Applications for the 2025 North Atlantic Cohort are now closed. Applications for the 2026 Baja-Sonora Cohort will open in Fall 2025.
The Baja-Sonora Transboundary Region:
The Salazar Center has chosen to focus on the Baja-Sonora region of Mexico and the U.S. for the 2026 Accelerator program. This landscape is defined primarily in accordance with the Baja California & Southern Deserts bioregion, as outlined by OneEarth. The Accelerator’s boundary strategically expands upon the bioregion to include the Tijuana River Basin and the marine area of the Sea of Cortez, to meet the boundary of the Rio Grande basin to the east on the U.S. side, and—in recognition of the efficacy of working within political boundaries in Mexico—to align with the state borders of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Baja California Sur. This target geography supports the Salazar Center’s desire to recruit a cohort of project teams with a shared ecology and common socio-cultural ground but from a large enough swath to bring together groups from two countries in a context where they might not otherwise interact.The Baja-Sonora region includes diverse terrestrial, coastal, and marine ecosystems from Baja California to the Sonoran Desert and Sierra Madre forests, all connected by shared challenges like water scarcity, habitat loss, and development pressures. It represents an array of complex challenges, as well as opportunities, to enhance biodiversity, climate resilience, and community wellbeing, and the Accelerator program will help position selected project teams to deliver solutions that benefit people and nature across the landscape.
Peregrine Accelerator Eligibility Criteria
- The project team must be based and currently working in the target “nest” landscape (as defined in the annual RFP) and comprise organization(s) based in the U.S., Canada, and/or Mexico.
- The project team’s proposed solution must be designed to deliver multiple benefits for nature and people, specifically regarding biodiversity, climate resilience, community well-being, and environmental equity and justice.
- The project team’s proposed solution cannot carry on propaganda or otherwise attempt to influence legislation within the meaning of U.S. Code Section 4945(d)(1); the proposed project cannot aim to influence the outcome of any specific public election or to carry on, directly or indirectly, any voter registration drive within the meaning of U.S. Code Section 4945(d)
- If selected, at least one representative of the project team must be willing and able to participate in the 6-month Accelerator program, including attending bi-weekly workshops; we anticipate a minimum commitment of 2-3 hours during most weeks of the program.
- The majority of a project team’s members must be paid staff of the organization(s) represented within the team. If selected, at least one of the team’s primary participants in the Accelerator program must be paid staff.
Who Should Apply
- Project teams should comprise at least one small- to mid-sized organization (though we do not prescribe specific cut-offs regarding operating budgets or staff size to define this); project teams are not required but are encouraged to represent multiple organizations and diverse perspectives and sectors.
- Project teams should have demonstrable organizational capacity and some track record of success but still face significant, specific barriers/challenges to successfully implementing their proposed solution.
- A project team’s primary organization is not required to be a legally tax-exempt entity; municipalities, university centers and institutes, and Tribal and First Nations are encouraged to apply.
- Proposed solutions may be “on the ground” work, but they may also be rooted in community engagement, actionable research, policy approaches, or technological or finance tools.
The Impact