We are excited to share our new 2023-24 Catalytic Grantees!
What is a Catalytic Grant?
Catalytic Grants are a central part of Howell Conservation Fund’s (HCF’s) organizational process and part of what makes us unique in the philanthropic space. These grants are philanthropic investments into organizations or projects to help kickstart a new idea and gain financial traction with other supporters. Often, these grants support small or early-stage nonprofits, or established organizations that are launching a new initiative.
Our 2023-24 Catalytic Grantees
Overall, we received applications from 32 incredible organizations doing innovative work in conservation and regeneration. Our Catalytic Fund allowed us to offer grants of up to $5,000 to six new partner organizations and two existing partners.
Below are the organizations that HCF and its Board selected to be in the next cohort of grantees:
New Grantees
- Beach Collective, a nonprofit that works with coastal communities to organize beach cleanups and mangrove restoration projects, and incentivizes people for doing so with digital tokens. HCF's grant will support the community of Cebu, Philippines, by creating cash reserves in case they need to cash out tokens for the local currency, as well as helping with their beach cleanups throughout the upcoming season.
- Blue Latitudes Foundation, a nonprofit that elevates the traditional concepts of ocean stewardship by uniting government, industry, and the community. HCF's grant will support the development of FishLAT, Fisheries Location Assessment Technology, which is a spatial planning tool that provides location-specific fisheries information to help inform decisions on offshore energy generation.
- Langland Conservation, a nonprofit that supports on-the-ground conservation partners with intelligence expertise and frontier technology to better protect wildlife and wild spaces. HCF's grant will help Langland to provide technology and capacity building to Brazil’s Yawanawa people to better protect their indigenous lands.
- Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG) - Madagascar, a U.S. based nonprofit, MBG’s largest overseas project is in Madagascar. HCF's grant will help launch a program that trains local artisans to use materials from invasive species (melaleuca) to create planting pots, in which they will propagate seeds for native plant species. This project will not only help to control the growth of invasive species and support native wildlife, but it will also curb the use of plastic pots in the community, creating a circular economy and an upstream economy solution to plastic pollution.
- Sovereign Nature Initiative: A nonprofit that works with conservation organizations to incorporate their real-world ecological data into digital assets such as video games, NFTs, etc. HCF's grant will help to develop educational materials around their work and how collaboration between the physical and digital worlds can help accelerate conservation solutions.
- Theytriarchy, a newly-formed nonprofit that integrates underrepresented communities into the sphere of innovation and conservation through immersive media and technological engagements. Our grant will help launch both Theytriarchy and the SustAInability initiative, which will empower middle school and high school students to cultivate a global AI chatbot repository of sustainability projects, starting with a focus on ocean ecosystems.
Further Support for Existing Grantees
- Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation, a nonprofit that specializes in research and education around marine environments. Since 2021, we have been supporting Blue Ocean Society in a study about local microplastics that their Citizen Scientists have collected for nearly a decade. This final installment of their HCF grant will allow them to develop educational materials about their findings, as well as a toolkit for implementing a Citizen Scientist program.
- Root Solutions, a nonprofit helping environmentalists to better leverage behavioral science in their work. HCF has worked with Root Solutions in the past to develop behavior change toolkits for environmental organizations. This grant will help Root Solutions to put their new, award-winning book, Making Shift Happen, into the hands of environmental change-makers around the world.
Remaining Applicants
While we were not able to fund all of the grantees in this round, we were extremely impressed with the organizations that applied. Because of this, we would like to share these projects (in alphabetical order) in case others would like to learn about and support their work:
- Above/Below
- Camino del Agua Foundation
- Comal County Conservation Alliance
- Earth Law Center
- Freeland India
- Fundación Ngenko
- Future Generations University
- Gunpowder Valley Conservancy
- Instituto Aprender Ecologia
- Instituto Brasileiro de Conservação da Natureza - IBRACON
- Long Way Home
- MarAlliance
- Ocean First Institute
- Ocean Recovery Alliance
- Ocean Rescue Alliance Intl.
- Plurielles
- Project Pressure
- Proyecto Socioambiental Dulcepamba (Dulcepamba Project)
- Remake Project
- Stichting Rechten van de Natuur (English: Foundation Rights of Nature)
- The World Trails Network – Hub for the Americas (WTN Americas)
- TonyWild Foundation
- Tribes and Natures Defenders
- Youth Mentors and Developers (YMAD) NPO
Thank you!
Our Catalytic Fund is made up of contributions from a number of philanthropies, foundations, family offices, and corporations within our network. We would like to thank those organizations that have contributed to this collective fund and allowed us to make these grants possible.
We look forward to sharing more information on these grants as they progress. With more support, we will be able to find and fund even more innovative solutions to environmental challenges. If you would like to contribute to the next round of catalytic grants or to donation-match any of our grantees, please reach out!
