If your organization is working at the intersection of water, community health, and outdoor access, there’s a funding opportunity worth knowing about: the REI Cooperative Action Fund.
It’s invitation-only — meaning REI doesn’t accept open applications. Instead, they rely on community recommendations to identify grantees. That makes awareness everything. If you know an organization doing this work, you can put them on REI’s radar.
What REI Is Looking For
REI funds U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofits (or organizations with a fiscal sponsor) that align with one of three grantmaking initiatives:
- Connecting People Outside — Cultivating joy, healing, belonging, and well-being by connecting historically excluded communities to outdoor spaces.
- Creating Space Outside — Ensuring equitable access to quality, culturally relevant outdoor spaces close to home.
- Centering Health Outside — Amplifying research that demonstrates nature’s role in individual and community health.
Water access, watershed health, and outdoor recreation infrastructure can fit neatly within all three of these — especially when the work centers communities that have historically been left out of conservation and outdoor recreation narratives.
Does Your Organization Qualify?
Before recommending a grantee, check these boxes:
✔ Based in the U.S. and serving U.S. communities
✔ Active 501(c)(3) status (or a fiscal sponsor with that status)
✔ Track record of connecting historically excluded communities to the outdoors
✔ Mission aligned with one of the three initiatives above
REI does not fund individuals, political or religious organizations, K–12 schools, or endowment campaigns.
How the Recommendation Process Works
The process is simple — and a single recommendation is all it takes. Organizations that receive multiple recommendations are not given any advantage, so one thoughtful nomination is just as powerful as ten.
REI receives a high volume of recommendations and cannot respond to all of them, so there’s no guarantee of funding — but getting your community’s work in front of REI’s team is a worthwhile step.
Why This Matters for Water Advocates
Water access is outdoor access. Clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable water — in rivers, streams, and public spaces — is foundational to any meaningful connection between people and the natural world. Organizations working on stormwater, drinking water equity, watershed restoration, and green infrastructure are doing exactly the kind of place-based, community-centered work REI says it wants to support.
If you’re part of the H2O Water Network community and you know of an organization whose work fits this mission, consider submitting a recommendation.
👉 REI Cooperative Action Fund — Recommend a Grantee
