Greenbelt River Valley Connector Program

Context

River valleys are special places that are often undiscovered and underused in our communities.

These natural areas serve many important environmental functions and offer tremendous potential for people to explore, celebrate and enhance.

In 2017, the Greenbelt was expanded to protect the major urban river valley systems throughout the GTHA. This new designation connects the rural landscape to our urban centres providing residents an opportunity to enjoy the social, cultural and environmental significance of these unique areas in their own communities. See past projects here.

Project Objectives

• Impactful: People and communities will be better connected to the Greenbelt and their local urban river valleys as a result of these projects.
• Community driven: Projects are strongly rooted in the communities in which they take place and projects have the support of community partners as well as local stakeholders.
• Sustainable: There is a plan in place to ensure sustained community engagement and enjoyment of the urban river valley beyond the life of the program. 50% of the project budget will be secured from other funding sources (both cash and in-kind).
• Educational: Projects help to educate the community on the importance of their local URV and broader Greenbelt ecosystem.
• Scalable: Projects have the potential to be expanded or replicated in other municipalities or river valley systems.
• Programmable: All projects must include at least two programming or public engagement opportunities.  The goal of programming or public engagement is to meaningfully connect people to the Greenbelt ecosystem.

Eligibility

• All Greenbelt River Valley Connector Program projects must occur on publicly-accessible lands within OR in close proximity (less than 1 km) to an Urban River Valley System.  Please ensure your project is within the geographical boundary. For a list of protected Urban River Valleys click here.
• We invite applications from local municipalities, community-based organizations (including conservation authorities), social service agencies, local schools, non-profits and indigenous groups. Applications from municipalities are welcome as long as proposed projects have strong community engagement components.
  All of the project’s programming and public engagement activities must take place on or before the end of November 2020.
• Applicants can request up to 50% of the total project budget. You must demonstrate that the remaining 50% (cash or in-kind) will come from other sources.  

Grants can cover:

• Project tools and equipment. 
• Human resources, professional service or consulting fees (with staff and contractor costs up to 45% of the total budget).
• Administration and Overhead (eg. rent, computers, phones etc.) cannot exceed 5% of requested amount.
• Marketing and communication costs (i.e. printing, promotion, distribution).
• Mileage and transportation costs.
• Volunteer honorariums.

This program will not fund:

• Capital campaigns or fundraisers
• Large scale infrastructure projects unless there is strong evidence of community involvement in both the planning and implementation stages
• Staff and contractor costs greater than 45% of the total budget  
• Financial endowments
• Land securement costs