We're the Ausable Freshwater Center!
Formerly the Ausable River Association, for 25 years we've served the Ausable watershed—restoring streams, protecting native wildlife and their habitats, and safeguarding water quality. With your support we've grown from an all-volunteer organization with a tiny budget to a staff of 10 full-time professionals dedicated to making a difference for our communities. We live in the places we protect. We partner with others to ensure efficiency. And we're independent, with no larger organization to lean on.
We're Adirondack-wide, but our home and laboratory for exploration is still the Ausable watershed. We're committed to being a hub—a center for innovation in freshwater science and stewardship. Our staff does the fieldwork that unlocks knowledge of how freshwater systems work and applies it to real-world challenges. We share our technical skills to help Adirondack communities, municipalities, peer nonprofits, landowners, and residents protect and restore their watersheds efficiently. We open people's eyes to the complexity of healthy freshwater systems and how to live respectfully with them.
Unfortunately, this year, we're facing unprecedented financial challenges—a perfect storm of financial threats.
In response, we’re diversifying funding sources, talking with our federal and state elected officials, and working closely with the agencies that deliver our funds. It’s time for us to build financial flexibility—a buffer to protect core operations from external challenges. For AFC to survive and flourish, we need a safety net. We’re building a non-endowment Resilience Fund with a target of $500,000. That amount provides enough to keep us out of debt, front essential purchases, and ensures job security and funding continuity for our incredible professional staff. We’ll have to manage it wisely, pay it back when we use it, and keep it strong, but it will add a layer of financial security we’ve never had before.
Will you help us build resilience for the Ausable Freshwater Center? Donate to the Resilience Fund. Every dollar up to $100,000 will be matched 1:1.
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