From the President by Dick Knight Lately it seems the most commonly discussed subject around here is funding. With state and federal money becoming harder to get, other sources must be sought for funding our habitat restoration and community awareness projects. In the past, money has been obtained primarily through grants from agencies and private foundations. from individuals and businesses. We now have to make an effort to obtain more money from individuals and businesses. SFEG has actually formed a fundraising committee and our director is attending a year-long course on fundraising for non-profits. The focus of this committee will be to create a plan for raising funds from individuals and businesses. In the past we received grant money from the Jobs for the Environment (JFE) program, a job training program set up by the state legislature to retrain displaced natural resource workers. We also relied on money received through the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) from commercial and sport fishing licenses. The JFE program has recently closed shop and the money from WDFW is also shrinking each year. We do get funding from the state Salmon Recovery Funding Board (SRF Board), but this source does not fund education, outreach and monitoring programs, or administrative costs such as office rent and phone bills. It also does not fund much of the up front costs needed to prepare a project to be submitted for funding. As you can imagine this creates a sort of "Catch 22 " situation. For those who do not know how a project gets funded through the SRF Board, it is a long, drawn-out process, which can take nearly a year to complete. First the sponsoring group must put together a proposal and submit it to the lead entity (in our case, Skagit Watershed Council-SWC). The SWC reviews, approves and prioritizes the projects from all the sponsors. This list then goes to a Technical Review Panel for the SRF Board and again gets prioritized by level of benefit to salmon and by likelihood of success. At long last it then goes to the SRF Board which makes final funding decisions. As you can see, it can be a very long process. The mystical part is how the Technical Review Panel reviews projects. Each time it seems the rules change and whatever presentation was successful last year is no good this year, making it difficult to count on consistent project funding. I guess what I am trying to get across here is that fundraising has become almost a full time job. You can help SFEG secure funding for future salmon habitat restoration projects by renewing your membership, or by becoming a member today. It is all for a very good cause close to all of our hearts….helping salmon.