At its June quarterly Board meeting, the Sierra Nevada Conservancy approved two new grant programs – one focused on continuing its Wildfire and Forest Resilience Directed Grant Program and an inaugural Landscape Grant Program that will increase the pace and scale of critical forest health and wildfire-resilience work across the Sierra-Cascade.
“These grant programs will continue vital work of our partners to improve forest health, increase wildfire resilience, and help protect communities and key infrastructure,” said SNC Executive Officer, Angela Avery. “We are extremely excited about our new Landscape Grant Program that will fund collaborative resilience projects taking place in the Sierra-Cascade. To match the frequency and scale of recent, damaging wildfires, we need to support collaboration and invest at the landscape scale.”
Wildfire and Forest Resilience Directed Grant Program
The 2026 Wildfire and Forest Resilience Directed Grant Program focuses on funding high-impact forest-health planning or implementation projects that deliver strong, direct benefits to communities, critical infrastructure, or unique natural resources.
The program is funded by Proposition 4 (the Climate Bond), which voters passed in November of 2024 and allocates $33.5 million to SNC for wildfire-resilience projects. Thanks to early action by Governor Newsom and the legislature, $30.9 million of SNC’s wildfire-resilience funds were made available in April 2025.
This is the second grant program with wildfire- and forest-resilience funding from the Climate Bond made available to partners from the SNC. Concept proposals are being accepted through July 27, 2026 and guidelines, eligibility requirements, and more information can be found on the Wildfire and Forest Resilience Grant Page on the SNC website.
Landscape Grant Program
With an increase in high-severity wildfires throughout the Sierra-Cascade, the need to increase the pace and scale of forest-health and community-protection work is critical. The inaugural Landscape Grant Program is part of SNC’s Landscape Investment Strategy and funds projects and activities that are intended to address ecological and community priorities, such as forest health, wildfire resilience, and watershed protection across a large landscape.
Unlike many SNC grant programs, the Landscape Grant Program, also funded through the Climate Bond, does not have an open application process. Instead, the SNC identifies potential Investment Ready Landscapes and collaboratives through an internal evaluation process based on regional expertise and longstanding engagement with partners and will invite selected collaboratives to participate in the program.
Evaluations will begin during the summer of 2026 and finalists will be invited for interviews in the fall of 2026. Guidelines, eligibility, and more information can be found on the Landscape Grant Program web page on the SNC website.