Urban and Community Forestry Planning Grant Program
Through financial support provided by the USDA Forest Service, DEEP’s Urban and Community Forestry Program is requesting proposals for the Urban and Community Forestry Planning Grant Program. Awards are for $2,500 - $65,000, local government organizations and non-profit 501(c)3 organizations are eligible to apply. The amount requested must be matched 50:50. This match may be a financial match, done through the expenditure of additional funds, or it may be achieved through in-kind contributions of goods or services donated by grant partners, or a combination of both.
Identifying and implementing successful urban and community forestry projects depends on a comprehensive understanding of current conditions. To that end, the Urban and Community Forestry Planning Grant Program is providing funding to support projects that will help municipalities and non-profit organizations collect baseline data that can be used to inform future management decisions. Such projects may include, but are not limited to, conducting inventories of street and/or park trees, creating urban and community forest management plans, developing monitoring programs to document tree condition, and surveys of urban forested natural areas. Funds can be used to generate new materials and resources or to update existing ones such as previous inventories or out-of-date management plans. All applicants will need to articulate how such projects will be used to promote data-driven forest management in their respective cities in the future.
If you are unsure of what an urban and community forestry planning project might look like in your city, take a look at the featured projects below including projects from previous grant recipients.
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City-wide Street Tree Inventory, New Haven (former grant recipient)
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Forest Stewardship Plan, Plainfield (former grant recipient)
Below are examples of projects from 2023 grant applicants:
- Forest inventory of town-owned properties, Glastonbury
- Tree inventory across city neighborhoods with lower tree equity scores, Middletown
- Tree inventory of the Gaylordsville neighborhood, New Milford
- Town-wide tree street tree inventory, Wethersfield
- Tree inventory along South Main Street section, Winchester
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Eligible projects include “survey of urban forested natural areas". Can we use this grant to hire a surveyor to conduct parcel boundary delineation?
A: No, the term “survey” in the planning grant RFP refers to the process of generating information relevant to and facilitative of forest management. This includes things like tree inventories or management plan development. Boundary delineation by itself without an additional forestry component is too far removed from the grant program’s core goal of enabling sustainable urban forest management.
Q: Can grant funds be used to fund planning for restoration of a building/education center?
A: No, grant funds must be used for planning activities and products directly related to the urban forest itself.
This program is now open. The deadline for applications is January 31, 2025, at 5:00 PM. Questions will be accepted through November 22 and an FAQ will be published to this page by December 6. Recipients will be notified of their awards by May 31, 2025, by email.
See the Request for Proposals andGrant Application. Grant Applications are hosted through Survey123. If you need special accommodations for your submission, reach out to DEEP.UCF.Grants@ct.gov. The grant application will ask for detailed budget and timeline information; we strongly recommend using the following Timeline and Budget templates to submit this information.
Reach out to DEEP.UCF.Grants@ct.gov for more information.
Content last updated in December 2024.