Deadline: 8-Mar-23
The Chesapeake Bay Trust is inviting applications for the Urban Trees Grant Program to green communities; enhance quality of life, human health, and community livability by improving air quality and reducing urban heat island effect; and mitigate some of the effects of climate change.
Projects selected for funding must be fully or significantly focused on planting of trees (defined as “implementation”). the Natural Resources Article of the Annotated Code of Maryland allows funds to be used for planning to support the implementation phase and a maintenance phase in addition to implementation. The Trust requires implementation and maintenance phases to be part of all requests to be eligible for funding.
Projects may include other components, such as workforce development activities, but the tangible result of projects selected for funding must be measurable trees in the ground.
Regions of the State in Which Tree Planting Projects Can Occur
Tree planting proposed must occur in urban areas with low median household income levels, high unemployment, and neighborhoods with housing projects or that were historically red-lined at any time.
Funding Information
There is no maximum request; however, requests will generally be at the following scales:
- Up to $15,000 for projects serving a single small neighborhood (on the order of 25 to 100 trees)
- Up to $45,000 for projects serving multiple neighborhoods within a community (on the order of 75 to 300 trees)
- Up to $200,000 for projects serving multiple communities (on the order of 300 to 1,000 trees)
- Up to $1,000,000 for projects serving communities across an entire county-scale (on the order of 2,000 to 6,000 trees)
Eligible Project Locations
- Tree planting projects proposed as part of this program must occur in urban, underserved areas, defined in Section 8–1911 of the Natural Resources Article of the Annotated Code of Maryland as:
- An urban area, as delineated by the United States Census Bureau AND An area that meets ONE or more of the following criteria:
- Historic Disenfranchisement: A neighborhood that was, at any point in time, redlined or graded as “hazardous” by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation; OR
- Unemployment: A census tract with an average rate of unemployment for the most recent 24- month period for which data are available that exceeds the average rate of unemployment for the State; OR
- Household Income: A census tract with a median household income for the most recent 24- month period for which data are available that is equal to or less than 75% of the median household income for the state of Maryland during that period; OR
- Housing Project: A housing project as defined in Section 12-101 of the Housing and Community Development Article.
- An urban area, as delineated by the United States Census Bureau AND An area that meets ONE or more of the following criteria:
Eligibility Criteria
- Local governments, non-profit organizations, community and homeowner associations, faith-based organizations, and more.
- Funding Partners and the Trust welcome requests from non-profit organizations, schools, community associations; service, youth, and civic groups; institutions of higher education; counties; municipalities; and forest conservancy district boards and neighborhood/community associations (as per statute).
- Also as per statute, grant applications from qualified organizations located in the underserved areas where the proposed tree planting projects will be implemented will be prioritized.
For more information, visit Chesapeake Bay Trust.