Watershed Restoration Grant Program

Overview

_NOTE: Out of respect for applicants’ time and limited resources, before starting the application process, please contact the Foundation to discuss your organization’s work._

Our History

Bella Vista Foundation (BVF) is the legacy of sisters Georgiana Gerlinger Stevens and Jean Gerlinger Kirkwood, who gave generously throughout their long and eventful lives in the Bay Area and beyond. Georgiana started her own foundation, the GGS Foundation, in 1992, to support literacy, healthy living, and youth development and empowerment. Jean founded the Kirkwood Family Foundation, later renamed the Bella Vista Foundation, in 1999 with a focus on environmental restoration and support for young children. In 2019, the boards of directors of both foundations, composed of family members, decided to merge under the Bella Vista name.

Support for Vital Ecosystems

The Watershed Restoration program focuses on restoration and revitalization of key watershed ecosystems within specific geographic areas in California and Oregon.

Programs/Projects We Fund

Those which:

* Incorporate environmental, economic, and social equity factors because solutions that merge these factors tend to have long-term success 
* Preserve and build natural capital by consuming the growth of the environmental resource, rather than the resource itself
* Support creative solutions to revitalization and restoration that have the potential to serve as models for similar projects
* Are part of a cluster of projects in a given watershed involving one or more organizations over time (the Foundation believes this clustering of support at the watershed level will result in stronger partnerships and a greater impact)
* Foster collaborative partnerships even among groups with divergent interests
* Include activities that governmental agencies do not normally fund

Eligibility

_You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website._

* The Bella Vista Foundation awards grants to public charities operating under an IRS 501(c)(3) status or fiscally sponsored by a 501(c)(3) organization.
* Where We Fund

* California,

* the entire Klamath Watershed; and
* in the Sierra Nevada,
* the Truckee River watershed,
* Yuba/Bear/American rivers, and
* the North Fork Feather River watershed; and

* in Oregon,

* the upper Deschutes Basin and
* the upper John Day Basin.

* The foundation will fund restoration projects that have an environmental education component, but only where restoration is the main and long-term focus.
* The foundation only supports non-sectarian programs.
* Only one request from an organization will be funded in a 12-month period.

Ineligibility

* The foundation does not award grants to individuals.
* The foundation does not fund land acquisition projects.
* The foundation does not award grants to public or private schools or their affiliated foundations.
* The foundation does not make grants to support endowments, events, concerts, annual appeals, videos or films, medical research, or capital campaigns.
* The foundation does not provide funding to programs that are solely virtual.
* This includes software applications.