To be eligible to apply to the California Wildlands Grassroots Fund, you must be able to answer YES to all the following questions:

1. Are you or your organization devoted to protecting and preserving wildlands and open space in California?

2. Are you or your organization based in a California community?

3. Is your organization's budget $100,000 or less?

4. Does your organization have a 501(c)(3) status or 501(c)(4) status from the Internal Revenue Service, or is it a sponsored project of a 501(c)(3) organization?

5. If you are an individual, are you affiliated with a 501(c)(3) or 501 (c)(4) organization?

6. Is your funding request $5,000 or less?

If you answer NO to any of these questions, you will not qualify for a grant from the California Wildlands Grassroots Fund.

Reapplying: Organizations are welcome to reapply and are able to do so again a year from when they last received funding from CWGF (a year from when they received their last CWGF check, not a year from when they submitted their application). To be able to reapply, we must also have received a final report for the most recent grant from CWGF.

The California Wildlands Grassroots Fund is not currently accepting grant applications. Please check back here after March 15, 2012 for our new application schedule. We look forward to receiving your grant applications after we have completed a planning process and a retooling of our website and on-line application process. We hope to complete that process in Spring 2012 and look forward to hearing from you after that. Be assured that the Fund is not disappearing and that we will be back as soon as our retooling process is complete. In the meantime, if you have questions, please contact consultant Catherine Lerza at 510-421-1432.

CWGF will accept applications at any time. Read our policy on Emergency Requests closely before submitting one; click here for details. Funding decisions are made on a quarterly basis, except for EMERGENCY REQUESTS, which are considered on a monthly basis. Please note that processing emergencies will take a minimum of 4 weeks. If you'd like to make sure you turn in your application in time for a specific quarterly review, please turn in applications by

• March 18, 2011 for the spring quarter review
• June 24, 2011 for the summer quarter review
• September 23, 2011 for the fall quarter review
• December 16, 2011 for the winter quarter review

If you have answered YES to the questions above and would like to submit an application to CWGF, please carefully prepare the following information before proceeding to our online application form.

You will be asked to provide

1. responses to eight questions about the work for which you are seeking funding;

2. responses to five questions about your organization and;

3. additional background information.

To apply to CWGF, we recommend that you follow these steps:

1. Print out a copy of this funding guidelines page;

2. Type your responses to section A and B in a word processing program;

3. Return to the CWGF website and click on "Proceed to Online Application Form" at the bottom of this page;

4. Fill out Step 1 of the "Organization Information" section;

5. Go back to your word processing program and copy your responses to section A;

6. Return to the online application and paste the information into the "1c. Organizational Background" text box;

7. Proceed through the on-line application until you get to Step 4 "Funding Description";

8. Go back to your word processing program and copy your responses to section B.

9. Return to the on-line application and paste the information into the "4a. Funding Description" text box.

10. Complete the application and verify the information you have submitted.

When preparing your responses in a word processing program, please check your word count. Your responses must be formatted with the numbers and headings preceding the questions. Please do not retype questions -- only the headings. Please do not write your responses in all capital letters, and refrain from formatting with tabs and using unusual fonts or special characters such as bullets and asterisks.
Please click here for a Sample Application. For tips on how you can make your application successful, click here.

A. Organizational Background (Step 1c)
(2,500 character maximum for questions 1-3 - roughly equivalent to half a page of text in Times New Roman 12pt font).

1. MISSION: What is your organization's mission? If you are an individual, what is your goal in seeking CWGF funding?

2. GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE: What is geographic focus of your work? The entire state? A specific region, community or ecosystem?

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS and GOALS: What are your organization's most important accomplishments of the past two or three years? What are your organization's goals for the coming year? If you are an individual, please answer the question on a personal basis.

4. FINANCIAL STATUS: Please include (1) your organization's budget for the current fiscal year, (2) actual year-to-date expenses and revenues, (3) last year's actual expenses and revenues (do not have to be audited); and (4) list your organizations primary sources of revenue (no more than five).

   As a guideline to share your financial information with us, please download the CWGF Financials Template (.TXT) by saving it to your machine, open the simple text template with either your NotePad, or TextEdit text editor software (instead of Word), and fill it out accordingly. This way, later, when you fill out the online form you can easily paste your template answers into the form input field.

B. Your Funding Request (Step 4a)
(5,000 character maximum, including spaces - roughly equivalent to two pages of text in Times New Roman 12pt font).

1. Is your request an emergency? Is there a specific date by which you need funding? If so, please explain the emergency and tell us the date by which funding is needed.

2. What is the geographical focus of this funding request? Include county and land ownership/jurisdiction in your reply.

3. What is the problem you address and what do you think is the solution?

4. What is the specific project for which you are seeking funding? How much money are you asking for? Please itemize how it will be spent. If you are seeking a grant that will be more than 30% of your organizational budget, please explain your situation or request to speak to a Tides staff person.

5. What are the goals or desired products of this request?

6. Partnerships: Are or will you be collaborating with other organizations and/or individuals? If so, who are they and what is the nature of the partnership(s)?

7. Who is your target audience for this project and why?

8. How will success be measured and communicated to us?

C. Additional Information

__		Organization name, address and contact information
__		Name and contact information for your Executive Director or Contact Person
__		Year your organization was founded
__		Tax status: 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), Fiscally Sponsored Organization/Project
__		Current annual budget (must be under $100,000)
__		Top three revenue sources
__		Number of paid full- and part-time staff; number of volunteers
__		Name, address and contact person of your fiscal sponsor (if applicable)
__		If you are an individual, please provide the name and contact information of the organization sponsoring you.
__		Please give contact information for two individuals or organizations familiar with your project

Prioritize a maximum of three of the following strategies employed in your work:

Academic education Arts Campus organizing Coalition work Community development Conservation easement

Grassroots organizing Habitat preservation Land exchange Land purchase Legal Media (newspaper, radio, Internet or TV)

Policy reform Public education Research Restoration Training/ technical assistance Other

Please identify your constituents by prioritizing a maximum of three from the following list:

Business people Children (age 3-12) Faith community Environmentalists General population Government officials Indigenous/ Native American

Labor Low-income Non-traditional allies (specify:__________) People of color (specify:__________)

Rural communities Scientists Seniors Students Urban residents Youth (age 13 and up) Other

Please note: In order to submit an application successfully, you must complete the online form in one session. Incomplete applications cannot be saved.

While we discourage non-electronic applications, in limited circumstances (if you have significant difficulty accessing the web or experience technical problems with which we are unable to assist you) we will accept applications through the mail or via fax. To do this, please email info(at)calwildlandsfund.org to request an application by email, fax or mail.