Foundation grantmaking focuses on four major program areas. These programs touch upon a number of major issues. Each grantmaking program also works within clearly stated geographic parameters or regions.
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The Great Lakes Washington Program of the Northeast-Midwest Institute has long been a critical voice for the Great Lakes region in Washington, D.C. The institute provides staff to the bipartisan House and Senate Great Lakes Task Forces, promotes coalitions to sustain bipartisan efforts to protect and enhance the Great Lakes region, identifies federal policy options that can enhance ecosystem initiatives in the Great Lakes basin, and conducts briefings and issue analyses that link in-region advocates with the Washington-based policy communities. This grant will support work on policy issues including key appropriations to benefit the Great Lakes, water export and diversion, ecosystem restoration, Farm Bill re-authorization, and other key policy issues as they become apparent.
Representing the interests of 11 Ojibwe tribes, the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission is a nonprofit organization that helps its members manage natural resources on tribal lands and in areas where members have treaty-guaranteed rights to hunt, fish, and gather. The mining of sulfide-based ores (sulfide mining) poses significant water quality threats to tribally important areas around Lake Superior. With prior Mott support, the commission prepared a report examining how tribes can engage in permitting and monitoring sulfide mining operations. This grant renewal will allow the commission to implement report recommendations, which include conducting research, engaging with technical experts, and developing water quality data across the region to inform policy discussions, permitting processes, and environmental reviews.
The Mott Foundation's domestic environmental grantmaking focuses on Conservation of Freshwater Ecosystems in the Great Lakes basin and a large portion of southeastern United States.
Rivers connect us to each other, nature, and future generations. American Rivers, a Mott grantee, preserves, protects and restores thousands of miles of U.S. rivers.
The Great Lakes are featured in “Waterlife,” a film highlighting the beauty of the lakes as well as the threats facing “the last great supply of freshwater on earth.” Great Lakes United, a Mott grantee, was influential in the film’s development.
This Nature Conservancy video highlights the Northern Great Lakes Forest Project (a.k.a. “Big U.P. Deal”). The Conservancy, a Mott grantee, developed this public-private project to protect more than 271,000 acres in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (UP) through a working forest easement.