Applications are now open for 2024!
Deadline for Grant Submissions is 5 pm on Monday October 28th, 2024. You are able to edit your application up until that time.
*If completing the google form is a barrier to you applying, please contact [email protected] or (802) 234-1646 for assistance.
The Vermont Council on Rural Development, in collaboration with the Vermont Low Income Trust for Electricity (VLITE), Vermont Community Foundation Sunflower Fund (VCF), EastRise Credit Union, Ruth H. Brown Foundation, and the Ben and Jerry’s Foundation, invites applications for small grants to support local innovators developing solutions that move Vermont closer to its climate and energy goals.
The objective of the fund is to:
- Support innovative local climate and energy projects where a small grant could have a meaningful impact.
- Simple application process through a google form.
- Upfront funding provided to projects (to be distributed by December 2024).
- Simple report when project is completed (or at 12 months).
Grant awards will be made ranging from $500 to a maximum of $4,000. Funds can be awarded to a municipality, school, non-profit organization, town committee or business.
Criteria for successful projects include:
- Innovative: What is unique about this project?
- Equitable: How does this project address the needs of frontline communities and historically marginalized Vermonters?
- Replicable: Can the project serve as a model for others? What path exists for this to be more than a one-off?
- Collaborative: What partners are involved and what is the depth of their engagement?
- Climate/Energy Goals: When completed, will this project reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, reduce total energy use, and/or increase renewable energy consumption in Vermont? Can that impact be measured?
- Resilience: Increase human, built and natural resiliency
- Leverage: Would this grant unlock other funds or support?
For more Information, contact Laura Cavin Bailey at [email protected] or 802-234-1646.
Background Information:
VCRD launched the Climate Catalyst Innovation Fund in 2021 to support local innovators developing solutions that move Vermont closer to its climate and energy goals. The objective of the fund is to support projects for which a small grant could have a meaningful impact.
To date, small grants have been awarded to 68 local innovators of over $200,000 distributed to local efforts. The Climate Catalysts Innovation Fund has supported a diversity of projects such as a flood plain public food forest, developing frontline emergency preparedness kits, climate economy workforce training, e-bikes at local libraries, and more. To learn more about projects funded in the first two rounds, click on the icons in the interactive map below and read the 2021 Climate Catalysts Innovation Fund Report and the 2022 Climate Catalysts Innovation Fund Report.