Investment and Innovation grant update
Following a careful evaluation, Metro has decided to discontinue the Investment and Innovation program to focus on other priorities. This decision reflects a thoughtful balancing of resources and ensuring that investments have the greatest impact. We encourage interested parties to explore new funding streams as they become available and will continue to share updates on opportunities to advance sustainability and equity in our region.
Oregon has a long history of leadership when it comes to preventing waste and promoting recycling. Metro is in a unique position to invest in and support innovation from local businesses and communities to reduce the negative impacts of products used and discarded in the greater Portland area.
Metro’s Investment and Innovation grant program supports for-profit businesses, nonprofit organizations, and colleges and universities involved in creative efforts to prevent waste or make better use of waste through repairing, reusing, recycling or composting materials.
The Investment and Innovation grant program also fosters economic opportunities for people who have been left out of the benefits of the garbage and recycling system, particularly communities of color.
The program:
- Offers grants to for-profit businesses, nonprofit organizations, and colleges and universities involved in reducing, reusing, recycling or composting materials that may otherwise be discarded as waste.
- Focuses on strengthening the reuse, repair, composting and recycling systems in greater Portland, as well as reducing environmental and health impacts in the local manufacturing and use of products.
- Helps achieve the goals of the 2030 Regional Waste Plan, the blueprint for improving the garbage and recycling system in greater Portland.
- Advances Metro’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts by investing in projects that benefit communities and workers in the garbage and recycling system, and increases access to services for underserved residents.
- Awards grants through a competitive solicitation process and recommendations by review committees.
2023 Investment and Innovation grants
In August 2023, Metro awarded 19 Investment and Innovation grants totaling nearly $2 million to local businesses and nonprofits in greater Portland. Metro's funding will leverage an additional $798,087 in matching funds provided by six business applicants. Nonprofit organizations are not required to provide matching funds.
Grant recipients will reduce waste in the region through creative projects focused on food waste prevention, reuse, repair and recycling. The projects will build capacity for nonprofit organizations and small businesses and provide employment opportunities in the garbage and recycling system. All 2023 Investment and Innovation grantees submitted proposals that elevated the needs of marginalized people, helping advance Regional Waste Plan equity goals.
Investment and Innovation grant awards
2024 Investment and Innovation Annual Report
Since 2018, Metro has awarded more than $12.7 million in grants to local businesses, nonprofit organizations, and colleges and universities in greater Portland. The 2024 Investment and Innovation Program Annual Report provides an overview of the individual grants awarded to date and the cumulative impacts of completed grant-funded projects across greater Portland. The report highlights the creative ways grant recipients are reducing waste and making better use of waste, while at the same time benefiting communities of color and other marginalized groups.
In addition, a detailed evaluation of the first three years of the Investment and Innovation program was published in 2021.