State Spotlight: Sustainable CT Community Match Fund Sparks Inspiration and Investment

Abe Hilding-Salorio, Sustainable CT Community Outreach Manager

Sustainable CT launched the Community Match Fund in September of 2019, to broaden our network, work with new groups and people, and support grassroots-level sustainability action all over Connecticut. The program is an innovative funding model that removes the traditional barriers that grants can impose and broadly engages the community in the work while giving residents the ultimate say in determining the projects in their communities.   

Consistent with the idea that people who live in a community know what it needs better than anyone else, Sustainable CT doesn’t score the projects that apply to the fund or choose the ones we like best. Rather, we have an objective eligibility criterion that determines if a project is eligible. Any project is eligible to participate that meets that criteria (inclusive of and accessible to the public, aligns with Sustainable CT actions, takes place in a community participating in our program, etc.). Anyone can lead a project and there’s no grant application to submit, no deadlines, and no lengthy review period. 

Here’s how the funding works: Sustainable CT provides a one-to-one match to every dollar that project leaders raise for their work. Unlike traditional matching grants, the dollars we match are predominately donations from individuals -not municipalities, foundations, or corporate sponsorships.  

When developing this program, we decided to support projects that the community demonstrates an interest in, not just something that one other funder or foundation decides to fund. To facilitate community engagement and assess residents’ interest in projects, we’ve partnered with Patronicity, a civic crowdfunding platform, to launch and support crowdfunding campaigns for each project. Staff from Patronicity works with every Community Match Fund project leader to help them run a successful crowdfunding, which demonstrates the local community’s interest in and commitment to a project. Once projects have crowdfunded 50 percent of their funding need from individual donations, Sustainable CT provides a matching grant of up to $7,500 to fund the project fully.  

In the year following the program’s launch, we’ve supported 85 projects in over 50 cities and towns throughout Connecticut, with a cumulative investment of more than $980,000 toward improving the state’s sustainability, vibrancy, and equity. More than 3,000 people have donated to these projects, and the median donation value has stayed steady at $50.  

Projects have spanned the sustainability spectrum and included tree planting campaigns, community gardens, streetscape enhancements and multimodal transportation, energy efficiency, environmental education, land conservation, green workforce development, public art and placemaking, sustainability conferences and workshops, stormwater management, waste reduction, Covid-19 response, and much, much more.  

One of the most exciting things that we’ve seen while running this program is how one project often inspires others. We’ve had project leaders who were shocked by the support they received immediately decide to start up another project, and folks in a town with one successful project reach out with something of their own, saying that it inspired them to act.  

Sustainable CT is now into the second year of this program and we’re looking forward to supporting more community-led projects in the coming months.    

Find project highlights here.