledge and passion for birding developed in earnest. He went on to study Zoology at the University of Bristol and then gained a master’s in Tropical Forest Ecology from Imperial College London.
Fund application
If you would like to apply for funding please complete our application form