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Chesapeake Bay Land and Water Initiative Grant Program

The Chesapeake Bay Land and Water Initiative (the Initiative), a program of the Land Trust Alliance and the Chesapeake Bay Funders Network (CBFN), provides grant support, policy, communications, partnership building and training resources to organizations working to preserve land and protect water quality in the Chesapeake watershed.

The Chesapeake Bay Land and Water Initiative (the Initiative) administers an annual grant program to support projects that will accelerate land conservation and stewardship to protect and restore water quality in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, and is currently focused on these initial watersheds.

Since its first grants in 2017, the Initiative’s grant program has provided more than $650,000 in project support. Twenty-seven grants have been awarded to 19 projects, including efforts to plan, prioritize and implement new land conservation and restoration projects and to strengthen partnerships and collaboration in priority watersheds. We have contracted with the Chesapeake Conservancy’s Conservation Innovation Center to provide subsidized GIS support and analysis services to grantees, to ensure their work is as targeted and impactful as possible by using the latest mapping technology and decision-support tools. 

Connecting Land Conservation and Water Quality

Watershed advocates often say that “what happens on land ends up in the water.” The Chesapeake Bay region is home to nearly 18 million people, and the way we care for the land will help — or hurt — our waters. The Initiative works to connect land conservation and water quality, better caring for our lands and our waters.

At the Chesapeake Bay Land and Water Initiative, we encourage partnerships between land trusts, watershed groups, local governments and others. Through our competitive grant program, we provide financial and capacity resources to accelerate good work already underway and prioritize new conservation and stewardship projects for water and land. On a bigger scale, we work to improve the regional context for this work — through policy, communications, science and more — so that land trusts have better tools to do more for clean water.

Land trusts are in a powerful position to improve the health of our waters. These organizations manage long-lasting landowner relationships, maintain a strong connection to private lands, and protect, steward and restore land throughout the Chesapeake Bay region. This unique capacity allows land trusts to deliver the benefits of clean water in places and ways that no one else can. While more land trusts are engaging in such work all the time in their service areas, the Initiative is building capacity to expand and sustain water-focused land conservation and stewardship across the watershed.

We envision a healthy Chesapeake watershed that uses permanent land protection and stewardship to ensure clean water for future generations. Everyone has a role to play in keeping local rivers and streams a healthy place to drink, swim, fish and paddle, and the Initiative is working to help land trusts, partner organizations and landowners protect land and water quality for years to come.

Latest News

May 2020

The Land Trust Alliance and Chesapeake Bay Funders Network are pleased to announce that five projects were awarded funding in the latest round of the Land and Water Initiative grant program. Project funding awarded this round totaled $145,815. For summaries of the funded projects, click here.

November 2019

Since 2017, the Chesapeake Land and Water Initiative has supported projects that accelerate land protection and enhanced stewardship on already-conserved land to directly benefit water quality in the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers and streams.

Now, after three years, the competitive grant program is evolving: future grants will be made on an invitation-only basis, based on available resources. Future projects will be considered early in 2020, with grants awarded sometime in late spring.

The focus for any future funding will remain closely tied to land conservation/enhanced stewardship as a strategy and water quality improvement as an outcome, though detailed criteria may evolve alongside the Initiative’s program design and strategy.

We have been inspired and energized by the great work that has been done by our grantees to date, and we encourage partners and colleagues to learn more below about funded projects from 2017–2019. Throughout the coming year, we will continue to share the stories of these projects so that others in the Chesapeake watershed can learn from peers about the successes, challenges and opportunities of working more strategically to enhance and restore water quality using land conservation as a core strategy.

For questions, contact Jennifer Miller Herzog, Mid-Atlantic senior program manager at the Land Trust Alliance and staff for the Land and Water Initiative, at jmillerherzog@lta.org or office/cell: 406-580-6410.

October 2019

We are pleased to announce the Chesapeake Watershed Conservation Finance Intensive Workshop, which will be held December 16–18, 2019 at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, WV. This is a multi-day, intensive training course to help mid-career professionals utilize innovative and effective financing strategies for land and resource conservation, restoration and stewardship.

Learn more about the workshop and how to apply.

June 2019

The Land Trust Alliance and Chesapeake Bay Funders Network are pleased to announce that six projects were awarded funding in the latest round of the Land and Water Initiative grant program, with two additional projects receiving contract support. Project funding awarded this round totaled $168,000. For summaries of the funded projects, click here.

Grant Program Resources

History of the Initiative

The Land Trust Alliance and the Chesapeake Bay Funders Network launched the Chesapeake Bay Land and Water Initiative in 2016 to deploy an integrated and innovative approach to permanent land protection, stewardship, community engagement, partnerships and public policy that will preserve and enhance water quality across the 64,000-square-mile Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

The “Chesapeake Bay Watershed Land Trust Assessment: Accelerating Land Conservation to Protect and Improve Water Quality,” a study commissioned by CBFN and conducted by the Alliance with Long Haul Conservation Advisors, helped to launch the Initiative by identifying opportunities for water quality improvements through permanent land conservation and enhanced stewardship. 

Advisory Council 

The Initiative also receives guidance from an Advisory Council of state and regional thought-leaders and practitioners in the land trust community, as well as the broader field of land conservation and water quality, to advise and inform the development and implementation of the Initiative’s land conservation/stewardship and policy/communications/training efforts. The following individuals are serve in this capacity as of 2019: 

  • Kate Fritz, Executive Director, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
  • John Griffin, Chesapeake Conservation Partnership Program Manager, Chesapeake Conservancy
  • Kristin Saunders, Chesapeake Bay Cross-Program Coordinator, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Chesapeake Bay Program
  • Ellen Shepard, Executive Director, Virginia’s United Land Trusts
  • Peggy Stevens, Board Chair, Virginia’s United Land Trusts
  • John Turgeon, Executive Director, Maryland Environmental Trust

Thank You

Thank you to the Chesapeake Bay Funders Network members and other donors that have generously made pledges and contributions that collectively total nearly $1.74 million to the Land and Water Initiative.

  • Anonymous (2)
  • The Agua Fund
  • The Chesapeake Bay Trust
  • EarthTreks
  • Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds
  • Hillsdale Fund
  • MARPAT Foundation, Inc.
  • The Curtis & Edith Munson Foundation
  • National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, through funding provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Chesapeake Bay Program's Innovative Nutrient and Sediment Reduction grants program
  • Prince Charitable Trusts
  • The Volgenau Foundation
  • Virginia Environmental Endowment

To support this Initiative, contact Jennifer Miller Herzog, Mid-Atlantic Senior Program manager, or Suzanne Erera, director of foundation and corporate relations.

Get in Touch

For more information, please contact Jennifer Miller Herzog, Mid-Atlantic Senior Program manager, by email or call 406-580-6410.