Grassroots Grant Cycle
2024 Focus Area—Water Stewardship
The communities in which we brew our beer are intrinsically bound to the Great Lakes watershed. Since water makes up over 90% of our beer, we approach our role as stewards sincerely. We aim to take only what we need and mitigate any environmental impacts from its use.
This means we work continually to reduce water consumption and ensure that water leaving our brewery will not compromise the quality of our local watershed or ultimately the Great Lakes watershed.Â
Of course, we can do everything within our power to reduce the quantity and preserve the quality of the water we use, but that alone won’t sustain or rebuild the country’s many threatened waters.
We are a small splash in a giant pond, and we want to make our splash ripple. Â So that our ripple might expand beyond the lakes and rivers in our backyard, we offer support for water projects across our geographic funding area.
Small Grant Guidelines
We Are Looking to Fund:
- Projects that strengthen and protect ecosystem health and biodiversity.
- Projects that improve the use of water resources for the protection and benefit of public health and frontline communities.
- Projects that promote resiliency and adaptation in the face of climate-related water risks.
Awards are announced in September.
Grassroots grants range in size from $500 to $5,000.
*The Water Stewardship grassroots grant cycle will not prioritize funding for large-scale infrastructure projects, recreation focused requests, land acquisition, trail building, nor policy & advocacy initiatives.
We Do Not Fund:
- Organizations without 501(c)3 status
- Debt reduction
- Individuals
- Endowments
- Political candidates or campaigns
- Organizations/programming for religious purposes
- Media projects: Media projects including social media, podcast sponsorship, and more traditional areas of mass communication (broadcasting, publishing, and the internet)
- Event sponsorships including conferences, conventions, music festivals, or film festivals
- Public or private schools
- Capital campaigns
- Pass through grants
- General operating requests
- City, County, or State agencies
- Organizations receiving Bell’s Brewery funding, sponsorship, or any Bell’s Brewery goods amounting to more than $2500 in a calendar year (2022 grantees are invited to apply)
- Facilities requests
Geographic Funding Area
Organizations in all 50 states and DC, are eligible for funding. We currently do not offer international programs. Thank you for understanding.Â
Non-Discrimination Policy
Bell’s Brewery does not provide support to organizations which, in their constitution or practice, discriminate against a person or group on the basis of race, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, sex (including pregnancy and sexual orientation), gender identity or expression (including gender nonconformity and status as a transgender individual), age (40 and over), physical or mental disability, citizenship, genetic information, past, current or prospective service in the uniformed services, marital status, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, or local law. Bell’s Brewery does not knowingly support organizations that discriminate in their hiring, those they accept as volunteers, or the clients they serve.
Please review our grant guidelines in full before applying.
Questions?
Please reach out to
bellsgives@bellsbeer.com
Thank you to everyone who applied for the 2024 Water Stewardship grant cycle! We awarded $121,900 to organizations working to preserve and
protect one of our most precious resources! Programs that were awarded focused on strengthening and protecting ecosystem health and biodiversity, improving the use of water resources for the protection and benefit of public health and frontline communities and projects that promote resilience and adaption in the face of climate-related water risks