Mapping Support for $150 Million Wilderness Grant Program

PWC Statewide Grants as of 2008
This statewide poster map shows the location of all types of PWC grants and the names of the recipients.
Client:   Resources Legacy Fund

Investing five years and $150 million in protecting wilderness in California requires a multi-faceted approach. To help it support such a program, the Resources Legacy Fund invited GreenInfo to provide mapping and information support to it and scores of grantees.

In 2005, the Resources Legacy Fund  (RLF) launched a five-year, $150 million program designed to preserve California's wild lands and rivers, and to ensure their permanent protection by investing in systematic acquisitions of land and fostering supportive policies, organizations, and constituencies. Called Preserving Wild California (PWC), the program offered grants and loans wildlands acquisition, planning, policy and advocacy, constituency building, nonprofit organizational capacity building, and stewardship and restoration.

In addition to supporting planning efforts for the program, GreenInfo's role during the five year period was three-fold:

  1. Assist grantees with GIS projects and technical support, helping land trusts, wilderness advocates and others with mapping, data and spatial analysis.
  2. Support RLF's grant making activities, including defining initial conservation priorities, tracking specific acquisitions, helping shape grant databases, developing tracking maps and graphics, and preparing presentations PWC objectives and progress.
  3. Conduct independent research and data development, including significant work on building the California Protected Areas Database (CPAD).

During the program GreenInfo worked with over 50 land trusts and other conservation organizations, and produced hundreds of maps and graphics for use by RLF in grant deliberations and tracking.

Results: Among other important outcomes, PWC funding protected almost 200,000 acres of land directly, contributed measurably to the Wilderness designation of more than one million acres of California wildlands, and boosted the capacity of over 100 grantees. GreenInfo mapping supported all of these accomplishments, along with others.

Focus:   Conservation, Philanthropy  

Services:  GIS Services, Data, Maps, Cartography 

Tags:   California, Esri ArcGIS, PWC, RLF, Wilderness  

Project Years: 2004-2010

GreenInfo Network creates, analyzes, visualizes and communicates information in the public interest. We specialize in mapping and related technology for nonprofits and public agencies, focusing on using it for conservation, social equity, public health, environment and foundation grant making.
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