The Conservation Alliance is engaging in an extensive evaluation of our grant program to ensure that it is efficient, impactful, and supports TCA’s conservation objectives and our forthcoming strategic plan, which will launch in early 2025. 

As we complete our evaluation, we have decided to pause the upcoming member-directed grant cycle to realign our grants program with our strategic plan. Please stay tuned to our website for more details on the grant program over the next few months.

Member Directed Grants

Member directed grants are designed to give each member company the opportunity to steer significant funds to organizations making a difference in their community, or elsewhere in North America. In each cycle, member companies help identify eligible organizations that are then invited to submit a grant application for up to $50,000. After careful internal vetting by TCA’s staff and board, member company employees vote on their top projects to help decide on final awards. Grants are awarded for a 12-month term.

If you have questions about grant-making at The Conservation Alliance, please contact Kim Paymaster, Grant Program Director: [email protected].

Funding Criteria And Priorities

  • Seeks to secure durable and quantifiable protection of a specific wild land or waterway. The ideal project aims to protect a specific place through acquisition/easement, or federal designation or legislative action. We also fund projects that aim to improve local ecosystems through dam removal.
  • Engages grassroots citizen action in support of the conservation effort. This includes projects that incorporate efforts to generate grassroots support and those that are led by a group closest to the project and landscape.
  • Has a clear recreational benefit.
  • The project should have a realistic plan to achieve success in the near term (typically within one-four years). A strong project has a clear strategy with realistic milestones, strong partners and relationships with key decision makers, and is being led by an organization with a track record of success. We value the efforts of new organizations and encourage them to apply.
  • Projects and campaigns that are in alignment with TCA’s Conservation Strategy.
  • Indigenous-led conservation initiatives.
  • Projects that are led by and/or benefit communities of color, and/or underserved communities, and organizations that work directly with these communities.
  • Landscape-scale projects that have a clear benefit for habitat.
  • Projects that measurably mitigate the impacts of climate change and protect biodiversity.
  • Projects where businesses have a clear opportunity to participate and partner with grantees to assist in the campaign.
  • State-level legislative or administrative campaigns
  • Stewardship/restoration as the core focus
  • Stopping a mine or other threat without a parallel process for securing durable protection
  • Multiple projects in one proposal
  • Applications to fund the same group for a second project
  • Litigation
  • Applications from groups that are not leading the project or bringing a unique voice to the table
  • Outdoor education
  • Participation grants to get people outside
  • Projects at the inception phase with no/limited support or momentum
  • Only in special cases do we fund more than one group working on a campaign – this is typically reserved for TCA Priority Campaigns

* Organizations that have been awarded a member-directed grant are not eligible to apply for another member-directed grant in the same calendar year, unless approved in advance by TCA.

Winter 2024 Grantees
Summer 2023 Grantees
Winter 2023 Grantees