Nature Conservancy offering conservation grants of up to $50K

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The Nature Conservancy is offering grants of up to $50,000 on Long Island and throughout New York State to support conservation and climate adaptation projects. 

Open to New York-based nonprofit conservation and community organizations, municipalities, state and federally recognized tribal nations and local and state agencies, The Nature Conservancy’s New York Climate Resilience Grant Program provides grants for projects, including land protection, with the goal of helping communities and nature adapt to climate change. 

In its first four years, the Climate Resilience Grant Program has supported 23 organizations with 53 projects, providing roughly $1.2 million in funding, according to a statement from The Nature Conservancy. The program grants support organizations with fee and easement acquisitions of lands that connect with floodplains and shorelines that mitigate flooding and erosion, while also provide funding for organizational capacity-building, planning and strategy development. 

“This year, our team is excited about the program’s increased focus on funding projects that center natural infrastructure—floodplains, streams, wetlands, tidal marshes, beaches, dunes and bluffs—as they help mitigate flooding and erosion,” Matt Levy, director of Land Protection at The Nature Conservancy in New York, said in the statement. “New York is experiencing more intense rainfall, erosion and sea level rise, and we must plan for future conditions, engage with people affected by flooding, and collaborate with nature to keep people safe and allow nature to adapt. This grant program seeks to do just that.” 

The Climate Resilience Grant Program is part of the larger Connectivity, Climate and Communities Fund, which also includes the Resilient and Connected Appalachians Grant Program that offers funding for projects across the Appalachians’ 18 states. 

The New York Climate Resilience Grant Program, which is accepting applications through Feb. 7, 2025. The total amount of funding available is $500,000 and applicants may apply for up to $50,000 per project. Projects must be completed within 12 months of the start of the grant term, which is expected to be June 2025.   

More information on this and other programs from The Nature Conservancy can be found on its website at nature.org.