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Successful projects will:
- Achieve measurable, on-the-ground conservation results that contribute to one or
more of the conservation
goals of the TogetherGreen program (Habitat/Land, Water, Energy).
Those changes may be ecological (for example, restoration of a wetland) or behavioral
(for example, getting a particular audience to drive less).
- Reach under-represented and/or diverse audiences
- Demonstrate innovation and/or replicability
- Take place in the United States
- Achieve results during the course of the one-year grant period, which will run roughly from August 15, 2010 - August 15, 2011
Applications will be reviewed by an expert selection committee composed of individuals
from the Audubon network and other organizations representing a wide variety of
fields, including conservation planning, evaluation, science, education, communications,
and conservation biology. Each application will be reviewed by a team of three reviewers,
with at least one reviewer from Audubon and one reviewer external to Audubon, and
at least one reviewer with a science and/or conservation management background and
one reviewer with an education/communications background. All applicants can contact
grants@togethergreen.org to receive
reviewers’ feedback on their applications once decisions have been announced.
Each proposal will be scored and ranked using the following criteria:
1. Project Team, Qualifications, and Roles
How capable is the applicant? Does the project team have the collective experience,
education, and training to successfully implement the project? The application should
describe relevant previous experience on projects that have resulted in measurable
conservation results. Reviewers will also be looking to see past experience managing
project budgets of a similar size.
2. Project Description and Link to TogetherGreen Conservation Goals
To describe your project and how it will engage people and achieve conservation
results, the application requires you to answer the questions posed in the Conservation Planning Guide. Successful proposals will clearly
outline how the project will engage people and achieve measurable conservation results.
You will be asked to describe and explain your project’s conservation target in
terms of the TogetherGreen
conservation goals (Habitat/Land, Water, and/or Energy), the need for your
project, the threat your project addresses, your project’s objectives, the audience
you plan to work with, your project activities, and indicators of success. Reviewers
will be looking for conservation significance, the relevance of your project activities
and audience to your stated objectives, and the clarity of thought behind the project
design.
Conservation Results and Moving People to Take Action: We know that some projects
will be designed to achieve measurable conservation results within one year, others
will be targeting the behavior of participants with the intention of achieving measurable
conservation results in the future, and others still will focus on both behavior
change and measurable conservation results. All successful proposals will need to
articulate what conservation need or threat is being addressed, how those issues
are related to the TogetherGreen conservation goals, and how the proposed
project will address those issues. If your project is largely focused on education
and outreach, you will need to demonstrate what behavior changes you are expecting
participants in your programs to make, and how those changes in behavior will lead
to specific conservation results. (For more on “people measures,” see
Frequently Answered Questions .)
The most competitive grants will achieve on-the-ground conservation results or behavior
change over the course of the grant period. If a project focuses only on monitoring
or the identification of priority conservation areas without achieving on-the-ground
results or targeting behavior change, it will most likely be less competitive
Reaching under-represented and/or new audiences: Audubon believes that a diverse
conservation constituency is essential to conservation success and a sustainable
future. TogetherGreen is designed to reach under-represented* audiences as
well as new audiences to increase the diversity and number of people taking part
in conservation action. We are looking for projects that strive to do both: engage
diverse and under-represented audiences, as well as target large numbers of individuals.
How will your project broaden opportunities and engage targeted citizens, including
under-represented communities? Which under-represented audiences will your project
target? How will you build credibility with audiences you haven’t worked with before?
*In this project we are defining under-represented participants as those who have
traditionally not been a part of the conservation movement and who have not had
opportunities to connect with nature or take part in conservation actions. Under-represented
audiences include people of color and low-income families, as well as those environmental
stakeholders who have not considered themselves part of the conservation movement.
3. Evaluation strategy
Applicants are asked to describe how they will monitor indicators of success. Reviewers
will be looking for methods for tracking selected indicators that are clearly articulated,
methodologically sound, and realistic given resources (staff and funding).
If your proposal is selected for funding, we will work with you to refine the targets,
threats, and metrics to assess conservation results most effectively, and you will
be asked to create or refine your project logic models. (Although you don’t have
to submit a logic model now, many of the grantees from year one felt that the process
of thinking through a logic model would have been helpful during the application
process. See the W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s Logic Model Development Guide to find out how to create
logic models for your project.) In addition, we will work with all funded grantees
to finalize metrics and create consistent measures that will allow for the collective
evaluation of TogetherGreen’s success. We are working with an external evaluation
team with experts from Clemson University, Virginia Tech, and Stanford University
to assist with the collective evaluation of this program. They will be available
to help all grantees with the evaluation of their projects.
4. Innovation and Strategic Impact
Proposed projects should seek to advance the field of conservation by creatively
using innovative* and strategic approaches to achieve community-based conservation
results. How will the project help move our thinking ahead in conservation? What
will the impact be beyond your community and this project? Will the results yield
new thinking in how we grapple with an issue or expand our reach and impact?
*We are defining innovation as a new or better idea, practice, product, process,
or strategy that adds value to conservation and more effectively achieves the conservation
goals of this program. Innovation can include creative methods for planning and
implementing programs; the application of new technologies or ideas for improving
current technologies; creative ways of engaging new audiences; and new ways to evaluate
success.
5. Sustainability/Replicability
Proposals will describe, if appropriate, how the project will be sustained beyond
the grant period including additional funding, staff resources, or partnerships.
If the project is designed to last just one year, reviewers will be looking to see
if it will provide a replicable model that might be used in other communities or
by other organizations.
6. Risk and Challenges
Every project involves risk. You will be asked to describe the major risks and challenges
you anticipate facing in achieving your goals, your strategies for overcoming the
challenges, and an explanation of how you factored risk into your project plan.
Reviewers will want to see evidence that you have carefully thought through the
risks and challenges and are prepared to deal with them.
7. Partner Organization/s
Each applicant must identify at least one partner organization that will play a
meaningful role in the proposed project. What will be the role and degree of participation
of each partner organization? What qualifications does each partner organization
have to perform this role and add value to the project? Partners can include, but
are not limited to, other non-profit organizations, businesses, government agencies,
and universities. Reviewers will be looking for evidence that the partnership will
allow both partners to achieve something they couldn’t achieve alone (i.e., that
the partnership is meaningful and true), and that you are expanding your reach by
partnering with a group very different from your own.
Note that we require a short letter of support from your primary partner(s), detailing
why they are supporting the project and how they will take part in it. Letters should
be uploaded as part of the online application. (As a rough guide, if a partner is
involved in more than 30% of the project in terms of time or money, it should be
considered a primary partner. We will expect at least one primary partner and a
letter of support from them.)
8. Project Budget
Reviewers will be looking to determine whether the project’s budget is realistic,
whether budget categories and justifications are clear and detailed, and whether
matching funds have been secured and/or in-kind support identified. They will also
be looking for requests for funds that cannot be met by TogetherGreen (see
“Grant Restrictions,” below).
The application will also ask for background information about your organization
and a general timeline of activities.