The Monteverde Community Fund serves as a bridge between funding sources (local & external) and grassroots sustainable development programs in the mountain communities bordering the Monteverde Cloud Forest. Our Small Grants Program awards funds to several projects each year. The Technical Assistance Program empowers local non-profit groups with financial services and capacity-building. In addition, we help facilitate information-sharing and coordinated action around community-wide concerns.
Founded in 2012, the Monteverde Community Fund (MCF) works with community members and visitors to promote and support sustainable development initiatives in the Monteverde region of Costa Rica. We connect stakeholders and resources, facilitating innovative solutions to emerging environmental, social, and economic challenges.
Monteverde enjoys exceptional social and biological diversity, which creates a unique set of both benefits and challenges. The area hosts a vibrant community of approximately 7,000 people, a mix of Costa Rican and international cultures. This mountainous region is also home to unique and threatened cloud and rain forests in the largest complex of private reserves in Central America. These reserves sequester much of the region’s carbon emissions and protect numerous endangered and endemic animal and plant species.
What began as a rural agricultural community is now a major tourist destination, welcoming more than 200,000 visitors each year from all over the world. A high level of tourism has enriched the area in many ways, but has also placed pressure on the local community, which seeks balance between economic development and sustainability. The MCF supports the local population by serving as a bridge between grassroots programs for social welfare, economic development, and environmental conservation and the institutions, visitors, and philanthropists who support them.
The Monteverde Community Fund offers a range of services to support local sustainability initiatives.
Our Small Grants Program (SGP) gives out grants each year to fund grassroots projects throughout the area. Grant categories have been determined based on community and stakeholder input. Examples of recent projects include “Amor Animal,” which worked with stray animals to help them find homes and keep them out of protected areas; funding for local schools to grow organic gardens and install rainwater catchments to use in bathrooms; and the purchase of a solar panel for the public library to meet its electricity needs.
Our Technical Assistance Program (TAP) empowers area non-profit organizations through training and advising on community and environmental projects that have potential to beneficially impact the region. Dozens of community members have attended our grant writing and project management courses, designed to improve the efficacy and efficiency of organizations.
The MCF serves as fiscal agent for several area organizations through Strategic Funds. These funds are administered by the MCF, which provides financial services and shared fundraising promotion, allowing the affiliated organizations to focus instead on their community benefit missions.
We work with individual donors and businesses to create Donor Circles around areas of interest and need. By supporting the MCF, we can make these resources available to Monteverde and the surrounding region in a more efficient, impactful, and transparent way.
