Eligible Applicants
To be eligible for a grant in this cycle, the following requirements must be met:
- New Jersey municipality located in ACE service territory.
- Registered or certified in the Sustainable Jersey Program. Check your municipality’s Sustainable Jersey program status here.
- No open Sustainable Communities grants*
*Previous recipients of Sustainable Communities grants can apply for another grant in the current cycle even if their project is not yet complete. As long as the project is completed by the end of July, the grant application will still be considered. Grants cannot be awarded to municipalities that are still working on previous Sustainable Communities grant projects. For more information about closing out a grant or reporting requirements, click here.
Other Sustainable Jersey grant awards and participation in technical assistance programs will not affect a municipality's eligibility to apply for a Sustainable Communities grant. For example, your municipality can still apply for a Sustainable Communities grant even if it has an open Sustainable Jersey grant funded by the PSEG Foundation.
A municipality is eligible to apply for one Environmental Stewardship Grant and/or one Resiliency Grant. However, only one grant will be awarded to a municipality.
More detailed information can be found in the Application Information Packet.
Eligible Projects & Expenses
Matching or in-kind contributions (including volunteer time) are encouraged, but not required. Funding can be passed through to a non-profit, partner organization, or contractor, but the municipality must be the applicant and will be responsible for the reporting requirements. Checks will be made payable to the municipality and sent to its fiscal agent.
Environmental Stewardship Grants
Eligible activities:
- Developing or updating open space plans
- Improving applicant-owned open spaces such as meadows, woodlands, and riparian buffers or capital improvements for passive recreation such as installing trails, boardwalks, informational kiosks, and observation platforms
- Acquisition of parcels of land to be used for open space or conservation easements
Eligible expenses:
- Professional service fees
- Costs associated with obtaining public input on plans such as hall rental, advertising, printing
- Materials and equipment
- Expenses that support the acquisition (by purchase or donation) of open space or conservation easements such as land cost, development rights, legal or consultant fees, surveying, environmental assessments, appraisals, etc.
Resiliency Grants
Eligible activities:
- Implementation of strategies to minimize the impact of severe weather events, natural disasters or other emergencies impacting the environment
- Emergency operations planning, training, and community outreach
- Purchase of supplies and equipment needed to respond to emergencies including energy storage and stationary or mobile solar
Eligible expenses:
- Professional service fees
- Costs associated with implementing public outreach and education efforts
- Materials and equipment
Ineligible Expenses
- Staff time for municipal or authority employees for any aspect of these projects and basic operating expenses are not eligible expenses.
- Reimbursement for a project underway or already completed. Efforts to be funded by the grant should not start until after the grant announcement event that will occur the last week of September. Planning steps can occur beforehand.
Sponsor Recognition
It is recommended that the project team work with the grant media contact to develop a strategy to promote the completion of the grant through the community and local media. The promotion of the grant should include the Atlantic City Electric and Sustainable Jersey logos. Copies of materials documenting recognition of Atlantic City Electric and Sustainable Jersey are required as part of the final grant report.
Download Atlantic City Electric Logo
Download Sustainable Jersey Logo
All grant recipients are required to notify Sustainable Jersey of any project-related ribbon-cutting ceremonies or milestone events so that media outreach can be coordinated with Sustainable Jersey and Atlantic City Electric. The purpose of these events is to celebrate the municipality's accomplishments in completing the grant project with the community and recognize the program funder.
Additionally, grant recipients are required to install a sign indicating that the project was made possible through the Sustainable Communities Grant Program funded by Atlantic City Electric and administered through the Sustainable Jersey Grants Program where applicable. Reasonable costs for the signage can be included in the project budget. Project funders should also be indicated on reports or other materials developed with grant funds.
If installing signage or holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony does not apply to your project, there are other ways to share the success of the project with the rest of the community. Consider presenting grant accomplishments in public meetings, distributing printed communications, and creating website content and social media postings. Social media posts should utilize the #sustainablecommunities hashtag.