Nature in Neighborhoods Community Stewardship and Restoration Grants

Nature in Neighborhoods Community Stewardship and Restoration Grants is sponsored by Metro Council (Portland, Oregon). This program supports community-led partnerships, education, and stewardship programs that offer hands-on experiences to strengthen people's relationship to the natural world and foster the next generation of leaders.

Community stewardship and restoration grants | Metro Use the left and right arrow keys to move between sections. Metro's Nature in Neighborhoods grants provide opportunities to support and create partnerships in local communities that improve water quality, fish and wildlife habitat and connect people with nature. Community stewardship and restoration projects are as diverse as the region’s habitats and waterways.

Grant recipients have planted native species at Ross Island, improved water quality and amphibian habitat in Willow Creek, and restored habitat at the Sandy River Delta for fish, migrating birds and turtles all while engaging local residents in being stewards of their local natural areas. Metro grants expand partnerships to inspire new approaches to restoration, including economic and environmental equity.

In the Jade District, APANO, Columbia Land Trust and Audubon worked together with private landowners to increase community stewardship and improve habitat. In Hillsboro, Depave transformed the M&M Marketplace’s parking lot from gray to green by engaging community members that included pavement removal, rain garden creation, and native plant installation.

Momentum Alliance and Northwest Youth Corps co-created a conservation leadership program for youth interns with year-round programming and coaching.

Funding is available for projects that: preserve and restore local fish and wildlife habitat create, support and/or deepen partnerships in local communities address inequities in the conservation movement support larger conservation initiatives increase people's awareness of the need for protecting and managing natural areas engage people in protecting and managing natural areas at the community level increase the expertise and capacity of organizations to lead habitat restoration and land management activities provide environmental resources and economic opportunities to local communities including historically marginalized communities offer direct access to protected natural areas and the positive impacts of clean land, air and water to local communities including historically marginalized communities.

Program purpose and goals Community stewardship and restoration grants support and create partnerships in local communities that improve water quality, fish and wildlife habitat and connect people with nature. All applications must clearly meet the grant program’s overall purpose. Priority will be given to applications that meet each of the grant program’s three goals.

Goal 1: Improve water quality, fish and wildlife habitat These grants will preserve and restore fish and wildlife habitat in local communities and support larger environmental justice and conservation initiatives. Goal 2: Community partnerships, collaboration and accountability These grants create, support and/or deepen partnerships in local communities.

Strategies for community engagement fall on a spectrum from deep, personal engagement to outreach via mass media, but should aim for transformational partnerships rather than transactional information sharing. Goal 3: Economic and environmental equity The community stewardship and restoration grants help address inequities in the conservation movement.

The grants provide outdoor, environmental, and natural resources; economic opportunities; direct access to protected natural areas; and the positive impacts of clean land, air and water to Indigenous communities, Black communities, communities of color and other historically and continually marginalized groups in greater Portland.

Community groups, watershed councils, neighborhood associations, nonprofits, faith groups and service groups with nonprofit or other tax-exempt status may apply. Grants may only be awarded to projects and programs that benefit Metro-area residents. Make an appointment to talk with the program manager.

2025 Nature in Neighborhoods Community Stewardship and Restoration Grant pre-application handbook Sample application: DePave 2019 Restoration and Community Stewardship Grant awards Expand to see all documents 2016 Restoration and Community Stewardship Grant awards 2015 Restoration and Community Stewardship Grant awards 2014 Restoration and Community Stewardship Grant awards Metro Council awards more than $26 million in parks and nature grants Metro awards funds to 42 parks and nature projects across greater Portland.