National Wildlife (NWF) California Regional Executive Beth Pratt-Bergstrom is appealing for donations from private foundations towards completing the wildlife crossing at Liberty Canyon.
“If we can confirm $140,000 in new commitments by September,” she says, “we will be able to complete the project’s Environmental Review process on time and trigger the first matching $500,000 from Annenberg to move the project immediately forward into final design and construction planning.
Since the Annenberg Foundation’s announcement of their $1M matching grant for the project late last year, NWF has secured $360,000 in new gifts from private foundations.
“When we started this campaign with our many partners a few years ago, the crossing was just an idea, and had no funding attached to the project,” says Pratt-Bergstrom.
To date, NWF has raised almost $3 million for the cause that enabled an initial feasibility study and the first phase of the design plans along with the environmental review that will be completed next month.
“A contribution at this time has a significant impact as it would help close both a funding and project gap,” Pratt Bergstrom says.
As a reminder, the Annenberg match applies only to commitments received from private foundations. For more information, contact Molly Judge: JudgeM@nwf.org or (206) 577-7824.
Individual donations are still crucial and help move this project forward; they just will not be matched at this time.