Welcome to the Watershed Security Fund funding application (WSF). Thank you for taking the time to apply for funding.
In 2023, the Province of B.C. made a historic investment to initiate the formation of the Watershed Security Fund (WSF/The Fund). The Real Estate Foundation of BC and the First Nations Water Caucus – with the First Nations Fisheries Council – are working together to provide interim Fund stewardship, and to support the co-development of the permanent, co-governed entity that will oversee and manage the Fund and grant program funding stream over the long term (details on our website).
In the interim, we are honoured to collaborate with community partners to begin flowing critical dollars into community to support watershed health and security through a WSF grant funding program. Water is life, and remains the most important, environmental, cultural, economic, and spiritual well-spring we share. Thank you for your shared commitment to this inspiring, impactful, and healing work.
Our current WSF funding intake opens June 3-26, 2024, for grants approved in September. Our second intake is planned to open in late 2024 / early 2025 for grants approved in Spring 2025. You can sign up for grant intake notifications here.
Before completing this application, we recommend you download our application guide from our grants program website here. It includes information on our funding intakes, streams, priorities, assessment criteria and eligibility guidelines.
Some high-level information is provided below.
The Watershed Security Fund supports:
- Reconciliation and advancing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
- Restoring and maintaining ecosystem services and watershed health
- Climate resiliency
- Local watershed governance, planning & monitoring initiatives
- Job creation and economic stimulus
- Learning and relationship-building between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities
There are 3 Funding Streams by grant sizes:
- Stream 1: Headwaters – grants of up to $50,000
- Stream 2: Creek – grants of up to $150,000
- Stream 3: River – grants of up to $500,000
Grant funding will support projects and initiatives that prioritize reconciliation, ecosystem restoration and climate resilience. Funded projects will support healthy communities and sustainable economies across a range of project types in any of these areas of watershed-based work:- Watershed Collaboration, Planning & Governance
- Watershed & Ecosystems Restoration
- Nature-based Infrastructure
- Watersheds & Food Systems
- Monitoring & Assessment
- Land & Water-based Learning, Knowledge Sharing
Eligibility
Eligible Organizations for WSF grant funding include Indigenous or non-Indigenous:
- Registered Non–profits
- Educational Institutions
- Social Enterprises (C3)
Or
- First Nations (including First Nation governments, Tribal Councils and others)
- Local/Regional Governments
Eligibility is not restricted to Canada Revenue Agency registered charities or qualified donees. In addition to those listed above, some other types of organizations may be eligible.
WSF Grants are not able to fund:
- Activities that primarily provide financial benefits for individuals
- Debt retirement, reserves, mortgage paydowns
- Retroactive expenses (costs incurred prior to funding being approved)
- Purchase of land or large scale development of buildings
- Endowments
- Partisan political activities
- Projects or initiatives that do not take place in what is known as BC.
Applications for short-term or multi-year projects and initiatives (up to 3 years) can be submitted.
HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION:
Questions with an asterisk (*) are required questions that need to be completed to submit the form. Please feel free to use brief, point form answers. See our application guide on the WSF grants website page here for more details.
You can also reach out to our Program Coordinator, Adarshana Thapa, grants@watershedsecurityfund.ca | 604-343-2620 | toll free 1-866-912-6800 ext. 101, if you have questions or feedback about the application process or our funding criteria and eligibility. There are three ways to submit an application:
- Online Portal – Accessed through a link on the WSF grants website page.
- Word Document – Available to download from the WSF grants website page and submitted by email to grants@watershedsecurityfund.ca.
- Zoom, Facetime or Phone Call – Arranged through our Grants Program Coordinator, grants@watershedsecurityfund.ca. You’ll be connected with one of our grants program staff who will complete the application based on your conversation. A word version of the application will then be sent back to you, for you to confirm, finalize and submit by email to grants@watershedsecurityfund.ca. This option is available between June 3- 18, 2024. Please arrange this with our team well in advance, to allow time for us to schedule the call and then confirm and finalize the application content before the deadline of June 26.
If you reach out to our Program Coordinator well in advance of the deadline, there may be other options, such as submitting an application you previously prepared for another funding program, in lieu of our standard application. Please allow plenty of time so we can jointly ensure it provides the information we need to receive and review your application
TECHNICAL NOTES:
- You can use the zoom function on your browser to make form text larger if that makes it easier to read.
- The online application form is in Plain Text format and cannot accommodate Rich Text like bold/italic styling or formatted bullet points. You can easily strip formatting when copy/pasting by pasting in plain text. (Ctrl+Shift+V for PC or Option+Cmd+Shift+V for Mac).
- You will be notified of any errors in your online form responses upon clicking Submit and will be able to correct them.
- Your online application form can be saved while in progress so that you or a colleague can return to it later. When you click on Save My Progress, you will be asked to set a username (email) and password to re-open the form. You will receive an email with a link to return to the form. Once you’ve logged back in, navigate to where you left off and continue. Click “Save My Progress” again only if you want to close or navigate away from the form before you complete and submit.
- It is recommended to use the page numbers at the top of this form to navigate between pages. Using your browser's back button to navigate through the form will not save your progress.
- You will have an opportunity to upload supplementary files (documents, videos, links) at the end of the application if you feel they illustrate important aspects of your project. These are welcome but optional (not required).
- When you click Submit, you will be redirected to a confirmation page and a PDF copy of your submission will be emailed to you.
- To avoid frustration with internet connection issues, we recommend using the word version of the application template to draft responses before copy/pasting into the online form. The word version of the application form is available on our grants website page here: watershedsecurityfund.ca/grants
Thank you!