photo by: Douglas County Heritage Conservation Council

Volunteers plant native plants for a research project at Black Jack Battlefield and Nature Park.

The county has awarded thousands in grants each year to support historic preservation, cultural programs and natural resource conservation, but growing demand is putting increasing pressure on the program’s available funding.

The Natural and Cultural Heritage Grant Program — which is administered by the Heritage Conservation Council — provides funding to support conservation projects in Douglas County. The goal is to ensure that the community’s historic resources are not lost to time and are preserved, celebrated and shared.

According to a report shared with Douglas County commissioners, since 2011, $3.6 million in grant funding has been awarded across 158 projects. The projects have varied over the years, with examples including La Yarda Art signage along the Lawrence Loop, the Juneteenth Celebration, Baldwin Woods conservation and riverbank restoration along the Kansas River.

“Grant funding has helped community museums expand exhibits and address preservation needs, supported natural area surveys that improve the understanding of the county’s natural resources, and provided hands-on educational opportunities focused on local history, stories and ecology,” Kaitlyn Ammerlaan, the county’s Heritage Conservation Coordinator, told the Journal-World via email.

Ammerlaan said the Heritage Conservation Council will continue to have tough decisions to make going forward as more funding requests are received from community partners. The application volume and requests for funding from the program has increased in the last six years.

While the county has awarded at least a few million dollars in the last 16 years, the total grant funding requested by community organizations totaled about $10.1 million — nearly $6.5 million more than what was actually awarded.

“Like many competitive grant programs, the Natural and Cultural Heritage Grant receives requests that exceed available funding,” Ammerlaan said. “With the ongoing support from the County Commission, county staff and the Heritage Conservation Council administer the program within the available resources.”

The annual funding for the program has fluctuated since the program it was established in 2011. The program’s first two years had nearly $300,000 in available funding, but since then, it has declined in the following years.

The program hit its lowest funding level in 2019, when $135,000 was available for grants. Then, funding increased to $200,000 in 2020 and remained at that level through 2022. It rose to $210,000 in 2023 and $220,000 in 2024 before decreasing to $210,000 in 2025. This year, the program had $250,000 available — with $40,000 coming from the Heritage Conservation reserve account.

In 2027, the county has set aside $210,000 to be awarded for the grant cycle.

In order to fund a diverse group of projects and meet the demand of the program each year, the Heritage Conservation Council has often recommended only partial funding to many of the project proposals. Of the 158 projects supported with the program, 103 of them have been partially funded.

A project is likely to receive full funding if it is a seed project, which is a project totaling $5,000 or less. In 2026, to address the growing demand of funding for the Natural and Cultural Heritage Grant, $40,000 of the Heritage Conservation reserve account balance was allocated to support these kinds of projects, as the Journal-World reported.

The funding for the seed projects was accompanied with a separate and shorter application along with fewer review criteria to help reduce the administrative burden on applicants. In response, 17 seed grant applications — totaling $79,770 — were received, in contrast to just one in 2025, and a majority of them were first-time applicants to the program.

“This change helped bring in new applicants and distribute funding across a wider range of project types and focus areas,” Ammerlaan said. “Our hope is that emphasizing smaller awards, alongside support for larger and more complex projects, will help balance funding demand and strengthen the overall effectiveness of the program.”

The report said the Heritage Conservation Council intends to propose a continuation of this set up for the seed projects in future years as funds allow.

In addition, after completing an Open Space pilot grant program in 2023 and 2024, the report said county staff are continuing to “field questions regarding funding availability for trail and conservation projects.”

A draft vision plan for the Wakarusa River Valley offered the idea of introducing open space-specific grant funding to help continue work in the county’s Open Space Plan. The report said the creation of this program could reduce the pressure and overall demand on Natural and Cultural Heritage Grant Program. It could also help the county invest in other categories, such as historic preservation, that have become less competitive over time.

“Work related to the Open Space Plan is ongoing, including the Wakarusa Vision Plan and the Land Protection Pilot with the Kansas Land Trust,” Ammerlaan said, referring to the county’s partnership with the nonprofit to promote and facilitate voluntary, permanent land conservation easements.

“Those efforts will help inform ongoing discussions about future priorities and potential program approaches as the work progresses,” Ammerlaan said.

The Heritage Conservation Council already anticipates making some changes to the program’s application for 2027. The potential changes include requiring overhead costs to be included in each budget request from partners, request additional information from for-profit businesses on the application, and allow more review time for applications.

Ammerlaan said next year’s program materials are still being developed by staff and the Heritage Conservation Council. Any changes will be shared with the Douglas County Commission prior to when the 2027 funding cycle begins.

“No major changes are expected at this time,” Ammerlaan said.

To further share the history and outcomes of the program with the public, a community exhibition at the Watkins Museum of History is scheduled to open on Nov. 17. There will be additional details shared at a later date, Ammerlaan said.

For a full list of funded projects through the county’s Natural and Cultural Heritage Grant program, an online, interactive map can be found at dgcoks.gov/hcc/grantmap.