The Ground Water Advocacy Grant Program is available to officially recognized (current with NGWA fees) NGWA Affiliate State and Associated State Society organizations for public awareness and legislative initiatives on key ground water issues.
If your NGWA-recognized state association is considering pursuing a public awareness and/or legislative initiative on an NGWA key issue, and would like to be considered for a grant, we urge you to review the application and incorporate its elements into your planning process. NGWA staff is available to consult with you on each element of your plan or to facilitate a complete advocacy plan (upon request).
To apply for a grant, the state organization must complete and submit an application, including the requested back-up information. Incomplete applications will be returned to the contact designated on the application, with an indication of where the application is deficient.
This is a matching grant program. This means that your state association must invest its own monetary funds into achieving the aims of the proposed funding initiative. Although your volunteers will be generously giving their time and resources, in-kind service donations cannot be used to meet the match requirement. The match expectation is proportionate to fees your Affiliated State or Associated State Society organization paid to NGWA this year. Thus, if your state association membership was between 1 to 50 members, your state association must match 33 percent of the dollars that NGWA may agree to provide in response to your Ground Water Advocacy Grant application. For state associations with 51 to 100 members, your match is 50 percent; for those with 101 to 200 members your match is 77 percent; and for those organizations with more than 200 members, your match requirement is 100 percent.
Each application will be reviewed by a working group of NGWA members and staff who are knowledgeable and experienced in government advocacy and public awareness, as well as the issue proposed in the application. Evaluative factors will include, but not be limited to:
- Importance of the issue to NGWA members generally and to ground water in the state of the proposed public awareness and/or legislative initiative
- Demonstrated research done on the issue, including history in the state and the arguments pro and con
- Evidence of a plan for grassroots support for the issue.
- Ability to establish a viable coalition
- Resources available to support pursuit of the issue
- Political environment in which the issue will be pursued.
The working group will evaluate the responses to each of the questions in the application. The working group also may contact the individual designated in the application for additional information or clarifications. The working group will make a recommendation to the NGWA Executive Committee, each of which will have five working days to review and approve/disapprove the recommendation.
If the application is rejected, the working group will advise what additional work is required for the application to receive further consideration. The working group will respond to the application within 45 days of its receipt at NGWA headquarters.
Download application (PDF).
Mail completed application to:
National Ground Water Association
Attn: Executive Director
601 Dempsey Rd.
Westerville, OH 43081