Funding priorities
Thank you for your interest in supporting Nevada Bugs and Butterflies!
This is what you can make happen with a grant of $1,000 to $10,000.
As of January 2017, our current funding priorities are:
1. Outreach Scholarship Fund
Science education is at the core of our mission, and students everywhere deserve high quality hands-on educational programming. Our outreach programs feature a variety of live native Nevada insects, emphasizing insect life cycles, habitat requirements, predator-prey interactions, and conservation. In 2015, Nevada Bugs reached over 530 students at Title I schools, determined through the number of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. New for 2017, our Outreach Scholarship Fund aims to bring our programming to even more Title I schools in 2017. With a $1000 donation, you can sponsor outreach programs to five local Title I elementary or middle schools.
2. Create a Teaching Garden
One of the best ways to teach about insects is to bring the insects to you! A well planned garden with native pollinator plants like globemallows, penstemons, and buckwheats can attract hundreds of pollinators and other beneficial insects. We use these gardens to teach about ecological concepts like pollination, food webs, life cycles, and others. Your $5,000 donation can fund the construction of one 20′ x 40′ teaching garden, highlighting the amazing interactions between plants and animals on our local landscape.
3. Citizen Science Butterfly Monitoring
We established the Nevada Butterfly Monitoring Network in 2016 to monitor and record butterfly diversity over time in our state, joining 13 other programs in the North American Butterfly Monitoring Network. These programs are valuable assets in understanding changes to native species diversity as habitats and climates change. In California, long term monitoring sites have provided evidence of widespread declines in butterfly species and provided the basis for research on climate, pesticides, habitat loss, and other drivers of these trends. With 8 sites monitored in northern Nevada in 2016, we aim to 1) increase the geographical area covered by our monitoring and 2) begin monitoring a specific set of sites that can be used as a set of core sites for a long term monitoring program. With a donation of $5,000 to 10,000, you can sponsor an undergraduate-level seasonal employee who will regularly monitor a set of 6 sites across the state of Nevada.
Call Kevin Burls at 775-200-8774 to talk about these exciting grant opportunities!
To make a grant from your Community Foundation Donor Advised Fund, call Tracy Turner at 775-333-5499 or go to www.nevadafund.org.
