The Chesapeake Bay Trust (Trust) is a nonprofit, grant-making organization dedicated to improving the bays, streams, rivers, forests, parks, and other natural resources of all our local systems, from the Chesapeake to the Coastal Bays to the Youghiogheny River. The Trust, supported in large part by Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay License Plat and partnerships with other regional funders, engages and empowers diverse groups to take actions that enrich natural resources and local communities of the Chesapeake Bay region. Since 1985, the Trust has awarded over $130 million in grants to municipalities, nonprofit organizations, schools, and public agencies throughout Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

The Outreach and Restoration Grant Program is a partnership between the Trust and Charles County, the City of Annapolis, the City of Baltimore Department of Public Works, the City of Gaithersburg, the City of Salisbury, Harford County, Howard County, and the Maryland Department of Transportation Maryland Port Administration. 

This funding opportunity aims to engage a diverse range of organizations, both with community-related missions and environmental-focused missions, to facilitate projects that enhance communities, involve residents, and improve natural resources.

This program was established to provide accessible funds to organizations and agencies to implement community-led and -inspired stewardship efforts that increase public understanding of environmental challenges and solutions; implement demonstration-scale, community-based, on-the-ground restoration projects; and expand the base of public support necessary to advance the restoration of Maryland’s bays, tributaries, and other natural resources.

All projects should meet one or both of the following goals:

a)  Engage members of a specific audience in community and environmental issues through knowledge building or behavior change efforts at multiple stages of the project.

b)  Accomplish on-the-ground restoration that will result in improvements in the health of a Maryland natural resource, either through water quality improvement or habitat enhancement.

The Trust is committed to the advancement of diversity and inclusion in its award-making and environmental work. As a result, the Trust strongly encourages applications directly from underrepresented groups, and for projects that increase awareness and participation of communities that are traditionally underrepresented, such as communities of color.