The Kentucky Native Plant Society (KNPS) is thrilled to open applications for its 2025 Native Plant Pollinator Garden Grant. Grants of $500 will be awarded to several applicants to promote biodiversity and environmental education.
Our mission is to encourage people to establish pollinator gardens. They don’t have to be huge or even aesthetically beautiful for our purposes. They simply need to exist where humans can see them, commune with them, and learn about them.
The grant’s objective
The grant aims to foster the establishment of native plant pollinator gardens, emphasizing not only the ecological benefits but also the educational enrichment they provide. Through these gardens, KNPS seeks to nurture a deeper understanding and appreciation of native plant species and their crucial role in pollination.
This unique initiative partners with organizations that share an educational mission for two reasons:
- Pollinator gardens often fail. They have plenty of people willing to help, but the organization often lacks the expertise to establish and maintain a successful garden.
- We hope that these gardens will ‘put the bee in the bonnet’ of visitors. If only a few visitors go home and plant a few native plants for pollinator support, we all win.
These gardens can serve as vital educational tools, offering firsthand learning opportunities about pollination, plant species, and ecosystem health for our native plants.
Grant details
Details can be found on the application form, but in a nutshell, if you have a group of volunteers and a site that’s open to the public, within reason, or you plan to use the garden for ongoing educational purposes, and you have an educational partner, you qualify. If you don’t have an educational partner, we encourage you to apply because we can help you find someone. What we’ve learned so far is that most applicants miss the education partner requirement. You’ll be asked on the form to identify your educational partner or ask for our help finding a qualified partner in your area.
To apply for a grant, follow this link to the KNPS Grants page. There you will find more details about the grant and a form to apply. This page will be working a few days after publication, if not the day of publication. But hurry, funds are limited. It doesn’t matter to us if you plant immediately or this fall, only that you plant in 2025. If you have any questions, email us at Grants@knps.org