Each year, JDCF recognizes an individual or organization that has made outstanding achievements in land preservation, land stewardship, or of the understanding of natural habitats and or cultural heritage sites in our region. This year, JDCF is pleased to announce that the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation has received the 2025 Nancy Hamill Winter Conservation Leadership Award. The award will be presented at JDCF’s annual meeting on April 3, 2025.

The Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation (ICECF) was created in 1999 as an independent nonprofit supporting projects that improved energy efficiency and preserved or enhanced natural habitats and wildlife areas throughout the State of Illinois. Funding for the Foundation was provided through an endowment from Commonwealth Edison. Without ICECF support, the natural landscape in northwest Illinois might look very different since it has been the number one source of private funding for conservation in Illinois for the last 25 years. Although other grant-making foundations have also made significant investments in conservation over this same time period, none of them have made an investment as significant as ICECF.

Since 2006, ICECF has made 33 separate grant awards to JDCF totaling nearly $5.8 million. This includes 17 grants for land protection and 16 grants for the ecological restoration, public amenities, and organizational capacity necessary to manage these protected lands. Over 1,672 acres were protected by JDCF using ICECF funds, including Casper Bluff, Horseshoe Mound, Gateway Park, Rutherford Refuge, and Wapello Reserve. In addition, ICECF has made numerous grants to other organizations in the region, including the City of Galena for a new solar-powered sewage treatment plan and Natural Land Institute for various land preservation projects.

ICECF has created an enduring legacy of protected public open space in northwest Illinois for generations to come, making it a very worthy recipient of this award. Although the Foundation closed its doors as planned last year, it made a final grant to the Prairie State Conservation Coalition, which will begin making grants for land and easement acquisition, ecological restoration, and organizational capacity building in 2025.

The Nancy Hamill Winter Conservation Leadership Award is named after JDCF’s long-time board member and past Board President and Vice President, Nancy Hamill Winter. Formerly a Stockton resident, Nancy dedicated much of her adult life to the preservation and care of natural habitats and the Native American cultural heritage of northern Illinois.

Photo of downtown Galena, Il, from Gateway Park (c) Rich Mattas.