The purpose of this grant program is to enable climate adaptation practitioners to spread exemplary adaptation practices among their peers to ultimately help those practices become mainstream within the practitioner community. The program compensates and activates Ambassadors who will share their lessons learned through outreach and engagement with peers.

Practices should promote at least one, and ideally more than one of the following:

• Authentic community engagement

• Centering racial equity

• Design and management of successful climate collaboratives

• Partnerships between community-based organizations and larger environmental organizations

• Implementation of nature-based solutions that benefit both people and nature in a changing climate

• Implementation of actions that promote resilience and transformation for fish and wildlife

For example: someone’s work on determining where to plant climate-smart trees in a community may have done so in a way that promoted authentic community engagement through their particular process, while also implementing nature-based solutions for people (heat mitigation) and nature (choosing native species that provide targeted pollinator or bird habitat).

To be eligible for this program, you must be:

• Working in Massachusetts on climate adaptation in any discipline or career level

• Including benefits to ecosystems and nature in your work

• Able to commit to carrying out a peer learning activity to mainstream your climate adaptation practices activity from July-December 2024

We anticipate five Ambassadors will be selected from the applicant pool. The selection committee will assess all the following criteria when reviewing applications:

• Demonstrated exemplary practices

• Likelihood of the proposed project to succeed and be impactful in helping mainstream practices

• Whether the proposed project is realistic within the time period and funding allotted

• Representation across practice categories

• Representation from a variety of organization types

We have a Selection Committee composed of 4-5 experts across the various practice categories.

Awardees will receive $2000 to complete their project. We encourage participants to use some funding for the time they spend carrying out their project. Participants may also use funds for materials (including refreshments), resources, and technical assistance.

Yes, please budget for the full $2,000. We are not funding partial awards.

We will disburse funding to one representative, but it is up to your discretion how you want to share the funds/resources. You are welcome to work as a team with partners within or outside of your organization to complete your project. For example, you might budget time for two staff from your organization to collaborate, such as a communications professional with an implementation/project manager.

The funding can go to either one person or one organization - it’s up to you how you’d like to distribute the funds after that.

• Carry out the proposed peer learning project from July-December 2024

• Attend 3 hours of cohort meetings (orientation, training, closing celebration)

• Report and evaluate progress in brief updates, final survey and exit interview

We anticipate announcing the awards the last week of June/first week of July

Zoom, mostly! We hope to also offer opportunities to meet in person as a group on a field trip/social event.

This will vary by participant and project. There will be 3 hours of expected programming with additional optional opportunities to gather.

This is about quality over quantity, but having really exemplary practices over multiple categories would likely make you more competitive. However, please only check off the categories that most accurately reflect your work. Other factors will affect selection, including that we will be seeking representation across all categories.

No, but if you think someone would be interested in this program, please share the application with them!

• Start by asking yourself these questions: What do you think is needed to mainstream this practice? What can you do to mainstream this practice among your peers?

  Here are a some ideas of what you could propose:
  

• Develop outreach materials to share about the practices, such as a video/podcast series, how-to guidance docs, case studies, or toolkit

• Budget for your time and materials to share and discuss experiences

  • one-on-one with fellow practitioners through targeted conversations or office hours

  • at a training, workshop or field trip

These are just ideas, we’d love to hear what you have in mind!

Apply here by 5/20/24