DELTA INSTITUTE

Organization-Wide
Through our work, Delta Institute benefits more than five million Midwesterners by transitioning one million acres to conservation-focused practices, and by improving water quality and reducing flooding by capturing 100 million stormwater gallons. By 2025 we will achieve these goals through our agriculture, climate, water, and community development projects.

This is what a more resilient, equitable, and innovative Midwest looks like.

Resilient Agriculture
Delta Institute supports 1,000 farmers as they transition to sustainable and regenerative practices, thus improving the environment, mitigating the impacts of climate change, and strengthening a farmer’s bottom line. We forecast that by 2025, one million Midwestern agricultural acres will successfully transition to conservation-focused farming practices, so our region’s primary economic driver can be more environmentally and financially sound.

Nature-Based Climate Solutions
Delta Institute assists municipalities by integrating natural climate solutions and Green Infrastructure (GI) to reduce climate change impacts by capturing 100 million stormwater gallons and leveraging $100 million in municipal GI investment. We focus on communities that are disproportionately affected by flooding and climate change, to collaboratively improve their environmental indicators, mitigate local impacts of climate change, and strengthen their neighborhoods’ resilience.

Sustainability and Support Services
Delta Institute assists municipalities by integrating natural climate solutions and Green Infrastructure (GI) to reduce climate change impacts by capturing 100 million stormwater gallons and leveraging $100 million in municipal GI investment. We focus on communities that are disproportionately affected by flooding and climate change, to collaboratively improve their environmental indicators, mitigate local impacts of climate change, and strengthen their neighborhoods’ resilience.

All Delta projects hinge completely on intentional, respectful, and authentic inclusion of our community partners. We work with more than 300 partners in communities throughout the Midwest, ranging from small rural towns in Iowa, Michigan, and southern Illinois with only a few thousand residents each, to large regions within Chicagoland and counties with millions of residents—creating equitable and economically feasible solutions to environmental challenges that each community faces. Delta’s partner communities retain the economic, environmental, and social benefits from our collaboration, and the tools and resources that are co-created are used by local change-makers and adapted and spread for wider impact. It is through this open and transparent approach--without any “ownership” of final resources--that communities may move progress toward their self-defined and described goals.

Investing in partnerships and relationship building is critical. Delta has demonstrated its expertise in environmentally sustainable development and has earned a reputation as an impact-oriented, innovative, and collaborative partner for government, business, and community organizations throughout the Midwest. Delta staff have demonstrated expertise around community planning, project management, facilitation, land use planning, brownfield redevelopment and ports related economic development. Delta has led several successful community planning projects in which we lend capacity to municipalities, community groups and other stakeholders seeking to transform underutilized land into assets that confer benefits to the existing residents and businesses. Delta has been the “backbone organization” in large collaborative and collective impact efforts that require strong internal management and financial reporting infrastructure.

Delta Institute has nearly 25 years of experience developing innovative models to support working lands conservation, and in recent years, Delta has explored how similar approaches might provide long-term, sustainable change in our regional (with national implications) food chain. This work has resulted in broad partnerships, improved decision support systems, and funding mechanisms. Delta manages grant-supported work within the parameters outlined in our Quality and Environment Management System (QEMS), which provides a framework for management of documents, communications, and finances, enabling Delta to complete projects on time and within grant parameters. Delta Institute also has the financial management systems in place to comply with federal and private foundation grant requirements. Over the last 5 years, Delta has invested in state-of-the-art project management and financial tools to ensure transparency and accountability for organizational operations.

Our current and recent Nature-Based Climate Solutions goals and efforts include:
Increase adoption and integration of green and natural infrastructure. Projects include:
1) Partnering with communities to install GI, ranging from riparian restoration to wetland creation to municipal/built stormwater management projects to reduce flooding and improve water quality to grassroots efforts which prioritize biodiversity and economic improvement for Chicago’s South Side.
2)Sharing our GI designs guide, an open-source guide with standard GI techniques for community use; and,
Planting thousands of trees throughout the Midwest to capture as much water as possible—such as through our recent project in Oceana County, Michigan—while also hosting capacity-building workshops that advance long term forestry management at the local level.

Create an integrated administration program to scale up implementation of green and natural infrastructure. Projects include:
1) Collaborating with a cluster of public and private sector partners through RISC Solutions to provide tools, leverage knowledge, and execute $10 million in investments for improved water quality and more green neighborhoods; and,
2) Partnering directly with municipalities to design strategies for implementing GI, such as in our Gary, Indiana GI plan.

Our primary Resilient Agriculture goals/efforts include:
Standardize Soil Health Testing and Increase its Use as a Metric for Farm Management. Projects include:
1)Creating a soil health testing guide so that more farmers can benefit from carbon markets and incentive programs;
2) Addressing the perceived asset value—or lack thereof—of regeneratively farmed land; and,
3) Developing a land valuation approach that incorporates soil health, with a keen focus on farmland appraisals.

Create an Integrated Administration Program to Scale-up Conservation Practice Implementation. Projects include:
1)Assessing current conditions and providing strategic recommendations with regional expansion of conservation practices throughout Southeast Michigan, with statewide (and beyond) implications;
2) Evaluating the gaps, needs, and interconnectedness between conservation practice adoption and incentive programs;
3) Sequestering carbon, reducing nutrient pollution, and improving water quality through land management (including pay for performance in target watersheds); and,
4) Creating Midwest-specific value chains that center regeneratively produced materials while investing in local farmers.

Our Sustainability and Support Services portfolio of work advances a variety of projects including:
-Coordinating implementation of the Chicago Waste Strategy 2021 with the City of Chicago, advancing 63 recommendations to address waste and materials management;
-Catalyzing private sector investment through sustainable development on Chicago’s Southeast Side, ultimately creating community-led sustainable development guidelines for the revitalization of vacant brownfields.