Deadline: 26-Sep-2024
The Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks is currently accepting applications for the Great Lakes Local Action Fund.
The Great Lakes are the foundation of Ontario’s economic prosperity, social well-being, and ecological health — supplying water to their communities, sustaining traditional activities of Indigenous peoples, supporting Ontario’s economy, and providing healthy ecosystems for recreation, tourism and wildlife.
The province has worked for decades with the Great Lakes community, including governments at all levels, Indigenous communities, community and environmental groups, conservation authorities, businesses, and others to protect and restore the Great Lakes. This has included working collaboratively through initiatives and projects that have helped clean up polluted areas and supported the restoration of habitats and species.
To continue supporting community efforts to protect and restore the Great Lakes, the Ontario government, through the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks is investing $1.8 million in the Great Lakes Local Action Fund. Funding will support community-based projects that Increase climate change resiliency and protect or improve water quality in the Great Lakes ecosystem in 2025.
Program Objectives
- Improve climate change resiliency through ecosystem protection and restoration
- Implement local scale nature-based solutions to protect, enhance or restore riparian areas, culturally significant areas, reduce impacts to Great Lakes ecosystem health and increase awareness of the importance of these areas/actions to the health of the Great Lakes.
- Example activities may include:
- planting native species (e.g., trees, shrubs, grasses, wildflowers)
- preventing/reducing erosion of shorelines and sedimentation in natural creeks, streams or rivers (e.g., shoreline protection using natural solutions, re-vegetating buffer strips, mulching/seeding)
- management of invasive species
- Protect and improve water quality
- Implement local scale actions that address road salt, nonpoint source pollution and plastic pollution through prevention, mitigation and public awareness.
- Example activities may include:
- mitigating the impacts of road salt use on waterbodies
- preventing plastic pollution from entering waterbodies and removing plastic from waterbodies (e.g., interception, collection, education)
- reducing nonpoint source water pollution (e.g., nutrients from lawns and gardens [not including agricultural], oil and other vehicle and household chemicals, pet waste and sewage)
Funding Information
- Generally, applicants may apply for $50,000 or for lesser amounts.
- Applications for amounts greater than $50,000, and up to $100,000, may be considered for projects that clearly demonstrate very high value in terms of environmental benefit to the Great Lakes and/or their connecting rivers, along with significant and broad community engagement and benefits, and strong project design, as described under “Project evaluation”.
Project Timelines
- Funding is available for projects occurring (costs incurred) between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2025.
- All project activities and the final reporting to the ministry must be complete by December 31, 2025. It is recommended that applicants build in time between the end of project activities and final reporting to pull together the necessary documentation.
Eligible Projects
- To be eligible for funding, projects must:
- aim to meet at least one of the GLLAF objectives described above
- engage community members in the implementation of the project
- Note: Applicants are strongly encouraged to seek out partnership and collaboration opportunities with other organizations to enhance youth and community engagement during the implementation of the project, including underserved and underrepresented communities.
- start no earlier than January 1, 2025, and be completed by December 31, 2025
- Incomplete applications and projects that do not meet the criteria above will not be considered eligible for funding.
Ineligible Projects
- The following types of projects are ineligible for funding:
- projects where the entire focus is on education and outreach (i.e., with no direct actions addressing program objectives)
- feasibility studies or plans, and land-use planning
- contaminated site remediation (e.g., sediment remediation, brownfields)
- activities that occur within Provincial Parks
- strictly beautification activities
- land acquisition
- projects being done to comply with specific legal requirements
Eligibility Criteria
- To be eligible for funding, the applicant must be a legal incorporated entity, such as:
- community-based incorporated organizations
- conservation organizations (i.e., non-governmental, not-for-profit, charitable corporations whose work focuses on environmental protection, conservation, and/or restoration)
- Indigenous communities
- conservation authorities and their foundations
- municipal governments
- academic institutions including schools as represented by their school boards, universities and community colleges
- industry and non-profit associations or organizations
- Applicants are strongly encouraged seek partnership opportunities with other organizations in their community (e.g., community/youth groups, schools/school boards, small businesses, etc.) to enhance project outcomes, community engagement and awareness, including opportunities supporting broader inclusion and diversity with underserved or underrepresented communities.
- The organization that would oversee and take responsibility for implementing the project is the organization that must apply, and that organization must meet the eligibility criteria above.
- To be eligible for funding, municipalities and conservation authorities and foundations associated with a conservation authority must partner with at least one community-based organization or Indigenous community and must provide a signed letter from the community-based organization or Indigenous community as part of their application, which sets out the role of the organization/community in the proposed project.
- Community-based organizations include local not-for-profit groups like agricultural, landowner, youth, and environmental and conservation groups, as well as schools and other academic institutions, and First Nations and Metis organizations.
- Partnering with a community-based organization means the community-based organization must be actively involved in delivering the project, for example, participating in project design; or contributing a significant amount of staff or volunteer time to the project’s implementation.
For more information, visit Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks.