Kings County Conservation Futures Grant

The Kings County Conservation Futures Grant provides essential funding for the Land Conservation Initiative, aimed at preserving vital natural and urban green spaces. This grant supports projects like parks, community gardens, and habitat restoration, particularly in underserved areas. Eligible recipients include local governments and qualified nonprofits. The initiative seeks to enhance community access to open spaces, ensuring that all residents can benefit from nature and recreational opportunities.

Overview
Conservation Futures is the primary source of funding for the Land Conservation Initiative (LCI). The LCI also seeks to add open spaces in underserved communities.
CFT grants are used to buy or conserve sites that will be used as parks and open spaces - for example, urban greenspaces and parks, natural areas, sites for habitat and stream restoration, forests, community gardens, farms, and trails. These open spaces may be used for passive recreation. CFT grants can be made to local governmental agencies and eligible nature conservancy or historic preservation nonprofits.
First-time nonprofit applicants: please visit our nonprofit page for more information; our entry point for nonprofits is during the summer prior to the grant round to ensure adequate time to review organizational capacity and financial readiness.
In communities that have been under-served with open space investments, CFT funding may be able to cover 100% of the acquisition costs for some projects.
Examples of nonprofit-led projects that may be a good fit for a Conservation Futures grant include:

• preserving a site as a local park, open space, or natural area valued to a community
• creating a community garden or p-patch
• providing a collective farming opportunity that allows for farmland access and tenure to individuals who have historically not had access to farmland
• securing land to produce culturally relevant food to serve the community in direct support of the nonprofit’s mission

Eligibility

Governmental agencies
CitiesCountyPark districtsEligible nonprofits501c3 historic preservation associations.501c nature conservancy associations (organizations with a primary purpose to conserve natural resources or open spaces).Community groups and individuals can partner on projects with local agencies and eligible nonprofits.Conservation Futures grants may be awarded to two types of nonprofits: 501c nature conservancy nonprofits and 501c3 historic preservation nonprofits (see this document for technical definitions). Nature conservancy nonprofits need to have one of their primary purposes be to conserve open space or natural resources for public benefit. For example, conserving natural resources for public benefit might include concepts such as preserving farmland for a collective, community-led farming opportunity to produce locally grown food.

Ineligibility

Examples of projects that may not be a good fit for a Conservation Futures grant:
projects that are providing farmland for use by a for-profit business that has a corporate foundation or a parent-subsidiary relationship with your nonprofit (King County Farmland Preservation Program easements might be a better option)projects that don't have a clear public benefit tied to nonprofit mission or associated with land conservationprojects that envision intensive capital development (for example, a museum); ongoing residential uses; a site that will support mostly built-out, non-open space uses or active recreation.