LEAF Partnership

Valley Vision is offering a free, three-part virtual series for local governments, nonprofits, and community organizations across the Sierra and Sacramento Valley who work with woody biomass and are ready to build the business model and financing strategy to get their projects funded.

Missed Parts 1 and 2? Click here for recordings: https://www.youtube.com/@valleyvision6647

Part 3 takes place on July 31 at 12:00pm! To register for part 3 click here.

Part #3: Now that we've covered operations and productization, let's unlock the capital to build it. Join us for the final webinar in our series, where we are bringing in financial professionals to discuss real-world financing, grants, and funding opportunities. The capstone session maps the full landscape of financing tools, grants, low-interest loans, public/private and public/public partnership structures, and puts them in context for your specific project type. You'll learn how to sequence funding sources, structure your ask, and present your…

LEAF partners working in forest health, wildfire resilience, prescribed fire, biomass utilization, watershed restoration, tribal stewardship, and landscape-scale collaboration may want to take a close look at California's new 2026 Wildfire Resilience Block Grant opportunity.

Funded through Proposition 4, this program is designed to strengthen regional capacity by supporting collaborative, landscape-scale projects that reduce wildfire risk, improve forest and landscape resilience, and invest in long-term implementation efforts. The program emphasizes partnerships, regional coordination, and projects that deliver multiple community and environmental benefits.

This funding may be particularly relevant for:

• Forest collaboratives and stewardship organizations

• Tribes and tribal organizations

• Resource Conservation Districts

Thank you all for contributing to robust attendance at our LEAF Workgroup meeting that took place yesterday. We were glad to hear your updates, concerns, and feedback about the tools we have developed. We continue to welcome that feedback as you familiarize yourself with the tools, so please don't hesitate to reach out to myself (skaufman@mljt.org) and Rose (rday@mljt.org) with any questions or comments.

For those who were unable to attend, you can click here to the Zoom recording. You will need to use the following passcode to access the recording: y$GpHqa7. You can also review the meeting transcript and chat log via this link.

A few highlights from the discussion:

• Partners provided valuable feedback on the Central Sierra Regional Partnership Funding Coordination Matrix, including recommendations to incorporate additional datasets, project mapping layers, funding programs, and implementation resources. Some feedback was captured in our live poll results below: