Community and School Garden Grants

What does this program do?

This program provides funding to assist in the development of essential community facilities in rural communities with extreme unemployment and severe economic depression.

An essential community facility is one that provides an essential service to the local community, is needed for the orderly development of the community, serves a primarily rural area, and does not include private, commercial or business undertakings.

How may funds be used?

To construct, enlarge or improve community facilities for health care, public safety and public service. Grants may be made in combination with other financial assistance such as a Community Facilities direct or guaranteed loan, applicant contribution or funding from other sources. Examples of essential community facilities include:

• Health Care: hospitals, medical clinics, dental clinics, nursing homes, assisted-living facilities
• Public Facilities: city/town/village halls, courthouses, airport hangers, street improvements
• Community Support Services: child care centers, community centers, fairgrounds, transitional housing
• Public Safety: fire halls, police stations, prisons, jails, police vehicles, fire trucks, public works vehicles and equipment
• Educational: museums, libraries, private schools
• Utility: telemedicine, distance learning
• Local Food Systems: community gardens, food pantries, community kitchens, food banks, food hubs, greenhouses, kitchen appliances
• For a complete list, see Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 3570.7

What kind of funding is available?

• Grants up to 75% of eligible project cost based on need and funding availability
• Applicant must be eligible for grant assistance, which is determined by the population and median household income of the service area
• Grant funds must be available

Granting a Better Tomorrow

Thanks to our many donors who contribute to the Trees Forever endowment, we are providing funds for projects for the first time from Trees Forever Foundation income. Grants of $100 to $1,500 are available with an emphasis on youth and underserved schools and communities. These funds are for projects in the United States, in areas not currently receiving funding from other Trees Forever programs.

Granting a Better Tomorrow grants are for tree-planting and educational projects, including tree planting, seedling giveaways, pollinator (trees & plants) plantings, rain gardens with trees, educational classroom projects, club or church projects, fruit and nut orchards, school memorials, cemetery plantings and disaster recovery projects. If you need help with your project, our staff will be happy to help your group plan and complete a successful long-lasting project.

Simply Organic's Giving History 

Providing consumers the opportunity to use their buying power to support the environmental and social values of organic agriculture has always been part of Simply Organic. Since 2001, we've given back more than $2 million to supporting organic agricultural development and grower communities, including:

• Helping growers in developing countries produce and market certified organic products.
• Building training centers that teach organic agriculture methods and wells that bring fresh water to villages; supporting schools, meal programs and other social projects in grower communities.
• Supporting U.S. organic research and education projects, scholarships in sustainable agriculture, and organic-growing-based social organizations such as urban gardens and community food banks.

The Simply Organic Giving Fund Grant Program

In 2018, we committed to focusing the Simply Organic Giving Fund Grant Program on addressing an issue that’s especially persistent and critical, but that is often overlooked or misunderstood: food insecurity. We’re working to help organizations across the United States and Canada to nourish the millions of food insecure in our communities by supporting organizations that provide access to healthy, organic food options. 

The foundation seeks to foster environmental restoration, preservation and education with emphasis on seed moneys that lead to establishing demonstration projects that link rural and urban settings.

Projects could orient toward use of resources in sustainable ways, integration of food production, technology, economics, and community development in harmonious ways with the natural world, preservation of wildlife habitat as well as the diversity of wild and domestic plants and animals, and conservation of wilderness and open space.

Of interest might be projects designed to restore and maintain biological diversity of flora and fauna or establishment of seed banks, sustainable land use, or appropriate technology for alternative energy resources.

Efforts to find space in tight urban areas, bring the countryside to the city in the form of gardens, landscaping, and space are encouraged. Likewise, efforts to provide space and alternative living to urban people in a rural area are welcome.

Funding Priorities

A particular concern is with sustaining agriculture through organic, biodynamic, permacultural and other processes, training young people to be farmers, and linking farms to communities through community supported agriculture.

Another area of need would be support for small alternative presses and periodicals that focus on issues and problems and their resolution and desire to impact broadly on society with their creativity and new ideas.

With its interest in Laguna Wilderness Press and its home base in southern California, the foundation desires to direct attention to environmental groups and concerns in Laguna Beach, especially preservation and restoration of areas under conservation in the open space known as the Laguna Greenbelt or Wilderness and including the Laguna Bluebelt; projects that expand open space in the inner greenbelt, promote community gardening, including in its schools, restore wherever possible the canyon creeks to their natural setting, and help to establish the legacy of a unique place and its traditions of village diverse planning and vision, plein air painting, and historic homes and sites. 

Our Beginnings

SeedMoney is a Maine-based 501c nonprofit helping US and global food garden projects to thrive through grants, crowdfunding assistance and free garden planning software.

SeedMoney is the new name for what was formerly called Kitchen Gardeners International (KGI), a nonprofit founded in 2003. Over the past three years, our emphasis has gradually shifted from helping home gardeners towards offering financial and technical support to a wide variety of public food garden projects. These include community gardens, school gardens, food bank gardens, homeless shelter gardens and senior gardens, to name just a few.

SeedMoney Challenge

Each year, SeedMoney offers challenge grants to diverse food garden projects through a 30-day crowdfunding challenge. 

The grants we offer are on a sliding scale. The size of a grant a project can receive depends on how much it is able to raise over the 30-day period compared to other projects participating in the challenge. This year, we will be offering a total of 370 grants ranging from $100 to $1000.

The 2020 Gro More Good Grassroots Grant presented by The Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation and KidsGardening is designed to bring the life-enhancing benefits of gardens to communities across the United States. Awards provide funding for the development of new and expansion of existing youth garden programs and greenspaces serving 15 or more youth. Winners will be selected based on their commitment to the maintenance and sustainability of their garden program including plans for growth and future fiscal stability.The Gro More Good Grassroots Grant is open to all nonprofit and tax exempt organizations (including schools) in the United States and US Territories. Organizations must have obtained their 501(c)(3) status or qualify as tax-exempt within the meaning of the Internal Revenue Service code.This year, 175 grants worth a collective total of $100,000 will be awarded. 150 grant recipients will be awarded a check for $500 to support their initiatives. The top 25 programs will receive a check for $1,000. Applications must be received by Friday, February 14, 2020 at 11:59 PST.