Funding Priorities
Thematic Areas
In all our areas of geographic focus, we support communities in the stewardship of their landscapes and seascapes and the biocultural diversity found in these places.
We welcome inquiries from nonprofit organizations working to:
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Conserve terrestrial and marine biological diversity.
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Sustain cultural diversity, linguistic diversity, and traditional knowledge systems and practices.
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Maintain ecosystem services (including, water, soil, and carbon sequestration).
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Support food sovereignty and economic vitality of local communities.
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Sustain healthy reefs and fisheries.
And, in coastal communities along the North Shore of Massachusetts, in addition to the thematic areas listed above, we support artistic expression projects that at their core:
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Raise awareness of an issue or catalyze action.
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Help promote the protection of the environment.
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Help foster community diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Approaches
We support community-based projects that seek to meet their objectives in a variety of ways, including:
​Among the kinds of approaches we support are those concerned with:
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Creating and/or ensuring effective management of terrestrial and marine protected areas, in particular where governance is led by communities (e.g., Indigenous Peoples’ and Community-Conserved Areas and Territories [ICCAs]).
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Ecological restoration involving native species, prioritizing efforts linked to existing conservation areas already valued by communities (e.g., a watershed, community forest, or sacred grove).
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Providing enhanced and alternative livelihoods to support local economies and community well-being (e.g., through agroecology and non-timber forest products).
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Environmental education that draws on Indigenous and local traditions and languages to address present-day problems.
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Use of the arts and other innovative methods to convey social and environmental messages.
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Fostering civic engagement of communities through creative facilitation and other methods (e.g., community-mapping exercises).
Geographic Areas of Focus
We encourage proposals for community-based projects in settings where our small grants can make the most significant impact. Because we are a small foundation, we must limit our grants to specific countries and target landscapes and cannot consider requests from areas outside of our geographic focus.
