Deadline: 15-Feb-22
The Illinois Stewardship Alliance launched the Resilience Fund in 2020 to help Illinois farms invest in critical infrastructure to scale up and adapt their business models.
The Alliance’s Resilience Fund helps Illinois local food producers invest in critical infrastructure to scale and adapt their businesses to improve the capacity and resilience of the local food system.
Funding Information
Farms can apply individually or in collaboration for up to $10,000 for full or partial funding of a project or purchase. Grant applications will be reviewed by a committee of local agriculture and food specialists.
Funding Priorities
Projects must be designed to improve the capacity and diversity of the local food supply and may include, but are not limited to:
- Investments in on-farm infrastructure to increase scale, efficiency, and/or diversity of the operation.
- Investments in technology and digital infrastructure to diversify sales channels or improve access to local food products.
- Supply chain infrastructure to transport, coordinate, aggregate, and distribute farm products from multiple sources.
- Institutional or wholesale infrastructure to increase production, product packaging, or value-added processing.
- Launch, expansion, or operational improvement of cooperative or multi-farm collaboration and other mutually-owned businesses.
Eligibility Criteria
- Applicants must represent an independent family farm located in Illinois who serve local Illinois markets.
- Project leaders must have at least two years of farming experience.
- Farms must demonstrate a track record of experience relevant to the successful completion of the project.
- Farms must demonstrate environmental stewardship, financial viability, and social equity in their farming operation.
- Previous Resilience Fund awardees ARE eligible to apply.
- Farms can apply individually or in collaboration with other farms and organizations.
- Applicants may submit only one application as primary applicant, but may be included as non-primary applicant in collaborative projects.
- These funds are not intended for emergency COVID-19 relief aid or to support general operating and recurring business expenses.
- They will consider awarding grants to partially fund larger projects/purchases (e.g. a down payment for a truck would be an eligible request). We do not require applicants to have matching funds but describing other financial support for their project may increase their score in our assessment of financial viability.
- Special Consideration made for:
- BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) farmers
- Women farmers
- Gender non-conforming, transgender, and non-binary farmers
- Veteran farmers
- Farmers living with a disability
- Applicants who have NOT previously been awarded a Resilience Fund Grant.
For more information, visit https://www.ilstewards.org/resilience/