Watershed Security Fund, established through a collaboration between the Province of BC and the BC First Nations Water Table, is dedicated to safeguarding the health of British Columbia’s watersheds for future generations.

The Fund's grant program supports projects and initiatives that advance the resiliency of watersheds while adhering to a framework of reconciliation and pursuing collaborative relationships to steward the restoration and conservation of healthy watersheds for generations to come. In its first year, the grant program will provide $7 to $10 million in commitments to communities, spread across two grant intakes, to address urgent and long-term watershed security needs.

Funding will support projects and initiatives that prioritize reconciliation, ecosystems health, and climate resilience.

Funding themes include:

• watershed collaboration, planning, and governance;
• watershed and ecosystems restoration;
• nature-based infrastructure;
• watersheds and food systems;
• monitoring and assessment; and,
• land and water-based learning and intergenerational knowledge.

Funding will be provided in the following streams:

• Headwaters
  These grants of up to $50,000 are for emergent, early forming, or smaller projects or those at exploratory and learning stages. Support is provided for project design, research and planning, initial partner conversations, and readiness building.
   
• Creek
  These grants of up to $150,000 are for small to medium scale projects that are further along in design, development, collaboration, and implementation. Support is provided for community engagement, detailed research planning, and partnership and project development as well as smaller scale implementation and shovel ready projects.
   
• River
  These grants of up to $500,000 are for larger scale efforts with a stronger foundation of prior work and partnerships. Partnerships should be in place and plans and projects or initiatives should be well developed and implementation or shovel ready.

Eligible applicants include First Nations, local or regional governments, and Indigenous and non-Indigenous organizations that are registered nonprofits, educational institutions, or social enterprises. (Eligibility is not restricted to Canada Revenue Agency registered charities or qualified donees.)

Funding is not provided to/for:

• activities that primarily provide financial benefits for individuals;
• debt retirement, reserves, or mortgage paydowns;
• retroactive expenses;
• purchase of land or large-scale development of buildings;
• endowments; or,
• partisan political activities.