In 2016, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) entered into an agreement with Encourage Capital to explore how NRCS might better use Farm Bill conservation funding to leverage private capital. This report is the culmination of many months of interviews, discussions and analyses that involved NRCS staff as well as external partners and stakeholders.

It is rare to find a single leverage point to effect change and create multiple benefits to the world around us. The “soil sponge,” lowly as it sounds, might just be that perfect leverage point for effective community investment, because it is the basic infrastructure that makes life on land possible.