This final phase of the project expanded the membership and work of the Great Lakes Community Foundation Environmental Collaborative projects. It also provided foundations with a set of innovative tools and a network to share best practices for environmental grantmaking.

The team approved 14 grants of $10,500 each to shoreline community foundations and 2 grants of $10,500 each to non-shoreline community foundations. Grants were made to 7 foundations on Lake Michigan (IL, IN, MI, WI); 4 foundations on Lake Huron (MI, Ontario), and 5 foundations on Lake Ontario (NY, Ontario). A web-based training program was developed to promote and leverage environmental grant making and a pilot workshop was held for the advisory committee.

This work built upon two previous phases of the project, which created environmental grant-making programs in 21 of the basin’s shoreline community foundations.