2025 Trail Grants

Rails to Trails Conservancy’s Trail Grants program invests in infrastructure and programming necessary to create more access to trails for more people across the country. We believe everyone deserves access to safe spaces where they can walk, bike and be active outside, and trail networks provide those essential elements and have a proven transformative impact on America’s communities.  

RTC’s 2025 grantees represent 40 organizations that are advancing projects across rural, suburban and urban communities tackling critical elements of the work to advance the nation’s trail networks, from expanding trail access, powering new opportunities for mobility and economic development, to creating programs that welcome young people and families to experience the outdoors in new ways.  

Since 2008, RTC has provided over $3.7 million in grant funding to more than 280 organizations.   

Meet the 2025 Grantees

Hundreds of trail networks are being developed nationwide, with new trail networks coming together in every single state delivering, creating opportunities and delivering quality of life in hundreds of communities. This essential infrastructure, and events and activities that encourage participation, are what’s needed to make it safer and more convenient for millions of people to walk, bike and be active outside where they live—whether that’s to get around town or have fun in nature.   

The 2025 cohort exemplifies the nationwide demand for trail funding, working to support, develop and activate local and regional trail networks. In 2024, RTC received applications from more than 150 organizations, with requests totaling over $3.2 million. The proposals were so strong that RTC chose not to open a new application round in 2025, instead further supporting that pool of trailblazing ideas. RTC intends to open the call for proposals in spring 2026 and will share more details via the TrailNation Collaborative. 

RTC was excited to award 40 grants for a total of $398,000. The 2025 grantees are creating lasting impact in the communities they serve—bringing new infrastructure and programming to make it more equitable for people to safely walk, bike and be active outside.   

The 2025 Trail Grantees include: 

Latino Outdoors (National): Supporting Latino Outdoors’ Vamos Outdoors programming to provide members of Latinx and other underrepresented communities with transformative outdoor experiences.  

HBCUs Outside (National): Working with six Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to develop outdoor experiences on multiuse trails that introduce students to the opportunities inherent in this infrastructure.   

Special Olympics (regional chapters): Supporting on-trail activation, outdoor camps and trail kits for athletes to encourage community independence and physical activity.  

Anchorage Park Foundation (AK): Building a coalition for the Anchorage Trails Initiative along the Moose Loop trail.

East Bay Regional Park District (CA): Planning and design for the Richmond Bay Trail gap closure.  

Groundworks Jacksonville (FL): Supporting community engagement and activation to further development of the Emerald Trail.  

City of Great Falls Park and Recreation (MT): Enabling restoration of the River’s Edge trail connection. 

Park County (MT): Development of the Emigrant section of the Yellowstone Heritage Trail. 

Friends and Neighbors of Swannanoa, Inc./FANS (NC): Supporting a feasibility study for the Swannanoa Greenway.  

Catawba Lands Conservancy and Carolina Thread Trail (NC): Furthering the Spencer Mountain trail design.  

Friends of the Merrimack Greenway Trail (NH): Supporting the Riverside Connection.  

Harrison County (OH): Enabling planning and design of the Bowerston-Dennison Rail Trail.

Friends of the Merrimack Greenway Trail (NH): Supporting the Riverside Connection.  

Harrison County (OH): Enabling planning and design of the Bowerston-Dennison Rail Trail  

Friends of Madison County Parks & Trails (OH): Supporting a gap closure in London, OH.  

Delaware River City Corp./Riverfront North Partnership (PA): Supporting engagement programs for the Riverfront North Greenway.  

Rivanna Trails Foundation (VA): Advancing the Trailblazers program from Charlottesville to Shenandoah. 

City of Oak Hill (WV): Supporting trailhead development along the White Oak Rail-Trail. 

Laramie County (WY): Enabling development of the Clear Creek Park Pathway.  

Wyoming Pathways (WY): Supporting continued coalition building across Wyoming