Land Capital Grants
Overview
The Land Capital Grant Program (LCG) seeks to empower land trusts to swifty secure critical conservation lands by providing financial support for land and conservation easement acquisitions.
Launched in 2025, the LCG Program is designed to bridge funding gaps and accelerate the protection of valuable conservation lands. The program builds upon CLCC’s successful track record of supporting land conservation efforts through its Transaction Assistance Grant Program, Connecticut Conservation Partnership Program, and Climate Smart Land Stewardship Program.
CLCC will prioritize projects that:
- Demonstrate a strong commitment to conservation.
- Align with statewide land conservation goals.
- Have leveraged and/or exhausted other public and private funding sources.
- Have a closing time frame of 12 months or less.
This program is offered thanks to the generous support of the Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck Foundation.
Have Questions?
Potential applicants are required to contact Yaw Darko, CLCC’s Director of Grants and Programs, to discuss their project and determine eligibility.
Information Session
1:00 pm, Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Learn more about our new Land Capital Grants Program that provides crucial funding to help land trusts acquire land and conservation easements. Discover how this program can help you protect vital natural resources in your community.
Eligibility
Applications are accepted by invitation only.
APPLICANTS
- Must be submitted by a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with a mission dedicated to land conservation in CT.
- Applicant is a current member of CLCC.
- Project is located within CT. Multi-state projects may be considered as long as the project is predominantly (minimum 50% of land area) in CT.
USE OF FUNDS
- Project must entail permanent protection through fee simple acquisition by the land trust, pass-through to a partner entity with a mission to permanently protect land (e.g., a state agency or a tribe), and/or a permanent conservation easement.
- Grant funds must cover only acquisition costs. For transaction expenses, refer to the Transaction Assistance Grant Program.
- Project must close within 12 months or less of grant award notification.
GRANT AWARDS
- Minimum: $50,000
- Maximum: $500,000, or 30% of the appraised value, whichever is lesser
TIMELINE
| March 1, 2025 | March - April | April 30, 2025 | April 30, 2026 |
| May 1, 2025 | May - June | June 30, 2025 | June 30, 2026 |
| July 1, 2025 | July - August | August 31, 2025 | August 31, 2026 |
| September 1, 2025 | September - October | October 31, 2025 | October 31, 2026 |
| November 1, 2025 | November - December | December 31, 2025 | December 31, 2026 |
- Applications will be due throughout the calendar year on the 1st of every other month beginning on March 1.
- Funding decisions will be announced at the end of the review period (see table above).
- Applications must be submitted by the 1st of the month to be considered for that review period. Applications received between the 2nd and end of the month will be considered in the following review period. For example, applications submitted on March 2, 2025, will be reviewed in May and funding decisions announced by June 30, 2025. The project closing deadline for a successful applicant would be June 30, 2026.
- Projects must close within 12 months or less of the funding decision announcement.
- Applications will be accepted in accordance with the above schedule until funds are fully expended.
PRIMARY EVALUATION CRITERIA
Biodiversity and Habitat
% of project area with recognized biodiversity.(1)
Connectivity
Distance to other conserved lands.(2)
Climate Resilience
Site resilience score.(3)
Water Resources
Contribution to local water quality.
Public Access
Presence and type of public access.(4)
(1) Per the Nature Conservancy’s “Recognized Biodiversity” data set, accessible on its Resilient Land Mapping Tool. The Nature Conservancy integrates “Recognized Biodiversity Value" with its geophysical assessment of climate resilience (see below.) Recognized Biodiversity Value is compiled from the Conservancy’s synthesis of its own ecoregional assessments with state wildlife action plans and habitat and biodiversity data from the Natural Heritage Network. AND/OR identified in the “Bioscience” layer of the CT ECO Map Viewer.
(2) Identified through The Nature Conservancy’s Resilient Land Mapping Tool.
(3) Per the Nature Conservancy’s Connected and Resilient Networks methodology, which assesses a site’s potential to facilitate the persistence of biodiversity over time despite changing climatic conditions. A resilient site is “an area of land where high microclimatic diversity and low levels of human modification provide species with connected, diverse climatic conditions they will need to persist and adapt to changing regional climates.” Sites are classified by geophysical setting and scored relative to other sites with similar geophysical settings within the same ecoregion. Scores are expressed in terms of a site’s statistical distance from the mean value. A site with a score one standard deviation above the mean value, for example, has higher resilience than 89 percent of sites in the same geophysical setting within the ecoregion.
(4) “Universal access features” are designed to be usable by the broadest possible range of visitors, including those with mobility limitations. This typically includes parking, accessible toilets, and barrier-free infrastructure such as hard-surface, low-grade trails usable by wheelchairs. CLCC draws on the work of Land Trust Alliance’s Advisory Council on Inclusive Health and Disabilities, which in 2021 issued a report entitled “Open to All: A Disability Inclusion Guide for Land Trusts.” Included in this guide is the 7 Principles of Universal Design, first developed by multiple authors at North Carolina State University College of Design. These include concepts of equitable use.
