Restore America's Estuaries

About Restore America's Estuaries

Restore America's Estuaries centers grantmaking on community-based coastal habitat restoration, with some of the largest recent awards going to local and regional organizations working in places like New Orleans, Woonsocket, and Tampa Bay. The foundation supports on-the-ground restoration, science, policy advocacy, capacity-building, and partnership-building, and its recent awards show a strong preference for projects tied to estuaries, shoreline habitat, and local stewardship groups. Recent grants also show repeated support for the same recipients over multiple years, including the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and Tampa Baywatch Inc, suggesting sustained engagement with selected partners. The grant portfolio includes public agencies, universities, conservation groups, and community organizations, reflecting a mix of technical, civic, and place-based implementers. In the recent grant list, awards range from mid-sized local projects to larger, program-linked grants, and the funder’s work reaches coastal communities across multiple states rather than concentrating in the District of Columbia. That pattern fits a funder organized around coastal restoration practice: project delivery, local capacity, and collaboration are all visible in the recent awards.

What Restore America's Estuaries Funds

In community-based coastal habitat restoration, Restore America's Estuaries has funded local implementers such as City of Woonsocket for community-based coastal habitat restoration and City of Pawtucket for the same purpose. The foundation also backs nonprofit stewardship groups, including Nantucket Conservation Foundation for community-based coastal habitat restoration and Buzzards Bay Coalition Inc for community-based coastal habitat restoration. Its portfolio includes partners working in water-quality and watershed-linked restoration through regional grant programs, including the SNEP Watershed Grants program, which supports on-the-ground coastal and watershed restoration, water quality improvements, and capacity-building in Southeast New England. The recent grants also show support for academic and technical partners such as Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, indicating that research-oriented institutions can sit alongside municipal and community applicants in this funding stream.

How Restore America's Estuaries Gives