Oregan Metro Nature in Neighborhoods Community Choice Grants 2025
Through Metro’s Nature in Neighborhoods Community Choice Grants, community members imagine, design and choose parks and nature projects in greater Portland. Their ideas and votes have the power to help shape the future parks and natural areas in your neighborhood.
Metro’s Community Choice Grants will award $2 to $3 million throughout parts of Clackamas County for parks and nature projects that connect people to nature close to home, improve fish and wildlife habitat, and make our region better able to handle flooding, hot summers and wildfires.
The grants fund community-led parks and nature projects that benefit communities of color, Indigenous communities, people with low incomes and other communities that have been ignored or harmed by governments. The projects that support these communities make the region better for everyone. And children 11 years and older can propose projects and vote.
These grants are available thanks to voters choosing to invest in parks and nature when they approved Metro’s 2019 parks and nature bond measure. Eligible projects must result in a physical thing publicly owned by a local government, like a city, school district, or parks district. These grants can’t be used for programs like nature education classes or swim lessons. Here are a few examples of projects that could be funded:
- Transform empty land into a park
- A path in a favorite park
- Preserving trees in aneighborhood
- Nature play area at aschool
- Benches on a trail
- Restore a neighbourhood stream
Ideas and applications are being collected now, with voting taking place in Spring 2026.
Previous rounds of Community Choices received an International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) USA award in the Respect for Diversity, Inclusion and Culture Category.
Find out more about this programme on the Oregan Metro website