Second Nature Catalyst Grants 2026 (Round Seven): Up to $5,000 in Unrestricted Funding to Jumpstart Campus Climate Projects

Second Nature Catalyst Grants 2026 (Round Seven): Up to $5,000 in Unrestricted Funding to Jumpstart Campus Climate Projects

Most campus sustainability offices do not fail for lack of ideas. They fail because the idea sits in a shared document for three years waiting for someone to fund the first $4,000 of it — the pilot, the consultant day, the student worker’s hours, the equipment that turns a proposal into a demonstration. Second Nature’s Catalyst Grants exist for exactly that gap. Round Seven opened on July 22, 2026 and closes on September 24, 2026, offering up to $5,000 per institution in unrestricted funding to colleges and universities pursuing climate action.

Five thousand dollars is not a capital grant, and Second Nature does not pretend otherwise. The program describes itself as the spark that jumpstarts a nascent project, or the boost that builds capacity to advance work already underway. That framing is the single most important thing to understand before applying. Reviewers are not looking for the most ambitious decarbonization plan in the country. They are looking for the project where a modest, unrestricted award produces disproportionate movement — because the money unblocks something specific that was otherwise stuck.

This guide is built from Second Nature’s official Catalyst Grants page and its published records of past recipients. It covers what the award funds, who is eligible (the membership requirement is strict, with one deliberate exception), how the review works, and how to write an application that reads as a credible, well-scoped plan rather than a wish list.

Key Details at a Glance

What the Grant Actually Provides

The headline is up to $5,000, but the more valuable characteristic is that the funding is unrestricted. Second Nature states the money can be used for expenditures related to the project including materials, capacity building, and staffing. In a higher education context that flexibility is unusual and genuinely useful. Restricted grants routinely fund equipment but not the person who operates it, or a study but not the implementation of what the study recommends. Catalyst Grants let you fund the actual bottleneck.

Second Nature permits indirect costs of up to 10%. Budget that deliberately. If your sponsored programs office has a standard negotiated rate well above 10%, you need to confirm in advance that they will accept the reduced rate on this award — that conversation is far easier to have in August than in November after a decision letter arrives.

Beyond the cash, awardees receive recognition through a Second Nature press release, website feature, email, and social media, plus an opportunity to present at the 2027 Summit. For a small sustainability office, that visibility has practical downstream value. Being named in a national press release is the kind of artifact that helps when you go back to your own administration asking for a recurring budget line, and presenting at the Summit puts your project in front of peer institutions who may replicate or co-fund it.

Who Is Eligible — and the One Deliberate Exception

Eligibility is narrower than most open grant programs, so confirm your standing before investing time in a proposal.

The primary route is active membership in Second Nature’s Climate Leadership Network, which includes Affiliate members and UC3 (University Climate Change Coalition) campuses. Membership is not merely nominal: institutions are expected to be current with their annual reporting and dues to Second Nature. If your campus signed a climate commitment years ago but has lapsed on greenhouse gas inventory submissions or dues, you are not in good standing, and that is a solvable problem — but solve it before the deadline, not after.

The second route is the exception Second Nature carved out to expand access: non-member HBCUs and Tribal Institutions are eligible to apply. This is not a technicality buried in fine print; it is a stated commitment. Second Nature further guarantees that at least one Catalyst Grant will be awarded to an HBCU or Tribal Institution, and at least one will be awarded to a Community College. If you work at one of those institutions, understand what that means competitively: you are not being measured against the entire applicant pool for those reserved awards. That materially changes the expected value of spending an afternoon on the application.

Second Nature also states a preference for schools that have been traditionally underfunded or that have more modest endowments. This is a program consciously trying not to route small grants to institutions that could write the check themselves. If your institution has a large endowment and a well-staffed sustainability office, you can still apply, but your proposal needs to justify why this specific $5,000 is the constraint.

On who may submit: staff, faculty, or students are all permitted to apply. The funds, however, are distributed to the institution rather than to the individual. A student-initiated proposal therefore needs an institutional home — a department, office, or center that can receive and administer the funds. Sort that out before you submit rather than discovering it during an award conversation.

Collaboration is explicitly encouraged. Partners may include community organizations, nonprofits, government agencies, or other campus departments. If your project already has a partner with skin in the game, name them.

What Kinds of Projects Get Funded

Second Nature identifies four broad areas: reducing campus greenhouse gas emissions, increasing climate resilience, preparing students for clean energy careers, and advancing environmental justice. Projects may be brand new initiatives, expansions of an existing program, or implementation of work that has already been planned.

The published record of past recipients is the best available guide to what actually wins, and it is worth reading closely because the pattern is consistent — these are small, concrete, sharply bounded interventions:

• Central Oregon Community College used its award for personnel to manage the technical and operational elements of building a campus Climate Action Plan: organizing data, identifying emissions reduction strategies, and determining mechanisms for tracking progress. The grant paid for the labor that turns a planning mandate into a finished document.
• Warren Wilson College restructured its Center for Working Lands into a training facility for students and regional landowners focused on reducing the climate impacts of land management, and purchased an electric Solectrac tractor.
• Western Colorado University hired a part-time Climate Justice Intern to ensure attention to climate justice and equity, involve students in completing its Climate Action Plan, and deliver three participatory sustainability workshops.
• Bellevue College replaced small gas-powered grounds equipment with electric alternatives, reducing emissions while improving staff working conditions and air quality — an equity benefit alongside the emissions one.
• University of North Carolina at Pembroke converted lignin into sustainable porous carbons for clean-energy storage while providing hands-on research opportunities for students.

Notice what these have in common. Each has a defined deliverable achievable within roughly a year. Each names the people involved. Several deliberately pair an emissions outcome with a student-learning or equity outcome. And in most cases you can see precisely what the $5,000 bought: an intern, a tractor, a set of electric tools, staff hours. That legibility is the point.

How Applications Are Reviewed

Second Nature publishes its review criteria, and a strong application addresses each one on its own terms rather than hoping a good narrative covers all of them. Proposals are evaluated on:

1. A clear project description and stakeholder involvement. Reviewers want to know what you will do, who is involved, and who benefits.
2. Incorporation of principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. This is a scored criterion, not framing language.
3. Leverage of existing campus climate activities. How does this connect to work already happening — your climate action plan, an existing course, a facilities project?
4. Campus matching support and resources. What is your institution putting in alongside the grant?
5. Clarity of budget justification. Not just what you will spend, but why each line is necessary.

Criteria three and four deserve particular attention because they are where weak applications lose ground. “Leverage” means your project should not read as a freestanding one-off. The strongest framing is: here is a commitment or plan we have already made, here is the specific step we cannot currently take, here is how $5,000 takes it.

Matching support does not have to mean cash. Staff time, existing facilities, in-kind departmental contributions, a faculty member’s course release, and partner contributions are all real resources. But quantify them. “The Office of Sustainability supports this project” says nothing. “The Office of Sustainability is contributing approximately 80 hours of the assistant director’s time to supervise the intern” is a match a reviewer can weigh.

Preparing a Competitive Application

Applications are submitted through an online form linked from the official Catalyst Grants page, and Second Nature’s stated requirements include a budget justification. Because the form is short relative to a federal proposal, the temptation is to write it in a single sitting the week of the deadline. Resist that. The constraint on a short application is not effort, it is precision — you have very little room, so every sentence must carry weight.

A practical sequence:

Confirm eligibility first. Check that your institution is an active Climate Leadership Network member in good standing on reporting and dues, or that you qualify under the HBCU/Tribal Institution exception. Second Nature directs membership questions to Steve Muzzy. One email resolves this.

Pick the bottleneck, not the vision. Write down the project you actually want to do, then identify the single component that is blocked for want of a few thousand dollars. Fund that. A proposal that says “we will build a comprehensive campus resilience program” is weaker than one that says “we will hire a student to complete our resilience assessment’s stormwater section by May 2027.”

Name people and dates. Who runs the project? Who supervises? When does each phase happen? A timeline with named owners signals that this will survive contact with a semester.

Build the budget line by line with justification attached. For each line, state what it buys and why the project fails without it. Keep indirect costs at or under 10% and confirm your finance office accepts that rate.

Make the DEIJ and equity dimension substantive. The Bellevue College example is instructive: swapping gas equipment for electric was framed as emissions plus staff working conditions plus air quality. The equity dimension was inherent in the project, not appended to the narrative. Look for the version of your project where that is genuinely true.

Get a second reader. Ideally someone outside your immediate office who can tell you whether the deliverable is clear to a stranger.

Timeline and What Happens After You Submit

The Round Seven schedule is fully published, which makes planning straightforward:

• July 22, 2026 — applications open
• September 24, 2026 — applications close
• October 5 – October 28, 2026 — review period
• November 24, 2026 — awards announced

That leaves roughly two months between the deadline and the announcement. Plan your project start date accordingly: if your proposal depends on hiring a student worker, a spring-semester start is realistic, while anything requiring fall-term execution is not.

Awardees take on real reporting obligations. Second Nature requires a six-month interim report and a final year-end report, and awardees are expected to coordinate with the Second Nature communications team on publicity. Build both reports into your project plan at the outset. The interim report in particular is a useful forcing function — if you have a mid-year checkpoint on the calendar, the project is far less likely to drift.

One helpful detail: Second Nature offers feedback after selection to applicants whose proposals were not approved. Ask for it. Catalyst Grants run annually, and a proposal revised against specific reviewer comments is a meaningfully stronger candidate the following round.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Applying without confirming membership standing. The most common disqualifier is administrative, not substantive. Lapsed reporting or unpaid dues can sink an otherwise strong proposal. Verify first.

Proposing a project that needs $50,000. A $5,000 request attached to a plan that visibly requires ten times that reads as unserious. Either scope down to a fundable phase or explain precisely where the remaining funding is already secured.

Treating equity as a paragraph. Reviewers score DEIJ principles as a criterion. Bolted-on language is easy to spot. If the project has no genuine equity dimension, consider whether a different project from your portfolio is the better submission.

Leaving matching support vague. Unquantified institutional support is not evidence of commitment.

Ignoring the leverage criterion. A project disconnected from your existing climate work is competing on ambition alone against proposals that can show momentum.

Forgetting the institution receives the funds. Student and faculty applicants should identify the administering office before submitting, not after.

Budgeting indirect costs above 10%. This is a stated cap. Exceeding it forces a revision at best.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a non-member institution apply? No, with one exception: non-member HBCUs and Tribal Institutions are eligible. All other applicants must be active Climate Leadership Network members, including Affiliates and UC3 campuses.

Can students apply? Yes. Staff, faculty, and students may all submit applications. However, funds are distributed to the institution rather than to an individual, so a student proposal needs an institutional home to administer the award.

Can I apply for an existing program rather than a new one? Yes. Second Nature explicitly accepts new projects, expansions of existing programs, and implementation efforts across climate action initiatives.

Are the funds restricted to particular expense categories? No. The funding is unrestricted and can cover materials, capacity building, and staffing, subject to the 10% indirect cost cap.

Can we partner with organizations outside the campus? Yes, and it is encouraged. Partners may include community organizations, nonprofits, government agencies, or other departments.

How much is awarded in total each round? Second Nature has not published a total pool figure for Round Seven on the program page. Past rounds have varied — earlier announcements reference cohorts of eight to eleven institutions and totals in the $75,000 to $100,000 range — but the Round Seven total is not confirmed. What is confirmed is the per-institution cap of $5,000 and the guarantee that at least one award goes to an HBCU or Tribal Institution and at least one to a Community College.

What if we are not selected? Second Nature makes feedback available after selection. Request it and use it for the next round.

Is This Worth Your Time?

For an eligible institution, the answer is almost always yes, and the reasoning is about ratio rather than size. The application is short. The eligibility check is a single email. The award is unrestricted, which makes it usable in ways larger restricted grants are not. And the non-cash components — a national press release, a Summit presentation slot — carry weight in internal budget conversations that a $5,000 line item alone would not.

The institutions that should be most attentive are community colleges, HBCUs, Tribal Institutions, and smaller schools with modest endowments. Second Nature has structured this program around them: a stated preference for underfunded institutions, an eligibility exception for non-member HBCUs and Tribal Institutions, and reserved awards for an HBCU or Tribal Institution and a community college. That is a deliberately built on-ramp, and it is underused.

The clearest signal of fit is this: if you can name a specific project that is currently stalled, identify the single expense unblocking it, and describe what will exist twelve months from now that does not exist today, you have the core of a competitive Catalyst Grant application. If you cannot name that project, the honest answer is to spend the fall building the plan and apply to Round Eight.

Official Links and Contact

• Catalyst Grants program page: https://secondnature.org/climate-leadership-network/network-exclusives/catalyst-grants/ — application link, timeline, eligibility, and review criteria
• Second Nature Network Exclusives: https://secondnature.org/climate-leadership-network/network-exclusives/ — other benefits available to Climate Leadership Network members
• Membership and eligibility questions: Steve Muzzy, Second Nature
• Phone: 617.722.0036
• Mailing address: 160 Alewife Brook Pkwy #1182, Cambridge, MA 02138

Always confirm dates, amounts, and eligibility on the official Second Nature page before submitting. Program terms change between rounds, and the official page is the authoritative source.