The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) is pleased to announce the 2025 National Coastal Resilience Fund (NCRF) Request for Proposals (RFP).
Donor Name: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF)
State: Selected States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 05/06/2025
Size of the Grant: More than $1 million
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
NFWF will make investments in planning, design, and implementation of nature-based solutions to enhance protection for coastal communities from the impacts of storms, floods, and other natural hazards while improving habitats for fish and wildlife.
NCRF is a national program focused on reducing risks to coastal communities. Projects must be located within the coastal areas of U.S. coastal states, including the Great Lakes states, and U.S. territories and Tribal lands. Habitats such as coastal marshes and forests, floodplains, rivers and lakes, dune and beach systems, and oyster and coral reefs can provide communities with enhanced protection and buffering from the growing impacts of natural coastal hazards, including rising sea- and lake- levels, changing flood patterns, increased frequency and intensity of storms, and other environmental stressors.
This program is primarily funded by, and coordinated with, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Limited funding may be available in partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to support projects advancing nature-based solutions in the vicinity of but not within the boundaries of DOD installations and ranges that decrease risks from coastal hazards to military assets and communities (for more information see the Grant Award Information section). Additional funding is provided by other partners, including Occidental and Shell USA, Inc. NFWF will also seek to leverage public or private funds that align with the goals of the NCRF projects to extend the impact of this program.
Priorities
Award decisions will be made based on regional circumstances and needs, but all proposals must address the following priorities:
- Nature-Based Solutions: Projects must focus on identifying or implementing nature-based solutions, such as restoring coastal marshes, reconnecting floodplains, rebuilding dunes, installing living shorelines, or other natural buffers (hereinafter “nature-based solutions”).
- Community Risk Reduction Benefits: Projects must show clear benefits in terms of reducing current and projected threats to communities from natural coastal hazards, including, but not limited to sea-level rise, lake-level change, coastal erosion, increased frequency and intensity of storms, and impacts from other chronic or episodic factors (e.g., nuisance flooding during high tides, permafrost melt) (hereinafter collectively referred to as “coastal hazards”).
- Fish and Wildlife Benefit: Projects must help to improve habitats for fish and wildlife species. Proposals should be as specific as possible in identifying the anticipated benefits to habitats and species that will result from the project proposed.
- Community Impact and Engagement: Projects will be prioritized that provide direct risk reduction and job creation benefits to communities and that directly engage community members in project planning, design, and implementation. NFWF encourages projects that are informed by local knowledge, that promote co-stewardship between a wide range of project partners, that protect or enhance habitat for (subsistence) species, and/or that contribute to food security. Project partnerships should ensure sustainability and long-term maintenance of projects. NFWF also encourages projects that are community-led, incorporate outreach to communities, foster community engagement and decision-making, and pursue collaborative management for measurable risk reduction and conservation benefits.
- Transferability and Sustainability: NFWF encourages projects that seek to re-shape our thinking on what constitutes coastal community risk reduction as experienced across different landscapes. NFWF seeks to advance solutions that are scalable, transferable to other areas, can catalyze further risk reduction, and can safeguard or create economic benefits for the impacted communities. Projects will be prioritized if they include specific plans for transferring and scaling the approaches developed through the project to ensure broader impact and integration into other government plans, programs, or policies in the community or region.
Project Categories
To implement these program priorities, NFWF funds activities in four categories designed to advance a project through NFWF’s “project pipeline” from planning to implementation:
- Community Capacity Building and Planning: Many coastal communities are in the early phases of understanding and identifying threats from coastal hazards and proposed projects in this category may look very different depending on the goals and needs of the community and stakeholders involved. Capacity may take the form of building local expertise, hiring or supporting personnel necessary to implement the project activities and functions needed to ensure the success and transferability of the project, providing training, engaging community members, supporting planning or broader environmental or economic data collection, among other activities.
- Site Assessment and Preliminary Design: Many projects require preliminary design and feasibility assessments to lay the groundwork for successful implementation to meet risk reduction targets for communities and natural resources. Projects under this category have been previously identified and prioritized in planning efforts, where more work is needed to consider and determine appropriate site(s) and project(s) for achieving coastal hazard risk reduction goals and maximizing fish and wildlife benefits. At the end of the grant period, projects under this category are expected to be ready for the next phase, final design and permitting.
- Final Design and Permitting: Applicants under this category are requesting funding to support final design and permitting for on-the-ground projects. Such funding may be used to advance projects from conceptual or preliminary designs into final designs and engineering plans, continue and expand stakeholder engagement efforts, prepare detailed cost estimates, and engage permitting officials at various levels of government, along with other related tasks to position projects for implementation. Proposals can include some preliminary design, site assessment, and baseline monitoring provided that the project can be completed within 3 years of the start of the grant and result in a 90-100% design for the project.
- Restoration Implementation: Applicants under this category are requesting funds to construct a restoration project and projects MUST include a year of post-construction monitoring to assess the outcomes of the project. Eligible projects include ecosystem restoration projects and the adaptation or construction of nature-based solutions, where tangible community coastal hazard risk reduction and conservation outcomes can be measured. Restoration Implementation projects should advance both community goals (e.g., reduced risks from coastal hazards, protection of critical assets, people and property), and conservation goals (e.g., creation or restoration of habitat to quality suitable for target species). Proposals must clearly describe how the project will protect and reduce risks of built and natural systems, help mitigate the impacts of future storms and other coastal hazards on key, local community assets (such as military facilities, emergency services, infrastructure, and centers of economic activity), and the expected benefits to habitat and fish and wildlife. Projects should result in measurable and observable improvements to these systems. Projects should complete pre-construction monitoring (baseline), post construction monitoring, and at least one-year post construction monitoring to assess the outcomes of the project. Projects that conduct monitoring only are not eligible.
Funding Information
There is no maximum limit on the award amounts that can be requested for individual grants. The amount requested for an individual project should reflect the scope and needs of the project proposed. NFWF expects that average NCRF awards for projects involving Community Capacity Building and Planning, Site Assessment and Preliminary Design, and Final Design and Permitting to be in the range of $100,000 to $1,000,000. For Restoration Implementation projects, NFWF expects the average NCRF awards to be in the range of $1,000,000 to $10,000,000. It is expected that the award amounts will vary significantly based on the scope of the project, the work proposed, and regional variation.
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligible applicants include non-profit 501(c) organizations, state and territorial government agencies, local governments, municipal governments, Tribal governments and organizations, educational institutions, or commercial (for-profit) organizations.
- Tribal governments include all Native American Tribal governments (both federally recognized tribes and those tribes that are not federally recognized).
- For-profit applicants: please note that this is a request for grant proposals, not a procurement of goods and services;
- As this program will award grants of federal financial assistance funds, applicants must be able to comply with the OMB guidance in subparts A through F of 2 CFR 200.
- Ineligible applicants include federal agencies or employees of federal agencies, foreign organizations, foreign public entities, and unincorporated individuals.
For more information, visit NFWF.
