Environmental Grants

The Solutions Project has dedicated itself to improving the lives and environment of the disenfranchised for years. After nearly a decade of experience, we’ve learned a valuable lesson about funding an environment grant from working with numerous groups on environmental projects. We understand the importance of financing and that your community service has never been more crucial than it is today.

We want to show our support for your vision and are inspired by your commitment to improving the lives of those in your community. If your group is working on issues related to education, community development, environmental involvement, or environmental justice, you can apply for an environment grant below.

NOTE: The Solutions Project does not handle government grants and the following information is for educational purposes only. If you would like to learn more about the grants that we do offer or learn more about our grantees please visit our Grantmaking page.

What is an Environment Grant?

To preserve human health and the environment, The Solutions Project collaborates with state, tribal, and municipal governments and institutions of higher education, non-profit organizations, and other qualifying entities through grants for environmental projects. The Solutions Project’s systematic approach to distributing funding allows us to tap into local expertise vital to achieving its goals. Every year, the Solutions Project distributes grants to its state, tribal, municipal, educational, charitable, and other partners. The Solutions Project’s funding helps maintain state, tribal, and local ties and encourages cutting-edge research, community knowledge, and empowerment in environmental protection. The Solutions Project is committed to investing 95% of its resources in creative frontline leadership of color, with at least 80% of those funds going to women-led organizations.

After receiving an award, the grantee is ready to begin working on the tasks described in the approved grant work plan. Compliance with different grant rules and the terms and conditions mentioned in the grant agreement is essential for a successful grant project. Regulations such as filing federal financial reports, providing progress reports, and restricting lobbying activity are common terms and conditions. Throughout the life of the project, recipients should evaluate the terms and conditions of the environment grant to verify compliance with all requirements.

What are Environmental Educational Grants?

Grants for environmental education are issued to groups and organizations that are creating initiatives that facilitate learning about environmental concerns, tackle environmental issues, and take measures to improve the environment.

Environmental education includes the following elements:

1. Environmental knowledge, awareness, sensitivity, and understanding concerning current and future challenges
2. Environment-conscious attitudes and drive to enhance or preserve environmental quality
3. Ability to recognize and assist in the resolution of environmental issues
4. Participation in actions that result in environmental challenges being resolved

While environmental education does not promote a certain point of view or action, its aim centers around teaching people how to think critically about environmental issues and improving problem-solving and decision-making abilities.

What is a Sustainability Research Grant?

Sustainability research grants are founded on one basic principle: everything we require for life and well-being is directly or indirectly tied to our natural environment. Taking steps toward sustainability entails establishing and maintaining conditions that allow us and the environment to coexist for the benefit of current and future generations. Sustainability research grants fund the study and development of a variety of methodologies, tools, guidance, and programs that help people make better decisions about sustainability.

The Solutions Project’s Sustainability Grants Program funds projects that are concerned with environmental issues. The majority of sustainable grants are organized into topics, and applicants can apply for a variety of projects based on one of the topics listed below:

Community Outreach

Projects centered around increasing social justice and participation throughout cities and communities. Volunteering, assisting people in need, and creating opportunities to engage are all potential initiatives.

Conservation

Projects that facilitate initiatives to mitigate climate change and promote biodiversity conservation. Native or productive food gardens, climate change education, and natural area preservation are all potential initiatives.

Resource Management

Projects that encourage resource efficiency. Increased recycling, composting, and enhanced water and energy efficiency are all potential initiatives.

Transportation

Projects that strive to encourage the use of alternate modes of transportation. This includes everything from encouraging bicycle use to improving public transit to the adoption of electric vehicles.

Lifestyles

Projects that attempt to provide community resources for better public health outcomes. Promotional events, healthy lifestyle initiatives, and educational opportunities are all potential projects.

Who Can Apply for Environmental Grants?

The funds provided by an environmental grant support non-profit groups that are managed and governed by residents of the areas most affected by climate change and pollution of our air, water, and land. An environmental grant upholds ideals of the Just Transition movement. Just Transition is a vision-driven, unifying, and place-based collection of principles, procedures, and activities that help people transition from an extractive to a regenerative economy.

Just Transition strategies were first developed by labor unions and environmental justice organizations based in low-income communities of color. These groups recognized the need to phase out industries harming workers, community health, and the environment while also providing just pathways for workers to transition to other jobs. In collaboration with fence line and frontline communities, workers defined a transition away from polluting businesses.

This resulted in a waste-free strategy for viewing production and consumption cycles holistically. The conclusion will never be just if the transition process isn’t. The transition itself must be fair and equitable through reparations, redressing past wrongs and forging new power connections for the future. Just Transition is a slogan that explains where we’re headed and how we’ll get there.

While many of our grantee partners run companies and provide support to individual members or volunteers, our grants are only available to individuals who are directly related to the community groups in the categories listed below:

Local and state policy work that promotes a fair transition to 100 percent sustainable energy and a regenerative economy (from legislation through implementation).
Resistance to fossil fuel infrastructure if combined with a Just Transition solutions framework.
Indigenous-led initiatives and organizing are advancing a Just Transition.
Supporting rural power cooperatives that are transparent, cleaner, and democratically governed.
Demonstration projects driven by communities in need of seed money are pushing models of innovation in clean energy, water, food, and other sectors furthering the Just Transition.
Successful proposals must have a component that builds cultural influence by utilizing powerful narrative and storytelling chances.

How to Apply for Environmental Education Grants

We invite grant proposals from qualifying candidates for a Environmental Education Grant Program, which supports environmental education initiatives that promote awareness and stewardship while equipping individuals with the skills necessary for safeguarding the environment. Environmental education strategies, methods, or approaches are designed, demonstrated, and/or disseminated through this funding program.

If you believe that The Solutions Project funding options might be of interest to your organization, a few prerequisites need to be fulfilled before beginning the process. To be eligible for an environmental, environmental education, or sustainability grant, applicants must represent one of the following categories of organizations:

• Local and state policy work that promotes a fair transition to 100 percent sustainable energy and a regenerative economy (from legislation through implementation).
• Resistance to fossil fuel infrastructure if combined with a Just Transition solutions framework.
• Indigenous-led initiatives and organizing are advancing a Just Transition.
• Supporting rural power cooperatives that are transparent, cleaner, and democratically governed.
• Demonstration projects driven by communities in need of seed money that are pushing models of innovation in clean energy, water, food, and other sectors that are furthering the Just Transition.
• Successful proposals must have a component that builds cultural influence by utilizing powerful narrative and storytelling chances.
• However, at this time, we are not accepting new environment grant applications.

Our current budget does not enable us to accept proposals from new potential partners due to the increased demands and extended programming of our existing grantee partners in reaction to the COVID-19 outbreak and riots in response to the police execution of George Floyd and other events. We’re gathering money to reopen our fast-response Fighter Fund, which will provide modest grants to groups that meet our criteria that are new or not already sponsored by our grantmaking program.

Grants Available for Environmental Projects

Environment grants assist projects in the areas of ecosystems, water, and environmental education that are started and supported by the community.

Ecosystems projects:

• Improve or protect ecosystems and/or endangered species.
• Significant invasive species pose a hazard to land and aquatic ecosystems.
• Ecosystem-related research initiatives that help to conserve and/or improve ecosystems.

Water projects:

• Assist in the preservation, improvement, or restoration of water resources that are critical to the survival of endangered species and/or ecosystems.
• Conduct scientifically sound water quality and/or quantity research that will offer information to water resource management for the benefit of ecosystems, communities, and watershed stakeholders.

Grants Available for Environmental Education

Are you looking for funding to finance environmental education programs for children, provide sustainability education programming in your community? Are you hoping to develop a unique environmental curriculum for schools? The Solutions Project team has put together a few example grants to help you get started. Residents with a deeper knowledge of the environment are more likely to be motivated to make ecologically sound decisions and activities, and we’re here to help you get the word out.

Projects in the areas mentioned above may be given further attention if they integrate Indigenous viewpoints or relationships with Indigenous Peoples, including climate change impacts into enhancement and/or restoration strategies that boost ecosystem resilience, and provide local employment and economic advantages.

Choosing the Right Grant: How Our Grants Make a Difference

Choosing where you receive your environment grant can have a far-reaching impact that you may not have accounted for, affecting your initiative and the people you aim to help. However, you can rest assured that your endeavor will have assistance across the board if selected by The Solutions Project. We can help you through community organizing, policy work, resistance to fossil fuel infrastructure, Indigenous-led initiatives, creative community development projects, and democratically run rural electric cooperatives through the Solutions Project.

Thanks to our robust network, we can find funding for your project if your team includes a cultural power-building component that uses compelling narrative and storytelling potential. The majority of applicants must support a Just Transition.
However, it should be noted that grantees will also receive narrative services to learn how to better establish cultural power and relationships with prominent individuals to assist them in getting things done.

Here are a few of our most successful grants:

Real-time Grants

Our grants made in real-time are issued to frontline leaders working to change our culture and narrative to accomplish a just transition to a regenerative economy in the United States. We do not presently have quick response funds available due to increasing demands from our current partners in response to COVID-19.

Through organizing, direct action, advocacy, and lobbying; communications that develop public will and cultural power; inclusive coalition building initiatives; and frontline driven models of innovation, such as community solar or regenerative agriculture, resources are geared to enable place-based movement moments. Ideal grantees are 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organizations that:

• Are controlled by the communities they serve.
• Collaborate with underprivileged groups to mobilize them.
• Possess the ability to enlist the help of other donors.
• Are experimenting with new strategies to engage constituents.
• Grants vary from $500 to $15,000 (with a $5,000 average). We accept submissions via partner suggestion and open application on a rolling basis when this pool of funds is open.

The Fighter Fund

The Fighter Fund also gives out capacity-building grants to community-based groups that work to strengthen frontline communities’ cultural, economic, and political power, highlight the promise of community-based regenerative economy ideas, and pave the road for a Just Transition. The Fighter Fund provides grants for general operations support. The following are examples of ideal grantees:

• Tax-exempt organizations with a 501(c)(3) or (c)(4) status that are managed by the communities they serve
• Organizations having strong and growing leadership headed by Black, Latino, Indigenous, API, Women, Intergenerational, and LGBTQ+ people.
• Organizations having a budget of less than $1.5 million each year.
• The Just Transition movement is ready to scale up its experimental efforts.
• Currently, Fighter Fund capacity-building awards range from $5,000 to $50,000 each year (with most grants averaging $20,000). These awards are intended to be flexible funds that assist organizations in igniting innovative ideas and scaling them up by leveraging their stories. A contribution from The Solutions Project typically lasts three years. If the gift is given to a 501(c)(4) group, the funds cannot be utilized to assist political candidates in any form.

Whether you’re looking to build out education resources for your community or joining the fight for 100% renewable energy, The Solutions Project stands with you. Contact us today to learn more about our environment grant process.