Applications are now being accepted for the 2025 Chaffee County’s Common Ground Program.
Donor Name: Chaffee County Community Foundation
State: Colorado
County: Chaffee County (CO)
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 05/16/2025
Size of the Grant: $1000 to $10,000
Grant Duration: 2 Years
Details:
2025 Competitive Grant Program Goals
- Strengthen forest health to protect the community from a large wildfire, protect water quality, and enhance wildlife habitat through planning and execution of forest treatment activities.
- Conserve and support working ranches, farms and rural landscapes through conservation easements and tools that enhance economic viability and longevity of working lands.
- Protect landscapes and watershed health from negative impacts of outdoor recreation use through management, hardening, restoration, and education to disperse use and support conservation values.
- Encourage action at scale across the landscape, to include landownership/management boundaries.
- Encourage collaborative thought and action across funding categories.
- Fund successful programs.
- Maximize impact by working to leverage overall Chaffee Common Ground funds by at least 2-1 through cash and in-kind matches on all combined programs (exceptions are permitted for individual programs).
Types of Grants
- Forest Health and Wildfire Resilience Planning & Education Grants are for planning of treatment activities that enhance forest health and community wildfire resilience. Applicants must be a qualified organization; individual landowners are encouraged to work with the Colorado State Forest Service, Colorado FireCamp or a similar organization.
- Forest Health and Fire Resilience Project Grants are for the execution of treatment activities that enhance forest health and community fire resilience. Treatments on private lands are only considered as part of a larger project that provides value to the community, such as a fuel break that crosses public and private lands in areas identified as high priority in the Community Wildfire Protection Plan. Treatment for fire resilience is completed only through qualified organizations such as Colorado State Forest Service, Colorado Firecamp, Natural Resource Conservation Services (NRCS) or similar.
- Agricultural Program Grants are to support planning and partnerships that provide services to enhance economic viability and longevity of working agricultural lands. Applicants must be a qualified organization.
- Agricultural Enhancement Grants are for projects that support agricultural operations on qualified properties with conservation agreements in place or on public lands.
- Sustainable Agriculture – Conservation Easement & Acquisition Grants are for conservation easements and land acquisition. Applicants must be a qualified organization, such as an accredited land trust or government agency.
- Recreation Impacts Planning and Monitoring Grants are for planning and project development to protect landscape and watershed health from the impacts of outdoor recreation use.
- Recreation Impacts Management Grants are for the execution of projects that protect landscape and watershed health from negative impacts resulting from outdoor recreation use. Applications must be from a qualified organization or private landowners with a nexus to public land access and in collaboration with a qualified land management agency, such as US Forest Service, Colorado Parks and Wildlife or Bureau of Land Management.
- Mini Grants are for one- to two-year projects requesting $5,000 or less that advance the goals of Chaffee Common Ground through the grant programs outlined above. The intent is to support small projects and allow more participation through a simplified application process.
Eligibility Requirements
- Permits and landowner permissions are in place and can be documented, with the exception of planning grants.
- The proposal budget, plan and timeline is complete at an acceptable level of detail and quality.
- The proposal demonstrates clear and measurable results.
- For proposals of $50,000 or more, the applicant demonstrates a track record of success with a program of similar scope and scale.
- Agreement that funded proposals can be promoted by Chaffee Common Ground, including public news stories and signage.
For more information, visit CCCF.
