The city of Durango is opening applications to businesses, nonprofits and community groups on Friday for its 2023 Green Durango Grants program with $25,000 in total funding available for projects that contribute to sustainability.
This is the second year of the program, which provided five organizations with grant reimbursements between $1,000 to $5,000 last year, according to city Planning Commission members who acknowledged the first-year grant recipients at a meeting last week.
The grant reimbursements are applicable for expenses including equipment, supplies and materials, service fees, and contracted labor, according to the 2022 Green Durango Grants application. The grants also apply to administrative and operating expenses as long as they don’t surpass 25% of the total project budget.
“Over and over, we’ve heard from nonprofits that flexibility is super important,” said Marty Pool, city sustainability manager, at last week’s Planning Commission meeting. “A lot of grants don’t allow that at all or it’s capped at 5% and you can only spend on very specific things.”
The organizations that received funding for the 2022 Green Durango Grants program included Four Corners Office of Resource Efficiency (4CORE), Great Old Broads for Wilderness, the Animas View Mobile Home Co-Op, Manna soup kitchen and Give a Dam.
Representatives from each organization attended last week’s Planning Commission meeting to talk about how the grant program benefited their projects and to provide feedback on the efficiency of the grant application process.
Molly Morris, program manager at 4CORE, said the city’s grant reimbursement was put to use in its Energy Smart Colorado program for residential energy assessments, including for new analyst training to support more program assessments in the Durango area. The grant reimbursement also helped 4CORE offer five free energy assessments to income-qualified customers, pay for program partnership fees and support additional staff training.
The income-qualified assessments were for residents who earn between 80-100% of the area median income; 4CORE already offers assistance to residents who earn less than 80% area median income, she said.
“It was nice to be able to help some folks in a little bit higher income bracket,” she said. “That’s still a tough bracket to live in (in) Durango. They received an assessment, which is typically about four hours long, and then a 15-page report outlining upgrades by priority.”
Kevin Miller, representing the Animas View Mobile Home Park Co-Op, said the Green Durango Grants program helped with much-needed tree trimming and fire mitigation at the mobile home park at 288 Animas View Drive.
The Green Durango Grant was the first grant the mobile home park co-op applied for after purchasing the park in June 2021, he said. The mobile home park faced about $3 million worth of deferred maintenance including tree trimming and mitigation of fire hazards within the park. A notable example is a berm of Juniper bushes that leaned against about 14 homes.
“If you know anything about Juniper, once they catch fire, they just stay hot and stay burning. We were very focused on getting that removed,” Miller said.
He said the next phase of work at the mobile home park is to plant local vegetation along the berm to beautify the area.
“When we were awarded the grant there was a lot of celebration here. It meant a lot to us,” he said.
Anne Morris, executive director of Manna, said the Green Durango Grants program was perfect for what the soup kitchen was looking for, although there was a delay to Manna’s project of installing 68 solar panels at its facility because of supply chain issues that prolonged how long it took to receive needed supplies.
“We were able to get all 68 solar panels installed this month,” she said. “... Our whole entire roof is now covered in solar panels.”
Pool said the 2022 Green Durango Grants program was the first grant-writing exercise for two of the five recipients last year.
“I think that’s incredibly important,” he said. “The size of this grant is big enough to make an impact but small enough to be accessible for local organizations. We specifically made the application process with accessibility in mind.”
2023 Green Durango Grants program applications open Friday. More information about the program can be found at the city’s website at https://bit.ly/3YzJGrf
cburney@durangoherald.com
