The Department of Commerce is seeking applications for its Coastal Habitat Restoration and Resilience Grants for Tribes and Underserved Communities.
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: 12/19/2023
Size of the Grant: $3,000,000
Grant Duration: 3 years
Details:
Program Objective
Tribes, tribal entities, and underserved communities have been systematically denied meaningful opportunities to participate in decision-making affecting their communities and are disproportionately located in areas affected by climate hazards, such as flooding and coastal storms. This combination of factors increases the likelihood that tribes, tribal entities, and/or underserved communities are impacted by and less resilient to such hazards.
The principal objective of this funding opportunity is to support opportunities for tribes, tribal entities, and/or underserved communities to meaningfully engage in coastal habitat restoration activities. NOAA intends to support capacity building; actionable science support, such as the collection and/or analysis of climate, habitat or other community- or conservation-related data; and restoration project activities that enhance resilience of tribal and underserved communities and have the greatest potential to lead to habitat restoration in coastal, estuarine, marine, and Great Lakes areas. At least $20 million of the available funding will go to Indian tribes (as defined in 25 U.S.C. Section 5304 (e) or Native American organizations that represent Indian tribes through formal legal agreements (e.g., tribal commissions, tribal consortia, tribal conservation districts, and tribal cooperatives) through direct awards or subawards. For all projects, meaningful engagement of tribes, tribal entities, and/or underserved communities is intended to ensure that community members are integral to the visioning, decision-making, planning, and/or leadership for coastal habitat restoration projects; to ensure that the scope of such projects are inclusive of the priorities and needs of communities; and/or to ensure that the benefits of such projects flow back to a tribe, tribal entity, and/or underserved communities.
This funding opportunity will invest in building organizational capacity, supporting actionable science, and restoration activities that benefit tribes, tribal entities, and/or underserved communities and enhance their resilience to climate hazards. Capacity building may include (but is not limited to) participation in municipal or regional-scale resilience planning, project planning and feasibility studies, stakeholder engagement, proposal development for future funding, and outreach and education.
- Capacity building may also include hiring staff to enhance capacity to support the planning, design, and implementation of restoration actions.
- Actionable science support may include the collection and/or analysis of climate, habitat or other community- or conservation-related data.
- Restoration project activities, including for demonstration projects, may include engineering and design, planning, permitting, on-the-ground restoration, and pre- and postproject implementation monitoring.
Program Priorities
Applicants should address the following program priorities: 1) Enhancing habitat in support of ecosystem and community resilience and/or 2) Increasing organizational and technical capacity of tribes, tribal entities, and/or underserved communities to lead and/or participate in habitat restoration activities, including actionable science support. Applicants may apply for funding to support one or more of these priorities for a range of activities connected to each priority.
- Enhancing habitat in support of ecosystem and community resilience.
- Ecosystem Resilience. Applicants should describe the project activities and how the benefits from the proposed work will strengthen the resilience within the ecosystem and flow to tribes, tribal entities, and/or underserved communities. Proposals should be as specific as possible in identifying the anticipated benefits to habitats and species that will result from the proposed activities, why those benefits are of importance to the relevant tribe, tribal entity, and/or underserved community, and define the timeframe near-term or long-term in which the benefits are expected to be realized.
- Community Resilience. Applicants should describe how the proposed actions will enhance the ability of the tribe, tribal entity, and/or underserved community to plan, prepare for, and recover from adverse effects of extreme weather events or climate hazards (e.g., storms, flooding, erosion), why the actions are of highest priority and/or most threatening to the local tribes, tribal entities, and/or underserved communities, how they will strengthen community resilience, and/or the co-benefits (e.g., economic vitality, increased access to natural resources) that will be provided to the tribe, tribal entity, and/or underserved community once the project is completed.
- Increasing organizational and technical capacity of tribes, tribal entities, and/or underserved communities, to lead and/or participate in habitat restoration activities.
- Applicants should describe their status as, or connection to a tribe, tribal entity, and/or underserved community, how they have (in the past) and will (in the future) meaningfully engage with the tribes, tribal entities, and/or underserved communities in ways that are integral to the vision and execution of all phases of habitat restoration, and how the proposed activities to build capacity of tribes, tribal entities, and/or underserved communities to lead and/or participate in habitat restoration activities. The applicant should fully describe the tribe, tribal entity, and/or community’s capacity needs and how their capacity will be increased in the near-term or long-term.
- Habitat Restoration. Activities might include, but are not limited to, support for stakeholder participation in municipal or regional-scale resilience planning, project scoping and goal-setting, project planning, project location evaluation and selection, engineering and design plan review and comment, permitting and feasibility studies, and/or staff to manage multi-faceted habitat restoration project design and construction, and/or pre- or post-restoration monitoring.
Funding Information
NOAA anticipates up to $45 million will be available under this opportunity, of which $20 million will be specifically available to Indian tribes (as defined in 25 U.S.C. Section 5304 (e)) and Native American organizations that represent Indian tribes through formal legal agreements (e.g. tribal commissions, tribal consortia, tribal conservation districts, and tribal cooperatives), as direct awards or subawards. The remaining $25 million will be available to all eligible applicants. NOAA will not accept proposals with a federal funding request of less than $75,000 or more than $3 million for the entire award. NOAA anticipates typical federal funding awards will range from $250,000 to $1 million over three years. Projects requesting the upper limit of funding are expected to implement restoration actions in addition to science support or capacity-building, versus being solely focused on capacity-building and/or science support.
Eligibility Criteria
- State governments
- Independent school districts
- Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
- Public and State controlled institutions of higher education
- Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
- Private institutions of higher education
- For profit organizations other than small businesses
- Small businesses
- County governments
- City or township governments
- Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized)
- Special district governments
- Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
- Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities
- Eligible applicants are tribes, applicants that can demonstrate status as a tribal entity, an underserved community, or entities that partner with tribes, tribal entities, and/or underserved communities such as institutions of higher education, nonprofit organizations, commercial (for profit) organizations, U.S. territories, and state, local, and Native American and Alaska Native tribal governments.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.
