The Evolution of Our Small Grants Program

This past April marked the two-year anniversary of our first community responsive small grants program — the Drought Resilience and Water Security (DRAWS) initiative — and we are proud of its success and how it informs our work ahead.

While the DRAWS initiative itself has been highly impactful, what is equally important is that it has provided us a roadmap for making even more change: launching new community-responsive small grants programs that meet urgent needs and align with our five strategic pillars.

The DRAWS initiative was born out of a critical community need: the ongoing severe drought and its impact on ranchers and farmers in Marin. Over two years, we committed more than $916,000 in small grants to 75 water infrastructure projects that developed water sources, expanded water storage, increased water distribution, and built long-term resilience against the impacts of climate change.

With the experience in hand from rapidly launching and successfully implementing the DRAWS initiative as a pilot

These programs will:

• Respond to community needs

• Align with our strategic pillars of preserving agriculture, protecting biodiversity, building climate resilience, and connecting community

• Achieve measurable, targeted impacts

• Complement our land protection work small grants program, we are now poised to launch a series of small grants programs over the next several years.

We thank you so much for your role in making the DRAWS initiative a success, and invite you to join us on the journey as we develop more community-responsive small grants programs here in Marin County.

Learn more about our DRAWS initiative: malt.org/draws