COSA Colleagues,
Elevating this underpublicized mega-grant opportunity for landscape scale conservation funding.
Do you have a visionary project that will connect and restore lands, waters, and wildlife? If so, then the America the Beautiful Challenge, which will direct at least $1 Billion in grants to communities over the next five years, can help.
The America the Beautiful Challenge grant program leverages Federal conservation and restoration investments with private and philanthropic contributions to accelerate land, water, and wildlife conservation efforts across the country. NFWF is administering the program through cooperative agreements with the Department of Interior, Department of Defense, and Department of Agriculture. Approximately $85 million will be awarded during the first year of the Challenge. Much of the initial funding comes from provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. According to NFWF, competitive proposals will "increase voluntary, large-scale, on-the-ground conservation and restoration activities or otherwise lead to on-the-ground implementation through capacity building, community engagement, planning, and project design. The overarching goal is to advance existing landscape conservation plans and/or propose to knit together a diverse stakeholder partnership that develops and/or implements new conservation plans. As part of this, projects should address priority species and/or habitat conservation actions identified in existing plans or other species recovery or conservation plans. Projects that are informed by Indigenous Traditional Knowledge (ITK) and promote Tribal co-stewardship are encouraged. Successful projects will focus on cross boundary and/or landscape level conservation and restoration activities."
Recordings and slides from today’s webinar will be recorded and made available.
The deadline to submit proposals for year one of the Challenge is July 21, 2022. NFWF’s Request for Proposals and additional information can be found at: America the Beautiful Challenge 2022 Request for Proposals |NFWF.
Eligible applicants include:
- State government agencies, territories of the United States, and Indian Tribes are eligible to apply for all four grant categories.
- Non-profit 501(c) organizations, local governments, municipal governments, and educational institutions are eligible to apply for grants in categories (3) Grants to Buffer and Benefit Public Lands, and (4) Private Forests and Farmland.
Department of Interior partnerships are key – let me know if I can help vet ideas or make introductions to the right partners.
Jeremy Call
Principal, AICP
Logan Simpson
213 Linden Street, Suite 300
Fort Collins, Colorado 80524
C (970) 481-9398