Grants for Sustainable Projects

Increasingly, environmental awareness is a concern in our world. We find ourselves living in a time of social instability and global climate change that some suggest results from human inconsideration as far as the ways in which we interact with the world and its finite resources. Sustainable projects are those that show concern for the length of time that the project can last. These projects also involve some aspect to social welfare and/or concern for the environment. State and federal government agencies, non-profit organizations and private companies make sustainable grants available.

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

• The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition offers grants for projects related to food security.

  The National Institute of Food and Agriculture offers a Community Food Project Grants Program (CFP) that funds projects based in low-income communities and designed to improve food security for families and individuals living in those communities. The grants support projects that plan for long-term food security, display ingenuity in strategy development and include both producers and low-income consumers and increase the level of autonomy with which low-income neighborhoods generate their food supply. Administered by the National Institute for Food and Agriculture, the program makes available grants ranging from $10,000 to $300,000 in amount. For most projects, cost sharing is required on a dollar for dollar basis. Previous grants include $15,165 to Dakota Rural Action to allow them to create a Rural Community Foods Planning Team.

  United States Department of Agriculture

  National Institute of Food and Agriculture

  1400 Independence Avenue SW., Stop 2201

  Washington, DC 20250-2201

  202-720-4423

  [email protected]

North Carolina Farm Bureau

• The Farm Energy Efficiency Project offers grants for farmers to improve their farms' energy efficiency and use of sustainable energy sources.

  The non-profit North Carolina Farm Bureau Farm Energy Efficiency Project helps farms to save energy through grants allowing for energy efficiency education and technology implementation and renewable energy education and technology implementation for farmers. FEEP awards Renewable energy grants up to $20,000 to five to eight projects. Grants are paid once the agreed-upon renewable energy equipment is installed on the farm. FEEP makes energy efficiency grants in the amount of up to $5,000 available to 25-30 projects. As with renewable energy grants, FEEP negotiates with the farmer to decide what equipment will be installed and then pays the grant amount after that equipment is in place on the farm.

  North Carolina Farm Bureau

  P.O. Box 27766

  Raleigh, NC 27611

  919-782-1705

  ncfb.org

National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA)

• The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance offers Sustainable Vision grants to educational projects focusing on developing commercially viable technology to improve the circumstances of people affected by poverty. Successful proposals will relate to projects that will continue to develop after the grant is exhausted and that use technology to provide human services including those for health care, food security and clean water.

  National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance

  100 Venture Way

  Hadley, MA 01035

  413-587-2172

  nciia.org

American Water

• American Water grants support projects to protect and restore surface water, groundwater and watersheds.

  The American Water company administers an Environmental Grant Program. Through the program, participating states including California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Tennessee make grants ranging up to $10,000 available for environmentally sustainable projects. These projects include attempts to reforest areas affected by deforestation, cleanup work for watershed areas, and efforts to increase or maintain biodiversity. American Water grants have funded environmental projects since 2005 and focus especially on those projects that use innovation and community-based schemes to positively affect water including surface waterways, groundwater supplies and delicate watershed ecosystems.

  American Water

  1025 Laurel Oak Rd.

  Voorhees, NJ 08043

  856-346-8200

  amwater.com