Population growth, development pressures and rural/urban migration patterns are having a significant impact on the landscape around us. Rural, land-based communities are facing unprecedented challenges and many are recognizing the interrelationship between the health of their local natural resources, community and economy. At the same time, natural resource issues can be contentious and heated, typified by distrust and deadlock. It is the belief of the National Forest Foundation, and many others, that one way to move past the controversy is to engage communities in dialogue-based collaborative processes to find common ground and develop proactive solutions.

The NFF established the Community Assistance Program (CAP) in 2002 to promote the creation of locally-based organizations or groups seeking to resolve natural resource issues through a collaborative, dialogue-based process. The program will support newly forming or significantly re-organizing groups or nonprofit organizations that are in need of start-up funds for capacity building and that intend to proactively and inclusively engage local stakeholders in the community in forest management and conservation issues on and around National Forests and Grasslands.

Interested in learning more about the Community Assistance Program? Read the entire Community Assistance Program RFP on the Application Process page.