Natural and Cultural Resources Recent Grants

  • Green Built Alliance
    Buncombe
    Grant Amount: $25,000
    Fiscal Year 2020
    to support the Blue Horizons Project’s continuing community engagement, marketing, education, and outreach efforts.
  • National Trust for Historic Preservation
    Polk County
    Grant Amount: $35,000
    Fiscal Year 2020
    to engage key stakeholders – especially African American churches and organizations, local residents, artists and young people – in envisioning the future of Nina Simone’s Childhood Home in Tryon, NC.
  • Riverlink as fiscal sponsor for the French Broad River Partnership
    Avery, Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson, Madison, Mitchell, Transylvania, and Yancey Counties
    Grant Amount: $45,000
    Fiscal Year 2020
    to engage consultants to create an economic impact study quantifying the value of clean water and the French Broad River Watershed to the region’s economy.
  • The American Chestnut Foundation
    Avery, Buncombe, Burke, Graham, Haywood, Macon, Madison, McDowell, Transylvania, and Yancey Counties
    Grant Amount: $10,000
    Fiscal Year 2019
    to further a proactive gene conservation project in which seeds will be collected from remnant, wild American chestnuts across the species range and transplanted in orchards, where they will be used for future breeding.
  • Asheville Art Museum
    WNC Region
    Grant Amount: $30,000
    Fiscal Year 2019
    to support pre-K through 12th grade and adult educational programs in conjunction with the upcoming exhibition Appalachia Now! An Interdisciplinary Survey of Contemporary Art in Southern Appalachia.
  • Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
    Buncombe County
    Grant Amount: $10,000
    Fiscal Year 2019
    to implement community programming related to the Between Form and Content: Perspectives on Jacob Lawrence and Black Mountain College exhibition, the first to open in its new location at 120 College Street.
  • Blue Ridge National Heritage Area
    WNC Region
    Grant Amount: $25,000
    Fiscal Year 2019
    to complete the Blue Ridge Craft Trails, an initiative to increase income for craft artists and businesses, enhance cultural tourism, and improve economic opportunity in WNC.
  • Conserving Carolina
    Henderson and Transylvania Counties
    Grant Amount: $25,000
    Fiscal Year 2019
    to acquire 314 acres of land, which will be transferred to DuPont State Recreational Forest.
  • Cowee Pottery School
    Cherokee, Jackson, Macon, and Swain Counties
    Grant Amount: $35,000 over two years
    Fiscal Year 2019
    to support the costs of purchasing two new kilns and hiring a part-time director.
  • Madison County Arts Council
    Madison County
    Grant Amount: $8,500
    Fiscal Year 2019
    to engage Leslie Anderson Consulting for capital campaign planning.
  • MountainTrue
    WNC Region
    Grant Amount: $8,500
    Fiscal Year 2019
    to engage Judy Futch Consulting and Searchlight Consulting in strategic planning.
  • Penland School of Craft
    Mitchell and Yancey Counties
    Grant Amount: $33,912
    Fiscal Year 2019
    to purchase a Computer Numerical Control system for its wood studio.
  • Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards
    Buncombe County
    Grant Amount: $7,500
    Fiscal Year 2019
    to engage Elly Wells Marketing + Project Management to create a communications strategy and timeline.
  • American Whitewater
    WNC – Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests
    Grant Amount: $5,618
    Fiscal Year 2018
    to continue the contracted facilitation needed by the Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Partnership during the final phases of the Nantahala and Pisgah Forest Management Plan revisions.
  • Asheville Symphony
    Buncombe County
    Grant Amount: $25,150
    Fiscal Year 2018
    to support a recording project that brings the Symphony together with Grammy award-winning bluegrass band, Steep Canyon Rangers.
  • Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation
    Avery, Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Mitchell, Transylvania, Swain, and Yancey Counties
    Grant Amount: $27,936
    Fiscal Year 2018
    to purchase technology that would deter poaching of natural resources such as Ginseng, Galax, Bog Turtles, and Peregrines along the Blue Ridge Parkway.
  • Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy (CMLC)
    Buncombe, Henderson, Jackson, Polk, Rutherford, and Transylvania Counties
    Grant Amount: $7,500
    Fiscal Year 2018

    to engage Design One for the purposes of marketing and re-branding. This grant will support the consolidation of CMLC and the Pacolet Area Conservancy.

  • Green Built Alliance
    Buncombe County
    Grant Amount: $25,000
    Fiscal Year 2018
    to support marketing, outreach and education for the Blue Horizons Project formulated by the 15 organizations that comprise the Energy Innovation Task Force.
  • Jackson County Green Energy Park
    Jackson County
    Grant Amount: $10,000
    Fiscal Year 2018
    to assist with the development of a waste vegetable oil burner system that could be utilized by ceramicists, glassblowers, blacksmiths, and others who participate in the Fire Arts, which require high heat levels in their processes.
  • Nikwasi Initiative
    Jackson, Macon, and Swain Counties
    Grant Amount: $30,000 over two years
    Fiscal Year 2018
    to further develop the Cultural Corridor by supporting project management and coordinating functions of the Nikwasi Initiative. This effort is an unusual, if not unique, model of equal engagement between tribal and non-tribal participants around a co-developed and managed heritage-related community economic development project.
  • Parkway Playhouse
    Avery, Buncombe, Madison, Mitchell, and Yancey Counties
    Grant Amount: $7,500
    Fiscal Year 2018
    to engage Walker Wilson Consulting in the development of a 2018-2022 strategic plan, which will be the organization's first.
  • Toe River Arts Council
    Yancey County
    Grant Amount: $30,000
    Fiscal Year 2018
    to begin fabrication and installation of the first gateway marker, which will be installed at the west entrance to the downtown area off 19E. The Glass Gateway Vision Plan calls for three glass markers of varying heights at the west and east entrances of Burnsville.

Natural and Cultural Resources Grant History