Community Grants Request for Applications

 
 

The Milwaukee Estuary Area of Concern Community Advisory Committee (Whew! That is a mouthful. CAC will do.) is looking for community-based organizations to partner to implement community engagement activities around our waterways.

THE PROBLEM

Our rivers, the very ones that pour into Lake Michigan and our beaches, are not healthy.

The Milwaukee Estuary includes the three major rivers in Milwaukee – Milwaukee, Menomonee, and Kinnickinnic – and Lake Michigan. More information on the projects happening in the estuary are shown on the map.

We did not make it this way. Those before us contaminated the water so badly that the Federal Government placed it on a list to be fixed.

The Milwaukee Estuary became an Area of Concern in the 1980s because of historical contamination and changes to the rivers, fish consumption, water quality, and wildlife habitat. An Area of Concern is an area on the Great Lakes that has a history of significant environmental harm from human activities, preventing people and wildlife from fully using or enjoying the local waterways. Go to: www.epa.gov/great-lakes-aocs to learn more about the Great Lakes Area of Concern program. Watch this short video to learn more.

WHO WE ARE

The Community Advisory Committee serves as the voice of the community in the process of cleaning up Milwaukee’s Area of Concern. We do this by creating and facilitating conversation between the community and the regulatory authorities in charge of completing this work, ensuring the community’s concerns and ideas are recognized and prioritized.

Our charge is to ensure that community input informs AOC project decisions, and the decision makers are accountable for addressing concerns, answering questions and meaningfully considering the expert ideas of community members. We have a work plan uplifting innovative approaches to reaching diverse, non-traditional audiences with information about the AOC. This includes creating intentional processes to form a feedback loop between the community and AOC project leaders.

WHY THE AOC NEEDS YOU

Your partnership will help bring community voice to this important work.  We are seeking partnerships with organizations who are connected to the neighborhoods surrounding the cleanup and enhancement projects of the AOC or with organizations who actively use the river and greenways of the AOC. 

We seek to fund community partners (non-profit organizations) up to $5,000 each to perform the following activities. In the end we would love a few hundred word summary of your work and a few photos to share on social media to help spread the word and grow our collective voice.

GRANT SCOPE OF WORK

AND choose at least 2 outputs from the following:

  • Recruit participants to designated AOC activities (i.e. public comment meetings, volunteer opportunities, etc.)

  • Involve community members in recreational & educational activities around the AOC projects (place-making, tours, stewardship, art, etc.)

  • Support new leadership from a specific demographic (e.g. youth ages 16-25, BIPOC anglers) to become more involved with advocacy and outreach work

  • Engage in content co-creation with the CAC, creating innovative digital communications pieces that will reach a broad swath of the community

Host 2 Community Conversations. Community Conversations are ways of engaging community and inviting new people to new relationships. It is exactly how it sounds, an invitation to community members to meet and have a semi-structured conversation. Our goal will be to authentically engage members of your community to improve awareness of the AOC and its various projects, why its important and learn what the community’s aspirations, concerns and opinions are on our shared waters and the cleanup projects being planned.

  • All nonprofit organizations are eligible to apply. We are looking for organizations that have:

    ● a well-established network they will communicate with in order to hit the ground running

    ● the willingness and capacity to create access and connection with people they have already built trust

    ● a proven history of bringing new ideas and/or activities to their audiences

    ● the ability to be innovative within set parameters - take it & run!

    We are prioritizing engagement in communities who have not historically been involved in the planning and decision making about our shared waters. These include BIPOC and non-native English-speaking communities, as well as communities that are geographically neighboring AOC projects. Preference given to organizations that work within (or around) Havenwoods or the Greenway.

  • The process is easy! Complete a short application. We will have a short 30 minute or less conversation with a select group of applicants, choose the finalists and award funding.

    All application materials must be submitted through the Fund for Lake Michigan’s online application and reporting grant portal called Foundant. Applications accepted on a rolling basis until July 8th, 2024.

    We are only asking a few questions. Review them here before logging in.

    Please follow these steps to access the application materials:

    1. Foundant can be accessed at https://www.grantinterface.com/Home/Logon?urlkey=lakemi

    2. If your organization has an existing account, log in by filling in the email address and password for your organization’s account. If you cannot locate your credentials please contact Casey Eggleston at casey@fundforlakemichigan.org. Please do not create another account.

    3. If your organization has not applied in the past, select “Create a New Account.” This will prompt you to fill out a profile for your organization.

    4. Applicants should complete the application titled “CAC Community Grant Application – 2024.”

  • Please email cacmke@gmail.com for more information! We would love to talk with you!