2025 Michigan Urban Conservation & Community Grants

With significant support from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, The Conservation Fund is pleased to announce the 2025 Michigan Urban Conservation and Community Grant Program. Selected organizations may receive grant awards of up to $20,000 plus technical assistance and coaching designed to help advance urban conservation projects.

The grant program aims to support community-led projects with the potential to transform vacant, degraded, or underutilized urban land into new, expanded, or improved publicly accessible greenspaces in the following cities across southeast Michigan: Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, St. Clair Shores, Royal Oak, Pontiac, Dearborn Heights, and Warren.

What We’re Looking For

Proposed projects should address the following priority elements:

• Site Control: Projects should include an identified project site and a plan to secure some form of durable site control: conservation land acquisition, permanent site control, conservation easement, or similar long-term rights for public benefit. For example, the project could involve securing rights to vacant properties to establish a new community garden, engaging in an active redevelopment project that includes a permanent greenspace element, gaining a long-term commitment from local government or private landowners for green space set-asides, or acquiring title to land to expand a neighborhood park or trail. This component does not need to be the primary focus of the project, but a successful project should address dedicated land conservation. Note: The applicant organization does not need to assume site control directly, provided that the proposed conservation action is assured for the longer term. Partnerships with local land trusts and other entities are highly encouraged.
• Community Engagement: Projects should include a community outreach and engagement plan. Projects are expected to collaborate with diverse community partners and provide opportunities for public engagement through community planning meetings, and educational or volunteer-focused events. Furthermore, projects should help empower residents to tackle real-world environmental and socioeconomic challenges in their community. For example, the project might engage the neighborhood in creating a community garden to increase access to fresh, affordable, and healthy produce.

What Grantees Will Receive

Up to $20,000 in grant funding will be awarded to selected individual grantee organizations, together with hands-on coaching and training designed to strengthen the project team and build long-term capacity. Grantees will be part of a supportive network with access to the following:

• Grantee participation in virtual kick-off meeting and launch survey
• Participation in the 2025 Urban Conservation & Community Peer Exchange in Michigan
• A series of educational webinars focused on land acquisition and long-term site control
• Personalized coaching and technical help through one-on-one meeting with TCF Staff
• Scholarships to mParks conference or other regional conference and training opportunities
• Additional support as identified by grantees

Application Process and Timeline

All applications must be submitted through our online system. A link to the online application can be found at the bottom of this announcement. If you have any questions or problems, please contact us at ilyon@conservationfund.org.

• Application Opens: June 1, 2025
  • Information Webinars and Open Office Hours: Throughout June
    • June 26, 3- 4 PM ET | Click here to register
• Application Closes: July 18, 2025
• Grants awarded: August 2025
• 2025 Urban Conservation Peer Exchange: September 17-19, 2025 (required for all grantees)
• Grant Period: August 2025 – July 2026
• Reporting Deadlines:
  • Interim Report Due: January 2026
  • Final Report Due: August 2026

Eligibility

• Eligible grantees are community-serving entities serving Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, St. Clair Shores, Royal Oak, Pontiac, Dearborn Heights, and Warren.
• Open to non-profit 501(c)(3) organizations, state or federal government agencies, federally recognized tribes and local governments, and educational institutions. Community groups that are not eligible are encouraged to partner with an eligible group.  If you have a great project but your group is not eligible, please reach out to us if we can help match you with an eligible partner. Private for-profit firms and individuals are not eligible to apply.
• The project site’s current ownership can take any form (public, private, individual, institutional, for example), however there must be a plan to secure long-term site control.
• Grant funding may not be used to support political advocacy, fundraising, lobbying, litigation, terrorist activities, or Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations.

Project Selection

All proposals will be screened for relevance, accuracy, completeness, and compliance with TCF funding policies. Proposals will then be evaluated based on the extent to which their projects meet the following criteria:

• Addresses both priority elements listed above.
• Engages local community members, leaders, community-based organizations, and/or other relevant stakeholders to develop and implement the proposed project.
• Includes a definition of success and a plan to monitor and/or evaluate project success.

Funding Details

The Conservation Fund anticipates making up to 16 grants across the eight target cities: Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, St. Clair Shores, Royal Oak, Pontiac, Dearborn Heights, and Warren. Each applicant can request up to $20,000 to cover planning, pre-development, and implementation costs associated with their proposed project. Matching Contributions are not required but encouraged. Matching Contributions may consist of cash, contributed goods and services, and volunteer hours.

Ready to apply or want to learn more?

Please reach out to Isabelle Lyon, Program Specialist, Urban Conservation Initiatives, at ilyon@conservationfund.org to learn more about this opportunity.