Boost energy efficiency and community resilience with the Initiative Foundation’s 2025 Energy Efficiency and Community Resiliency Planning Grants.
Donor Name: Initiative Foundation
State: Minnesota
County: Selected Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 08/01/2025
Size of the Grant: $10,000 to $100,000
Grant Duration: 1 Year
Details:
The Initiative Foundation will award grants to Central Minnesota organizations whose work aligns with one or more of the program’s focus areas, including:
- Improve building energy efficiency or electrification
- Advance clean energy adoption (e.g., solar, geothermal, battery storage, biogas, or other integrated energy system approaches)
- Increase resilience of community-serving infrastructure
- Enhance energy security through local energy production, storage and/or reduce energy costs
- Prepare facilities that serve the community for future extreme weather and energy challenges
- Assess opportunities for waste heat or wastewater biogas recovery
- Development of community resiliency and climate adaptation plans.
Proposals should clearly demonstrate how the project will contribute to one or more of the following:
- Energy independence for community facilities and systems
- Community resilience improvements in the face of extreme weather and grid instability
- Disaster preparedness to improve continuity of services and critical infrastructure support
- Cost savings and affordability for the community, particularly for historically underserved populations.
Funding Information
Grants will likely range from $5,000 to $15,000.
Grant Period
12 months.
Eligible Activities
This grant is designed to fund pre-development and technical support activities, including but not limited to:
- Comprehensive energy audits and energy planning
- Feasibility studies and economic assessments
- Engineering and architectural design work
- Environmental and permitting assessments
- Labor costs associated with planning, design and stakeholder engagement
- Technical assistance for community engagement and project scoping.
Eligibility Criteria
- Applicants:
- Local units of government (municipality, county, township)
- Tribal governments
- School districts
- Nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) status
- Projects:
- Located within the Initiative Foundation’s 14-county service area, which includes portions of the Leech Lake and Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Tribal lands
- Demonstrate potential for future implementation or construction
- Priority will be given to projects that …
- support workforce development or local job creation
- integrate equity, inclusion and community engagement
- have matching funds of 25 percent.
For more information, visit Initiative Foundation.
