The 2024 Community Challenge Grant Application Period is Now Closed
This year's theme: "Trees as Strategies for Climate Adaptation and Mitigation"
The Community Challenge Grant Program focuses on activities to encourage and promote citizen involvement in supporting long-term and sustainable urban and community forestry programs at the local level. Local and tribal governments, non-profit organizations, and public educational institutions qualify.
Community Challenge Grants are intended for promoting and enhancing the quality of Arizona’s urban and community forests. The program aims to fund projects that might not otherwise be funded through existing budgets, and research project funding is intended as “seed-grants” because of the limited funding available. All proposed projects should be designed to improve the long-term health and care of the urban forest, or initiate new urban forestry projects in Arizona communities.
In evaluating grant proposals, consideration will be given to projects that:
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Improve understanding of the benefits of protecting, maintaining, and preserving tree cover.
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Promote volunteerism, multi-cultural awareness, and involvement of nonprofit organizations, agencies, and the private sector in implementing urban and community forestry programs.
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Increase the number of communities assisted through technology transfer, training, and education in tree care or urban natural resource management.
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Increase the number of partnerships and cooperators in urban and community forestry activities through technical, financial, and in-kind support.
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Increase the number of communities given technical, financial, or other forms of urban and community forestry assistance (i.e. tree inventories, tree board establishment, ordinance development, management plans, or infrastructure).
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Enhance the technical skills of individuals involved in the planning, developing, and maintaining urban and community forestry programs.
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Expand existing research intended to improve understanding of southwestern (a) tree growth and maintenance, tree physiology and morphology, and species adaptations; and (b) the role of urban trees in conserving energy and mitigating the urban heat island.
All projects selected for funding should be completed within one year and a final project presentation is required at the annual Community Forestry Grantee Showcase that is held every fall.
How to Apply
The Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management is currently accepting applications for Community Challenge Grants. If you have any questions about this grant program, please contact the Urban and Community Forestry team at [email protected]. For more information, you can also review the grant documents linked below.
2024 Urban and Community Forestry Grant Application Submission Guide
Urban and Community Forestry Grant FAQs
2023 Community Challenge Grantees
Theme: Cultural and historic use and value of trees; historic tree preservation; or maintaining connections to historically important trees that are no longer standing.
The Cosanti Foundation
Project Title: Historic Tree Project: Arcosanti and Cosanti
Amount Awarded: $15,000
Watershed Management Group
Project Title: Native Edible Trees: Cultivating, Harvesting, and Exploring Cultural Values
Amount Awarded: $30,000
Corazon Latino
Project Title: Canopy, Cultura y Educación: Empowering Arizona’s Youth through Urban Forestry and Conservation
Amount Awarded: $49,000
Keep Tempe Beautiful
Project Title: Tempe’s Treasured Trees: A Census and Commemoration
Amount Awarded: $15,000
Paradise Valley Community College
Project Title: PVCC Food Forest Phase 2
Amount Awarded: $24,000
Apache County Natural Resources
Project Title: Apache County Community Tree Project
Amount Awarded: $12,000
Inflation Reduction Act Grants - How to Apply
A Second Round of Funding will be Available Early 2025
The Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management is not currently accepting applications for the Urban Forestry Program's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) Grant Program.
IRA Grants are to be used to improve community forest conditions and access to disadvantaged communities, address the backlog of local community forestry work, and position Arizona’s community forests as a valuable piece of mitigating climate change impacts and urban heat.. Projects should be aimed at improving the long-term health and care of the urban forest, or at initiating new urban forestry projects in Arizona communities that would not otherwise be funded through existing budgets. This program is being made possible from funds allocated to Arizona from the USFS during the first round of funding distribution and not the public Notice of Funding Opportunity.
The IRA Project's theme is: Improving urban forest conditions in disadvantaged communities for climate resilience and heat mitigation. Project timelines for this grant should be 4 years. The projects must be in service to supporting disadvantaged communities as defined by the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool.
2023 Urban and Community Forestry Grant Application Submission Guide
Urban and Community Forestry Grant FAQs
For more information on the grant application process or questions about DFFM's Urban and Community Forestry Program please email LoriAnne Barnett: [email protected]
2023 IRA Inflation Reduction Act Grant Recipients
Corazon Latino
Project Title: Sembrando por el Futuro
Amount awarded: $550,000
City of Tempe
Project Title: Growing Together
Amount awarded: $725,000
Dunbar Springs Neighborhood Foresters & Tucson Audubon
Project Title: Stormwater-irrigated Traffic Calming Streetside Food Forests
Amount awarded: $100,000
Trees Matter
Project Title: Urban Forestry Integrated Management
Amount awarded: $750,000
City of Avondale
Project Title: Resilient Roots
Amount awarded: $147,580
Arizona Community Tree Council
Project Title: Arizona Arboriculture Pre-employment Program
Amount awarded:$780,000
Tucson Clean & Beautiful
Project Title: Planting the Future: Youth-led Neighborwoods
Amount awarded: $750,000
Arizona Sustainability Alliance
Project Title: Tree Stewards Program
Amount awarded: $400,000
Watershed Management Group
Project Title: Pathway to Improved Urban & Community Forestry Management
Amount awarded: $139,000
City of Yuma
Project Title: Aerial Operations Development
Amount Awarded: $225,000
***Please note*** The Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management will never ask you for money or gift cards in exchange for a grant or promises of future funding. If you are contacted by anyone asking for money in regards to this Community Challenge Grant or any of our other grant opportunites - that is a scam - and we ask you to report that to the Arizona Attorney General's Office Criminal Complaint division.
