Leveraging Funding and Working on Large River Restoration

ProjectsEmily Luscombe

Environmental Director

Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians, Redwood Valley, CA

epddir@coyotevalley-nsn.gov

Know Your Project

• Be prepared to talk about your project and pitch it on the spot

• You never know when you are going to meet a potential funder or contact, or sit next to the people you just submitted a grant to at lunch

• Have your project broken in to phases so that you have a project that you can talk about for the dollar amount of any grant that someone you meet has to offer and be able to tell them both what their money will fund and the bigger project it will be a part of

• Practice talking about the project before you meet funders so that you know what kinds of questions they might ask and can have answers ready to go

Photographs

• Pictures are worth a thousand words. • Put site photos and images in your grant applications wherever there is

room to illustrate different aspects of your grant• Make sure you don’t delete your project site photos when you download

from your phone to your computer• When you meet someone who may be able to direct you toward potential

funding sources it is helpful to have those photos on your phone so they can visualize what you are talking about

• Photographs can also be helpful at networking events where you may find others working in your area that want to combine projects for a grant or find others who have done something similar and can direct you toward funding they used

Rate of Bank Collapse

Janurary 2013 before the void began to form, but where you can see signs of previous collapse. February 2015 a large void over 15 feet high has formed and a triangular section of the bank has collapsed.

One storm in April 2016 removed a large portion of the void and caused major collapses along the bank. Most of the sediment was washed away, but 10 foot high piles remained at the base after the water receded.

May 2016. What remains of the void after one mild late April storm. A large triangular section of the bank above the void collapsed and more of the void was lost.

January 2013 January 2016 February 2017

Site Visits

• Use every opportunity to get potential funders out for site visits

• A picture is worth a thousand words, but when you have a big site they cannot capture the scale of the project, so site visits become important

• A lot of funding agencies like to be able to show photos of their employees at the site so inviting them for site visits helps them with their portfolios

• Seeing the site can make the difference in funding so invite them out

• Host trainings and meetings that funders may attend and then they will already be on site and be able to see the site in person without needing extra travel funds

Look at Creative Ways to Match Funds

• Use 638 contracts to your advantage these are not considered federal money for the purpose of matching federal funds; you can actually match the same agencies money with their own money if they have 638 technical assistance or grant programs and competitive grants

• Get partners who may be able to hold grants that are not available for the Tribe, particularly if the Tribe does not have a 501(c)(3) nonprofit status or cannot apply for State and local grants due to conditions set forth

• Partner as a part of larger project so that funds the partners have obtained can be used for leverage

• Use in kind fund matches where possible: matching the value of the land used for the project, or using some Tribal workers of community service work for some of the project work

• Ask if there are match waivers or reductions for disadvantaged or at risk communities and what their qualifications are for those

Get Partners and or Support

• See if there are agencies and non profits or other landowners that you can partner with on a grant or with technical assistance for the project

• See if your project can become part of a larger watershed scale project in order to make leveraging funds easier

• If you have a local resource conservation district or other such entity involve them in planning and talk to them about ways they may be able to assist or that your project may be able to help them leverage funds for the watershed as a whole

• Get letters of support from government agencies from the federal to the local level where possible as well as non profits and neighbors

Follow Through

• Follow up with grantor, potential grantors, and agency contacts and let them know the progress of the project and changes that have occurred, this enables them to let you know of new opportunities or alterations to grant applications that can be made

• If you don’t get a grant the first time ask for a debrief so that you can be prepared to apply the next time

• Don’t get discouraged funding priorities change from year to year so your project may qualify in the future when it doesn’t now

• Don’t give up!

An Example:

• We were having difficulty getting a basis of design and hydrological modeling report funded in order to get implementation funds

• I carried photos everywhere until I met a hydrologist from BIA, whom I was able to convince to come for a site visit with the person who could approve funding

• They saw the site in person, asked for an official

application. The assessment was funded and that

grant has now been used as match for

implementation.

• Our implementation grant has a technical assistance

component, which is being used to match a competitive

grant from the same agency