The Bella Vista Foundation's Ecosystem Restoration program focuses on protecting, restoring, and revitalizing high priority watershed ecosystems in California and Oregon. Within these key watersheds, the Foundation's priorities are promoting the sustainable management of forest and agricultural land, revitalizing streams, restoring riparian areas, and protecting biodiversity, with the goal of enhancing and maintaining self-sustaining watershed ecosystems.



Strategies:



The Bella Vista Foundation is in a transition period in which we will start to focus on specific geographic areas in California and Oregon. In the near term, we will consider projects in the following locations in California: The Mattole River watershed, the Salmon, Scott and Shasta rivers, the McCloud tributary of the Sacramento River, the Lagunitas Creek watershed in West Marin, the upper Pajaro River drainage, and the Northern and Central Sierra Nevada. We will also focus on the following areas in Oregon: the upper Deschutes Basin and the John Day Basin. Over time, we will select four to five geographic locations in which to concentrate our support. The Foundation's strategies include:



* Incorporate environmental, economic, and social equity factors because solutions that merge these factors tend to have long-term success.

* Preserve and build natural capital by consuming the growth of the environmental resource, rather than the resource itself.

* Support creative solutions to revitalization and restoration that have the potential to serve as models for similar projects.

* Engage in projects that are part of a cluster of projects in a given watershed, involving one or more organizations over time. The Foundation believes this clustering of support at the watershed level will result in stronger partnerships and a greater impact in the long term.

* Foster collaborative partnerships even among groups with divergent interests.



Additional Considerations:



The Foundation supports any stage of a restoration project from pre-restoration planning to implementation to post-implementation monitoring and evaluation. For pre-restoration stage projects, the Foundation believes comprehensive, science-based pre-restoration plans not only increase a project's likelihood of success but also leverage later funding for implementation. For post-implementation proposals, the Foundation endorses follow-up measurement and assessment of results and communication of those results through publications and other means because this, too, leverages future funding and informs others working in the restoration field.



The Foundation considers it a strong positive if a project has broad-based community involvement (financial support, volunteer support, and in-kind donations, etc.).



The Foundation will fund strong restoration projects that have an environmental education component, but only so long as the restoration is the main focus and is part of a longer term restoration program or plan.



Since the Foundation strives to put its limited resources into restoration and revitalization of key watershed ecosystems, the Foundation invites proposals only within the geographic and subject areas stated above.



The Foundation will not give grants to (or for) individuals, government agencies or quasi-government agencies (i.e., cities and counties, conservation districts, etc.), benefit events, publications, or video production, and will not support public policy and advocacy projects.



The Foundation strongly prefers not to be the sole or primary source of funding.



The Foundation will not give multi-year grants. However, it may accept a different proposal from the same organization as soon as one year after the previous grant and may, in certain cases, provide ongoing support to an organization on an annual renewal basis.



The Foundation will consider projects that include acquisition and restoration. However, our funding will support the acquisition of conservation easements and restoration work, but not the acquisition of fee land. In cases where a property must be acquired before it is restored, the Foundation may approve the grant but will not provide the restoration funding until the land has been acquired.



An evaluation of the project must be submitted 9 months into the grant period, and must answer previously agreed upon questions. The report formats are available on this website.



The Foundation meets twice a year, Spring and Fall, and proposals must be received no later than January 30 and June 15.