Funding Opportunities LINKS
Below you will find information on governmental and non-government funding sources for restoration projects and organizational capacity building. The Assembly will continually add new opportunities and update information on existing opportunities.
The Colorado Watershed Assembly is always available to assist in developing funding strategies and provide advice when applying for grants. Please feel free to contact the Assembly.
Public Funding Opportunities
Acorn Foundation
Geographic Focus: The Acorn Foundation currently prioritizes funding to organizations based in the western and southern United States.
Project Focus: The Foundation is particularly interested in small and innovative community-based projects that engage in community organizing in order to:
Preserve and restore habitats supporting biological diversity and wildlife;
Advocate for environmental justice, particularly in low-income and indigenous communities;
Prevent or remedy toxic pollution
Amgen Foundation
Geographic Focus: United States
Program Focus: The Amgen Foundation seeks to advance excellence in science education to inspire the next generation of innovators, and invest in strengthening communities where Amgen staff members live and work. Amgen Foundation grants range from $10,000 to multi-million dollar commitments.
The Amgen Foundation’s philanthropic efforts are focused on the following areas:
Science Education - The Foundation is committed to raising the value of science literacy for both students and teachers. In this area, the Foundation seeks to identify programs that provide pivotal hands-on science experiences for students, as well as those that seek to support teacher quality and provide professional development.
Community Life- The Foundation dedicates substantial resources to strengthening and enriching the community, thereby making it a more desirable place to live and work. This investment helps to ensure that essential social services, environmental programs, the excitement of the sciences and the richness of the arts are more accessible to all members of the community.
Ben and Jerry's Foundation
Geographic Focus: Nationwide
Project Focus: The Grassroots Organizing for Social Change Program offers general or project support to non-profit organizations throughout the United States and is their most competitive grant program. They make one-year grants for up to $20,000, to organizations with budgets under $500,000. Only organizations with 501(c)3 status, or who have a fiscal agent with this status are eligible to apply
BoatU.S. Foundation Clean Water Grants Program
Geographic Focus: Nationwide
Projects Supported: education, reduce movement of invasive species, construction of boat wash station.
Boeing Charitable Contributions
Geographic Focus: Nationwide
Funding Interests: Boeing partners with nonprofit organizations, schools, and others to work on projects that are strategically focused on a few key areas that can have a measurable impact. They focus their community involvement in five U.S. Focus Areas: education, health and human services, arts and culture, civic, and the environment.
Types of Support: Boeing provides grants as well as donates surplus goods (e.g., computers and office equipment) to organizations within their five major areas of support. These services include loaned employees, printing, graphics, technical support and transportation.
Bridgestone Firestone Tires4ward Program
The Bridgestone Tires4ward program also recycles tires collected as part of organized public lands, rivers, streams and lakes clean-up events across the country. Citizens participating in an community clean-up event may request Bridgestone’s help recycling the tires collected as part of that effort by completing this form. Once the form is completed, Bridgestone will contact the clean-up project coordinator directly to coordinate the logistics of tire drop-off at a local Bridgestone retail store and/or on-site tire removal, a determination made based on the number of tires expected to be collected during an event.
Christensen Fund
Geographic Focus: Four Corners Region
Projects Supported: general support; project support; seed money; equipment; project planning; conferences, seminars, and workshops; capacity building; endowment; and, technical assistance.
Climate Adaptation Fund
The Climate Adaptation Fund provides grant awards to non-profit conservation organizations for applied, on-the-ground projects focused on implementing priority conservation actions for climate adaptation at a landscape scale
Colorado River District Grant Program
Geographic Focus: Colorado
Program Focus: Eligible projects should address 1 or more of the following:
Development of a new water supply
Improvement of an existing water supply system
Measures to improve instream water quality
Measures which promote water use efficiency
Sediment reduction measures
Implementation of watershed management actions
Tamarisk control measures
Colorado Tree Coalition Grant Program
Geographic Focus: Colorado
Project Focus: These grants are for tree-related projects and community forestry promotional activities only. An educational component should be included in each project. Projects which enhance good community tree planting, care or maintenance, are eligible. In general, projects must be on public property, but projects on private property that provide public benefit and access are acceptable.
Community Foundation Serving Boulder County
Geographic Focus: Boulder County
Projects Supported: specific projects, unrestricted expenses, capital campaigns, start-ups endowments and technical assistance. Primary funding areas include: the Arts, Civic Engagement, Education, the Environment, and Health and Human Services.
Conservation Alliance
The Conservation Alliance seeks to protect threatened wild places throughout North America for their habitat and recreational values. As a group of outdoor industry companies, they recognize their responsibility to help protect the wild lands and waterways on which their customers recreate and wildlife thrives. To achieve that goal, they make grants to nonprofit organizations working to protect the special wild lands and waters in their backyards. Learn more about our funding criteria and how your organization can apply for a grant.
Constellation Energy Community Champions Program
Through Constellation’s Community Champions program, our customers can apply for small grants (up to $500) from Constellation for causes that are important to their community. Preferred consideration will be given to those requests where the project, organization, or initiative focuses on education, environment, or youth.
David & Lucile Packard Foundation, Conservation and Science Program
Grantmaking is focused on ocean and land conservation, climate change mitigation, and scientific research. They invest in action and ideas that conserve and restore ecosystems while enhancing human well-being. They support public policy reforms, changes in private sector practices, and scientific activities to develop essential knowledge and tools for addressing current and future priorities.
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
The Environment Program awards grants through invited proposals and the occasional funding competition. Funding opportunities may also be available through organizations administering re-granting programs supported by the foundation.
They support organizations that protect and enhance the natural environment. The communities they serve count on them to produce energy responsibly and to conserve natural resources. They do all they can in our operations to meet these expectations, and support the following projects to increase their positive impact in the natural environment:
Programs or projects that provide hands-on environmental education experiences and curricula that foster an ethic of stewardship and conservation
Habitat and park partnership efforts between nonprofit entities and Xcel Energy that preserve, restore, conserve and improve wildlife habitat, open lands, wet lands, parks, trail systems or recreational areas
Natural resource conservation projects that help protect natural resources, or build awareness for natural resource conservation, including interactive exhibits and displays at museums and other public facilities, with an emphasis on water conservation
If you have questions, email them or view a list of regional corporate giving representatives and contact your appropriate representative.
FishAmerica Foundation Conservation Grants
Geographic Focus: U.S. & Canada
Projects Supported: habitat improvement, streambank stabilization, aeration systems, fishery reefs, silt removal, planting vegetation, improving fish passage, hatchery construction/renovation, stocking & rearing projects, litter cleanup, heavy equipment rental for projects.
Freeport-McMoRan Community Investment Program
Community Investment Funds (CIFs) have been established in communities near their operations in Colorado, New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. The CIFs engage community leaders in cultivating and assessing community projects that address identified community priorities (developed at Community Partnership Panels), and allow them to allocate Freeport-McMoRan Foundation funds to programs and projects that encourage a strong focus on local capacity-building, community development and sustainability.
Fund For Wild Nature
Geographic Scope: Nationwide
Funding Categories: action for wildlife, for rivers, for wilderness, for the places that support the interdependent life that sustains our planet
The Fund for Wild Nature invests in cutting-edge grassroots organizations and innovative conservation efforts that meet emerging needs for protecting biodiversity and wilderness.
Grant money can go to: Project-oriented expenses; general overhead is not fun
Gates Family Foundation
Geographic Focus: Colorado
Project Focus: Parks, Conservation and Recreation and Community Development and Revitalization
Home Depot Community Impact Grants
The Home Depot Foundation offers grants, up to $5,000, to IRS-registered 501c designated organizations and tax-exempt public service agencies in the U.S. that are using the power of volunteers to improve the physical health of their community. Grants are given in the form of The Home Depot gift cards for the purchase of tools, materials, or services.
Intermountain West Funder Network (IMWFN)
Geographic Focus: The Intermountain West Funder Network focuses on the eight-state region of Montana Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Neveda, Arizona, and New Mexico. Additionally, they recognize Eastern Washington, Oregon, and California regions with similar geographic and topographic resource challenges.
Project Focus: IMWFN funds small grant opportunities providing between $2,500 - $15,000 used to support projects engaged in innovative problem solving in their communities. IMWFN hopes these grants will promote authentic community engagement that leads to environmentally sustainable, socially equitable, and economically prosperous regions and communities.
Maki Foundation
Geographic Focus: The Maki Foundation's primary concern is environmental protection in the western United States with an emphasis on Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
Max and Anna Levinson Foundation
Project Focus: The Foundation focuses on the Environment, including: Protection of Ecosystems and Biological Diversity; Alternative Energy and Conversion from the Oil Economy; Alternative Agriculture and Local Green Economic Development; Breaking the Link Between Resource Extraction, Civil and International Conflict, and Markets; and the Development of Environmental Movements.
Melinda Gray Ardia Environmental Foundation
Geographic Focus: Worldwide
Program Focus: This grant provides funding support for any organization that can provide curricula to empower and encourage students to become involved in solving environmental and social problems as informed decision makers through the emphasis and application of basic ecological principles.
Mitsubishi International Corporation Foundation
Geographic Since 1992, MCFA has been promoting environmental causes throughout the Americas to support projects that align with four central aims: Biodiversity Conservation; Environmental Education; Environmental Justice; and Sustainable Development.
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Grants
Geographic Focus: Nationwide, NFWF provides funding on a competitive basis to projects that sustain, restore, and enhance our nation's fish, wildlife, and plants and their habitats. Each of their initiatives has a business plan developed by scientists and other experts and approved by their Board of Directors. Grants are available to support the actions identified in the business plan. Additional programs support diverse projects for wildlife and habitat conservation across the country.
National Forest Foundation Grant Programs
Geographic Scope: National, through its on-the-ground conservation programs, the National Forest Foundation supports action-oriented projects that directly enhance the health and well-being of America's National Forests and Grasslands and that engage the public in stewardship. Nonprofit organizations dedicated to addressing natural resource issues on National Forests and Grasslands can apply for support to complete projects through three distinct grant programs. Additionally, the NFF provides funding opportunities that address specific strategic initiatives aligned with their mission and goals.
They are in support of Water Conservation and Restoration projects that: Support conservation policy and advocacy; Restore and protect ecosystem health and biodiversity; Promote management practices that improve the use of water resources for the protection and benefit of public health, human communities and or animal welfare.
Norman Foundation Grants
The Norman Foundation supports efforts that strengthen the ability of communities to determine their own economic, environmental and social well-being, and that help people control those forces that affect their lives. These efforts may: Promote economic justice and development through community organizing, coalition building and policy reform efforts; Work to prevent the disposal of toxics in communities, and to link environmental issues with economic and social justice; Link community-based economic and environmental justice organizing to national and international reform efforts.
Patagonia Environmental Grant Program
Geographic Focus: Nationwide, they support small, grassroots, activist organizations with provocative direct-action agendas, working on multi-pronged campaigns to preserve and protect our environment.
RBC Blue Water Project Grant Program
The RBC Blue Water Project is a wide-ranging program dedicated to protecting the world's most precious natural resource: fresh water. They support initiatives that help protect water in our growing towns and cities. They also promote responsible water use with our employees and clients, are committed to reducing the intensity of their own water footprint and encourage the growth of water businesses.
Summit Foundation
Geographic Focus: Summit County and the towns of Alma, Buena Vista, Fairplay, Kremmling, and Leadville. The Summit Foundation supports charitable organizations that enhance the quality of life in Summit County and Neighboring Communities. Grants are awarded twice each year, in June and in December, to agencies providing programs or services in the areas of bright futures, community enrichment, environmental stewardship, and health and safe communities.
Surdna Foundation Environment Program
The Sustainable Environments Program works to overhaul our country’s low performing infrastructure, much of it outdated and crumbling, with a new approach that will foster healthier, sustainable, and just communities. We believe in the potential of what we call “next generation infrastructure” to improve transit systems, make buildings more energy efficient, better manage our water systems and rebuild regional food systems. Please click here for more information about the Sustainable Environments' guidelines.
The Edmund T. and Eleanor Quick Foundation
Geographic Scope: Colorado, The Quick Foundation is a private foundation benefiting general charitable groups in the State of Colorado. The Foundation supports a wide variety of concerns and causes. The Quick Foundation will not make grants to conduit organizations or to individuals, but only directly to worthwhile 501(c)(3) charities.
The Joseph Henry Edmondson Foundation
Geographic Scope: Colorado, Primarily Pikes Peak Area
Programs Supported: general support, building funds, equipment, challenge grants, collaborations & coalitions, technical assistance, capacity building, property acquisition.
Threshold Foundation
Supports organizations addressing the drivers, or causes, of climate change. Their grantees work to reduce the use of dirty combustion fuels, eliminate the emissions of greenhouse gases, and/or sequester carbon in the soil, forests or oceans.
Tiffany & Co. Foundation
The Foundation recognizes the important role that parks play in cities around the world. The Foundation supports organizations that work to meet the needs of local communities through strategic design improvements of urban parks and gardens. To make an impact on surrounding communities and the environment, the Foundation focuses on the rehabilitation, protection and creation of public urban green spaces and the enhancement of the visitor experience.
Trout Unlimited, Embrace-A-Stream (EAS)
Embrace-A-Stream (EAS) is a matching grant program administered by TU that awards funds to TU chapters and councils for coldwater fisheries conservation.
Walton Family Foundation
Geographic
The Walton Family Foundation does not accept unsolicited grant proposals, except from public charter school developers who meet certain criteria described in Public Charter Startup Grant Program. Because they accept only solicited proposals, an organization interested in applying for a grant needs first to send a brief letter of inquiry. The letter should succinctly describe the organization and the proposed project, specify and briefly explain its relevance to a particular Walton Family Foundation funding area and initiative, and provide an estimate of the funds that would be requested. For environment projects, letters of inquiry should be addressed to:
The Walton Family Foundation
ATTN: Letter of Inquiry
919 18th Street, NW, Suite 650
Washington, DC 20006
Waste Management Charitable Giving
The environment affects all aspects of our lives, from the air we breathe, to the way we power our homes, to the parklands in which we play. Waste Management is committed to helping provide renewable resources to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and to conserving and maintaining wetlands, wildlife habitats and green spaces for people's enjoyment. Understanding the importance of the environment, Waste Management supports organizations and programs that preserve and/or enhance natural resources.
Western Colorado Community Foundation
Grants are one of the primary means by which the Western Colorado Community Foundation (WCCF) invests in and improves the quality of life in the seven counties they serve.
Wildlife Action Opportunities Fund
Geographic Focus: Nationwide
Program Focus: With generous support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Wildlife Conservation Society continues its highly successful Wildlife Action Opportunities Fund grants program. This program makes funding available to nonprofit conservation organizations, state wildlife agencies, and tribal governments working to implement high priority wildlife conservation activities.
William H. and Mattie Wattis Harris Foundation
Geographic Focus: Colorado, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico
Areas of Interest: environmental conservation, population issues, education
Projects Supported: project & general support, equipment, land/property acquisition, project planning, training events, endowment, challenge/matching grants.
Wolcott Family Foundation
The Wolcott Family Foundation (WOLFF) is a private family foundation. OLFF focuses its funding in the areas of social change and environmental stewardship, with emphasis on supporting grassroots organizations for which a small grant can make a real contribution. It is a three generation, family-run organization, convinced of the power of small groups to make a significant difference in helping people change their world. WOLFF's area of geographic focus is Colorado.