NOAA is issuing this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for qualified organizations to form and support partnerships that will work collaboratively to support regional economies and their associated workforces by developing training programs that build in-demand skills, offering wraparound services that allow workers to successfully enroll in and complete training, and helping workers enter or advance into good jobs that enhance climate resilience.
Donor Name: Department of Commerce
State: All States
County: All Counties
Territory: Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 11/30/2023
Size of the Grant: $500,000 to $10 million
Grant Duration: 48 months
Details:
NOAA expects the results from this opportunity to directly support the actions from the U.S. Ocean Climate Action Plan (OCAP), including, but not limited to:
- Promote coastal community resilience strategies that are adaptive, equitable, and based on best practices
- Support transformational resilience investments in coastal habitat restoration, conservation and in coastal community resilience
- Advance evaluation and adoption of nature-based solutions, such as living shorelines, to build resilience against climate-driven coastal hazards
- Reduce climate threats and improve the resiliency of climate-vulnerable protected species, including marine mammals.
The second set of criteria addresses the phrase “enhance climate resilience.” Within this NOFO, worker roles that perform one or more of the following climate-informed skills shall qualify as “enhancing climate resilience”:
- Apply equity-centered climate resilience principles such as the following:
- Articulate historical precedents leading to differential exposure of people to climate-related hazards
- Include diverse voices in delivering climate resilience priorities
- Establish community consent and support for climate resilience priorities, including how to identify impacts of greatest concern before, during, and/or after a climate-related event
- Reduce exposure, vulnerability, and risk to climate-related impacts, including but not limited to:
- Apply best available science and knowledge, such as projections of climate risk
- Evaluate potential climate-related impacts so that the return on investment of one project may be evaluated relative to that of another
- Measure initial conditions, as well as improvements to climate resilience
- Evaluate and measure actions to enhance climate resilience, taking into consideration multiple value systems to ensure long-term sustainability. Measures may include, but are not limited to, monetary value, community values, continuity of operations, supply chain reliability, business functions, and ecosystem services
- Develop funding and finance plans for resilience projects that include all phases of implementation and project sustainability
- Design, build, operate, maintain, and/or improve the infrastructure and systems (including nature-based systems) needed to reduce climate-related vulnerability and/or risk to people, assets, services, resources, ecosystems, or other attributes valued by individuals, businesses, communities, and/or governments
- Other relevant skills
- The applicant must demonstrate that “other relevant skills” are necessary to complete climate resilience work that may be missing in the applicant’s workforce
- Such skills may be defined by climate-resilience plans, employers, and resilience experts.
NOAA is seeking applications that have firm employer commitments to hire. The employer commitment may come in different formats. Some examples include:
- Work-and-Learn, including Registered Apprenticeships and other earn and learn models;
- Conditional Hire, whereby an employer hires workers on the condition of successful completion of a training program and the successful demonstration of skill acquisition;
- Post-Training Hire, whereby employers commit to hiring a specific number of workers who successfully complete a training program.
Program Priorities
- In forming a partnership that supports training for and placement into jobs to enhance climate resilience, all projects considered for funding under this NOFO must address the program priorities set out below in bulleted text.
- Be consistent with NOAA’s strategic focus to enhance climate resilience, make equity central to our work, and support economic growth and the agency’s mission of science, service, and stewardship
- Support one or more of the following actions from the Ocean Climate Action Plan
- Promote coastal community resilience strategies that are adaptive, equitable, and based on best practices
- Support transformational resilience investments in coastal habitat restoration, conservation and in coastal community resilience
- Advance evaluation and adoption of nature-based solutions, such as living shorelines, to build resilience against climate-driven coastal hazards
- Reduce climate threats and improve the resiliency of climate-vulnerable protected species, including marine mammals
- Recruit workers (e.g., 50-1000+ over time) into “good jobs that enhance climate resilience,” and train them for using one or more of the five climate-informed skills
- Place workers in good jobs within coastal states, tribal nations, and territories or the District of Columbia, with a focus on training workers from the community where the jobs are located
- Support work in communities with climate justice vulnerabilities and in disadvantaged communities as identified by the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool;
- Identify and include relevant climate experts as strategic partners on the project team to inform project definition and skill development
- Utilize NOAA’s and/or its partners’ scientific data, data access tools, data visualizations, expertise, and/or other physical and intellectual assets to:
- Document known climate stressors to justify why the identified jobs meet the definition of “good jobs that enhance climate resilience;”
- Inform training designed to advance skills for workforce recruits
- Include appropriate wrap-around services (e.g., childcare, transportation) to support training participants in completing the training
- Work collaboratively to grow regional workforces and their associated economies by (a) co-developing new or (b) enhancing existing training programs that meet the existing and emerging skills needs of employers
- Build enduring capacity for a workforce that can enhance climate resilience
- Carry out one or both of the following activities:
- Program design for partnerships to identify the skills needed by industry and workers, develop the skills training curriculum and materials in collaboration with employers and NOAA, and secure technical expertise needed to train workers with the skills needed by employers, including providing professional development and capacity-building to trainers and educators; and
- Program implementation to deliver workforce training and wraparound services that place workers into good jobs that enhance climate resilience through new or expanded partnerships
- Produce tangible metrics, e.g., employer commitments to hire, job placements, advancing workers along chosen career paths, and wage gain Metrics also should be proposed to track progress toward climate resilience, as well as economic, and equity goals.
Funding Information
- Under the Inflation Reduction Act, NOAA expects to award approximately $50 million for the Climate Ready Workforce Competition
- NOAA envisions making between 10-20 awards under this competition, at amounts ranging from $500,000 to $10 million each.
Project Period
NOAA expects projects to range in duration from 24 months to 48 months.
Types of Activities
Successful applicants can receive funding for two types of activities:
- Program design for partnerships to identify the skills needed by industry and workers; develop the skills training curriculum and materials in collaboration with NOAA (see Program Priorities in Section I.B.); and secure technical expertise needed to train workers with the skills needed by employers, including providing professional development and capacity-building to trainers
- Program implementation to deliver workforce training and wraparound services (e.g., childcare, transportation) that place workers into good jobs that enhance climate resilience through one or more sector partnerships.
Eligibility Criteria
Eligible applicants for the Climate Ready Workforce Competition must be located in coastal states or territories or in the District of Columbia. They are:
- State governments;
- Tribal governments – the recognized governing body of any Indian or Alaska Native tribe, band, nation, pueblo, village, community, component band, or component reservation, individually identified (including parenthetically) in the list published most recently as of 2022 pursuant to section 104 of the Federally Recognized Indian Tribe List Act of 1994 (25 U.S.C. 5131);
- Territorial governments;
- Local governments;
- Institutions of higher education (as defined in subsection (a) of section 101 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1001(a))), including Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, other Minority-Serving Institutions, community colleges, and technical colleges;
- Non-profit organizations or associations.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.
