We are pleased to announce the latest round of Catalyst Fund grant awards, with 18 Landscape Partnerships receiving support to accelerate their efforts to protect the ecological, cultural, and community values of the landscapes they call home.

Launched in 2019 and with this marking its seventh annual grant cycle, the Catalyst Fund aims to accelerate the pace and effective practice of collaborative landscape conservation & stewardship across the United States. Catalyst Fund grants are intended as strategic investments in strengthening the collaborative capacity of place-based, community-grounded Landscape Partnerships. 

Generous support for the Catalyst Fund has been provided by the Doris Duke Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. A portion of the Fund is specifically dedicated to supporting Indigenous leadership in landscape conservation.



2025 CATALYST FUND GRANT RECIPIENTS



Alaska South Coast Partnership, $25,000 over two years

Strengthening and expanding Native-led climate resilience and habitat restoration across coastal south-central Alaska

Badger-Two Medicine Alliance, $25,000 over one year

Catalyzing Tribal-led co-stewardship in the Blackfeet Nation’s sacred Badger-Two Medicine landscape of northwestern Montana

Bronx Climate Justice Task Force, $25,000 over one year

Building the capacity of a frontline-led coalition advancing landscape-scale resilience across New York City's Bronx River watershed

Chollas Creek Coalition, $25,000 over one year

Resilient Roots: Building collaborative capacity and resiliency in historically marginalized communities in southeastern San Diego

Curry County Landscape Partnership, $25,000 over two years

Advancing climate resilience and landscape stewardship in the Pacific Coastal ecoregion of southern Oregon

Downeast Conservation Network, $25,000 over two years

Advancing transformative collaboration to advance landscape conservation and community well-being in Downeast Maine

Greater Chaco Protection Partnership, $25,000 over one year

Strengthening Pueblo-led collaboration to steward the lands around Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico

Indigenous Conservation Council of Chesapeake Bay, $25,000 over one year

Building capacity to support Indigenous Guardians programs in the Chesapeake Bay watershed

Lower San Pedro Collaborative, $25,000 over one year

Advancing inclusive collaboration to steward natural and cultural resources in the Lower San Pedro watershed of southeast Arizona

Norton Bay Watershed Council, $25,000 over one year

From consensus to action: Advancing collaborative Native-led stewardship in the Norton Sound region of western Alaska

Ocmulgee Partnership, $25,000 over one year

Building collaboration to protect the culturally and ecologically significant landscape that is the the Ocmulgee River corridor in Middle Georgia

‘Ootchamin ‘Ooyakma Landscape Partnership, $25,000 over one year

Advancing collaboration for culturally relevant land healing and climate adaptation across Muwekma Ohlone ancestral territories in California's Bay Area

Park County Water Initiative, $25,000 over two years  

Building relationships to advance transformative collaboration in Montana's Upper Yellowstone watershed

Protect Kw’tsán Campaign, $25,000 over one year

Growing capacity to advance protection and co-stewardship of of the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe’s ancestral lands in southeastern California

Snake River Plains Coalition, $25,000 over one year

Catalyzing pathways towards an ecologically and economically sustainable future on southern Idaho's Snake River Plain

Southeast Wisconsin Conservation Collaborative, $25,000 over two years

Growing Roots: Uniting communities for landscape conservation in the Glacial Plains of southeast Wisconsin

Vision for an Ecologically Sound Platte River, $25,000 over two years

Channeling the capacity to advance interdisciplinary approaches to pursuing conservation, restoration, and resiliency in Nebraska's Platte River Basin

Western New York Wildway Partner Network, $25,000 over two years

Deepening collaborative capacity to protect and connect climate resilient lands in western New York State

With this 2025 grant cycle, we were thrilled to pilot the opportunity to align the Catalyst Fund with the Land Trust Alliance and Open Space Institute's Land and Climate Grant Program, and are thrilled that three of the above Catalyst Fund grantees—the Alaska South Coast Partnership, the Downeast Conservation Network, and the Western New York Wildways Partner Network—are receiving additional support to advance climate-informed planning efforts within their landscapes.



As we reflect on this grant cycle—and indeed on the last seven years of grantmaking that has now given us the privilege of working alongside 103 Landscape Partnerships, including 36 that are Indigenous-led—we continue to see place-based, community-grounded Landscape Partnerships as essential vehicles for delivering the holistic conservation successes needed to respond to the interwoven biodiversity, climate, and environmental injustice crises. And these Landscape Partnerships are all the more critical in this moment in time, when the disruption at the federal level is creating so much uncertainty around the policies and programs that have long supported the conserving, stewarding, and restoring of our lands and waters.

In this context, we believe that collaborative capacity investments open the aperture of opportunity and potential: By supporting the core functions of bringing people together across interest, perspective, and cultures, collaborative capacity enables effective collaboration over time and creates the space necessary for partners to develop and bring forward bold, innovative, and previously unimagined (or perhaps even previously unimaginable) projects.

We invite you to join us in celebrating the above 18 Landscape Partnerships that are receiving Catalyst Fund grant awards—as well as all of the nearly 160 Partnerships that submitted proposals during this grant cycle. We are incredibly inspired to see the important work that all are pursuing in landscapes across the country—and heartened by what this commitment to advancing genuinely collaborative approaches to sustaining the health of our natural landscapes and our communities says about our capacity to rise to meet the scale of the challenges we are facing.

We look forward to staying in touch, and we encourage you check back in early 2026 for more information on the future of the Catalyst Fund.

Jonathan S. Peterson

Director

Network for Landscape Conservation

The Network for Landscape Conservation is the community of practice for practitioners advancing collaborative, cross-boundary conservation as an essential approach to protect nature, culture, and community.

www.landscapeconservation.org

Contact Jonathan Peterson, Network Director, for more information.