The Chesapeake Bay Trust, the only natural resource grant-making organization dedicated solely to the Chesapeake region, is launching a campaign to ensure that our grantmaking will be available in perpetuity. The Trust invests more than $12 million in grants each year through an ever-growing portfolio of more than 1,000 organizations, both environmental and non-environmental and both large and small, through direct grant funding and other assistance. We specialize in supporting projects that are community-driven, sustained long into the future, and “ripple” outward, making waves that catalyze other similar efforts. Our grantees are civic groups, homeowners associations, faith-based organizations, schools, watershed groups, local governments and more. For many of these groups, the Trust is the only or most major source of grant funds.

The need for a grant-maker like the Trust to support this kind of work is forever, and this campaign will ensure that the Trust can be available as a grant-maker forever.  The current five major sources of the Trust’s revenue are not guaranteed in perpetuity. Long after the Chesapeake watershed is restored, community-based projects will still be needed to keep it that way. In addition, the timing is ideal to transform our new headquarters campus into a model of sustainability to homeowners and businesses in a realistically scaled setting.

The Trust has set a campaign goal of $6 million. Funds will support two main initiatives:

1) a new $5 million endowment.

2) a $1 million transformation of the Trust’s headquarters building and campus into a net zero impact model.

To help meet these goals, the Chesapeake Bay Trust invites all to join this exciting effort.

View the Rippling Effects: Powerful, Permanent Investment in the Chesapeake case statement, here. 

Read how the Rippling Effects Campaign aligns with the Chesapeake Bay Trust’s 2020-2025 Strategic Plan, available here.

To make a campaign gift or pledge, please review our pledge form, here.

There are many ways to contribute, including with a secure online gift here.

For questions, contact Suzanne Armstrong, Vice President for Development, at sarmstrong@cbtrust.org or 410-974-2941, ext. 107.