Wilburforce Foundation
/OVERVIEW: Wilburforce concentrates on conservation in Western North America, including animals and wildlife, marine ecosystems, and environment. It supports work in a dozen priority regions, with programs in conservation science, law and policy, and organizational capacity building.
IP TAKE: While this funder does not run an open application program, it is approachable and invites organizations working in its areas of interest to contact grants officers to discuss funding opportunities. Smaller organizations may find it difficult to secure funding here as the foundation prioritizes working with larger, more established conservation groups.
PROFILE: The Seattle-based Wilburforce Foundation was founded by Rose Letwin in 1991. Letwin, who is the ex-wife of Microsoft’s Gordon Letwin, had a long career in the technology industry but “always had a passion for animals” and envisioned a “thriving, interconnected American West that could foster healthy wildlife.”
The foundation offers programs for Conservation Science, Conservation Law and Policy and Capacity Building in three priority regions spanning the U.S. and Canada. The Alaska/British Columbia program focuses on grantmaking for the Arctic, the Central Interior of British Columbia, the Great Bear Rainforest, Tongass and the transboundary watersheds. The Northwest/Southwest program makes grants for regions of the western U.S. including Cascadia, the Great Basin and the Southwest Crescent, and the Yellowstone/Yukon program covers five priority regions including the Crown of the Continent, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the Inland Rainforest, Salmon-Selway/Hells Canyon and Y2Y Far North. The foundation also runs two awards programs for individuals who make outstanding contributions to conservation: the Conservation Leadership Award and the Wilburforce Leaders in Conservation Science Award.
Grants for the Environment
This regional environmental funder supports groups and programs related to biological diversity, ecological integrity and environmental policies that safeguard wildlife and wild places. It has six grant programs.
The Northwest/Southwest program supports the area from the Cascade Mountains in the Pacific Northwest through the Great Basin and into the Sierra Madre Occidental in Northwest Mexico. There are opportunities here for policy, research and capacity building projects to protect wildlife.
The Yellowstone to Yukon program covers a geographic area of over 2,000 miles, and is all about protecting wildlife habitats for recreation to support diverse livelihoods, and provide clean drinking water. The foundation prioritizes the regions of Crown of the Continent, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the Inland Rainforest, Salmon-Selway/Hells Canyon, and the Y2Y Far North.
Wilburforce's Alaska/British Columbia program focuses on the Arctic, B.C. Central Interior, Great Bear Rainforest, Tongass and the Transboundary Watersheds. Top priorities are protecting wildlife corridors and supporting strategic conservation communications campaigns in Alaska and Canada. Separate programs support conservation science of climate adaptation, connectivity, ecological economics and filling knowledge gaps.
The Conservation Law and Policy program supports programs that promote the integrity and application of U.S. laws and policies essential to wildlands and wildlife protection. The foundation offers a Capacity Building program to current grantees. This program, not open to unsolicited grant applications, gives current grantees professional development, strategic planning assistance, technology and more. Finally, the Conservation Science program funds “emerging opportunities to address knowledge gaps in conservation science and enhancing biodiversity and ecological resilience in the face of climate change” within Wilburforce’s focus regions.
Grants for Animals Welfare and Wildlife
Wilburforce supports conservation for animal welfare and wildlife across all of its funding programs and does not name specific species or habitats as targets of its grantmaking. One recent grant supported the conservation of porcupine and caribou habitats by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. Another grantee, the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, used funding to protect wildlife in the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia. In the U.S., the foundation has given to the Endangered Species Coalition, the California Wolf Center and Defenders of Wildlife, which used funding for a program to conserve the habitats of sage-grouse.
Grants for Marine and Freshwater
This funder supports marine and freshwater conservation across all of its thematic and regional grantmaking programs. Recent areas of interest have included the protection and conservation of rivers, watersheds and wetland ecosystems. In a recent year, the Tides Center’s program Rivers without Borders received funding for its Alaska-British Columbia Transboundary Watershed Conservation Campaign. Other recent grantees include Canada’s Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, the Rivershed Society of British Columbia and Pacific Rivers, an organization that works to protect the watersheds of the Cascadian Forests.
Important Grant Details:
The Wilburforce Foundation makes about $15 million in grants a year. Grant amounts range from $20,000 to $575,000, in most cases. The foundation’s average grant size is about $50,000. Grantees tend to be well-established environmental organizations that work actively in the foundation’s geographic areas of priority or that are involved in law and/or policy development aimed at protecting these areas. For additional information about past grants, see the foundation’s searchable grants database.
While this funder does not accept unsolicited applications, it invites organizations working in its areas of interest to read the foundation’s grant guidelines and contact a program officer to discuss their work and possible grantmaking opportunities with the foundation. General inquiries may be submitted via email.
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