The Regenerative Pilot Program, a subset of the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and Conservation Stewardship Program, aims to help farmers adopt regenerative agriculture practices that improve soil health, enhance water … Read more
NFWF doesn’t anticipate future funding cycles for America the Beautiful Challenge/America’s Ecosystem Restoration Initiative at this time.
The America’s Ecosystem Restoration Initiative is a public-private grant program for locally led ecosystem restoration projects that invest in watershed restoration, resilience, equitable access, workforce development, corridors and connectivity, and collaborative conservation consistent with the Initiative.
Eligible Uses
The America’s Ecosystem Restoration Initiative seeks to advance conservation and restoration projects that address at least one of the following core areas of need:
- Conserving and restoring rivers, coasts, wetlands and watersheds
- Conserving and restoring forests, grasslands and other terrestrial ecosystems
- Connecting and reconnecting wildlife corridors, landscapes, watersheds and seascapes
- Improving community and ecosystem resilience to flooding, drought and other threats
- Expanding community access to the outdoors
- Applicants are encouraged to develop voluntary landscape scale and/or cross jurisdictional projects that advance existing conservation plans and/or are informed by Indigenous Knowledge.
There are four categories of grants, including (1) Implementation Grants, (2) Planning Grants, (3) National Forest Grants, and (4) Private Forests, Rangeland, and Farmland Grants.
Eligible Recipients
State government agencies, U.S. territories, and Tribal Nations are eligible to apply for all grant categories. Non-profit 501(c) organizations, local governments, municipal governments, and educational institutions are eligible to apply for grants in categories: (3) National Forest and (4) Private Forests and Farmland.
Approx Annual Funding Amount
- (1) Implementation Grants: awards range from $1-5 million, and landscape-scale restoration requests over $5 million will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
- (2) Planning Grants: awards range from $200,000 to $2 million and are contingent upon awards from DOI.
- (3) Sentinel Landscape Grants: awards will range from $250,000 to $1.5 million and are contingent upon awards by DOD.
- (4) National Forest Grants: awards will range from $250,000 to $1.5 million and are contingent upon awards by the US Forest Service.
- (5) Private Forests, Rangeland, and Farmland Grants: awards will range from $200,000 to $500,000 and are contingent upon awards by NRCS.
Cost Share Requirements
For states, the federal cost share is 90%, and states must provide 10% of costs, of which at least 2.5% must be cash. For Tribal Nations and territories, the federal cost share is 97%, and they must provide 3% of costs, of which at least 0.75% must be cash. The cost share is waived for tribes fully covered by partnerships with Native Americans in Philanthropy and waived for territories per DOI legal interpretation.
Application Cycle
The deadline for full proposals is typically in July and awards are announced in November.
Contact
- Sydney Godbey, Director, National Programs, Sydney.Godbey@nfwf.org
- Ericka Popovich, Program Manager, National Programs, Ericka.Popovich@nfwf.org
- Zoey Apelt, Regional Program Coordinator, Zoey.Apelt@nfwf.org
Other Info
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation coordinates funding across the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, and Defense, as well as private philanthropy to make it easier for states, tribes, territories, local groups, non-profit organizations, and others to apply for multiple funds with one application.