Conservation Fund

The Lake Erie Allegheny Partnership for Conservation Fund has been established to finance projects that promote and protect our region’s biodiversity as determined by the science-based LEAP Biodiversity Plan.

The goal of the Conservation Fund is to attract funds for conservation projects from sources not previously available to our individual members and to distribute these funds through a collaborative, community driven process. The Fund is positioned to capture environmental settlement monies that might otherwise leave the region, corporate, philanthropic and personal donations.

Funding Criteria

Projects seeking support from the Conservation Fund are evaluated based on the extent to which the project:

• Preserves extant populations of globally, state, or federally imperiled or rare species or communities as determined by the appropriate agency or other priority species as determined by LEAP;
• Preserves habitat important for the viability of populations of globally, state, or federally imperiled or rare species as determined by the appropriate agency or other priority species as determined by LEAP. Important habitat may be on the project site or on a contiguous site with a verifiably high likelihood that these species would then inhabit the project site;
• Preserves high quality examples of representative communities of the LEAP region;
• Restores rare species or communities known to have historically existed in the LEAP region; and,
• Connects currently protected natural areas.

LEAP Fund Committee January 2011

Organization	Term of Service - Expiration	Representative
The Nature Conservancy	January 2012	Marleen Kromer
Cleveland Metroparks	January 2012	John Mack
Cuyahoga County Planning Commission	January 2012	Carol Thaler
Western Reserve Resource Conservation and Development Council	January 2012	Meghan Chaney
Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District	January 2012	Kyle Dreyfuss Wells
Cuyahoga Valley National Park	January 2013	Kevin Skerl
The Holden Arboretum	January 2013	Nate Beccue
Metro Parks Serving Summit County	January 2013	Neal Hess
The Trust for Public Land	January 2013	Kim Kimlin
Chagrin River Watershed Partners	January 2014	Amy H. Brennan
Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Natural Areas	January 2014	Jim Bissell
Cuyahoga River Community Planning Organization	January 2014	Jim White
Western Reserve Land Conservancy	January 2014	Julia Musson

Work to be Done

Committee members are working to promote the benefits of the Conservation Fund to local attorneys, law enforcement officials, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, the Ohio Attorney General and the US Attorney’s Office.

History

Beginnings

In 2004, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) approached several conservation organizations in NE Ohio about ways to increase grant making in northeast Ohio. They were interested in providing a vehicle for capturing new (or previously unattainable) sources of funding to preserve and restore natural areas within the northeast Ohio region. As a result, a subcommittee of the Lake Erie Allegheny Partnership (LEAP) for Biodiversity was formed.

LEAP Fund Committee

From 2005 through 2009, the Conservation Fund Committee, an informal group, met periodically to develop an agreement between the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History on behalf of LEAP, reach out to the US Attorney’s Office, and prepare grant requests.

First Grant Awarded

In April 2008, LEAP received a $100,000 grant award from the Arcelor Mittal Great Lakes Restoration Program to open the LEAP Fund at the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and to open the Fund and provide seed money for projects.

Fund Created at National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

In September 2009, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, on behalf of the LEAP consortium, entered into an agreement with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to establish the Conservation Fund account.