The National Forest Foundation (NFF) is excited to announce its flagship competitive grant program, the Matching Awards Program (MAP).
Donor Name: National Forest Foundation (NFF)
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 06/07/2023
Size of the Grant: $5,000 to $80,000
Grant Duration: up to 18 months
Details:
The NFF’s MAP program is a nationwide competitive grant program that has provided funding to benefit U.S. Forest Service lands for decades. MAP pairs federal funds provided through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Forest Service with non-federal dollars raised by award recipients, multiplying the resources available to benefit the National Forest System.
The resulting program, MAP: Connecting People to Forests, focuses primarily on in-person community engagement and completion of appropriate stewardship activities. Program goals are to create lasting change that will allow all communities, especially underserved communities, opportunities to benefit from activities on National Forest System lands or adjacent public lands.
Focus Areas
The NFF requires that all projects proposed for funding must integrate community involvement and a hands-on stewardship project that benefits the National Forest System.
Community Engagement
Community engagement, defined as in-person involvement of the public, must be the primary focus of every project funded under MAP. The National Forest Foundation recognizes that communities across the country have varied histories and experiences with public lands and expects that effective and appropriate engagement experiences will vary.
Eligible occasions for community engagement in public lands include, but are not limited to:
- Public lands days, cleanup days, and similar events
- Field trips for schools or collaborative groups
- Outdoor skills training
- Indigenous ecological practices
- Ceremonies or celebrations related to natural resources
- Trail or site ambassador programs
- Community science projects
- Implementation by community members of natural resource stewardship projects
Stewardship Activities
In addition to a focus on public engagement, stewardship activities must be a component of every project proposed to MAP. The participants of the groups engaged must complete eligible stewardship-oriented activities that result in benefits to the National Forest System. Benefits may be direct, such as trail maintenance or trash cleanup, or indirect. Examples of stewardship work with indirect benefits includes collecting monitoring data which the Forest Service or other entities will use to inform management decisions, and education of trail users to prevent resource damage. The NFF recognizes that different activities are appropriate for different types of participants, therefore a variety of activities are allowed, resulting in either large or small-scale stewardship benefits.
Eligible activities include, and are not limited to:
- Recreation area cleanup
- Native trees and shrub planting
- Trail maintenance
- Invasive species control
- Forest and watershed restoration
- Hazardous fuels reduction
- Ecological or social monitoring to inform management decisions
- Educating others about sustainable recreation principles
The NFF will consider proposed activities in part on the applicant’s ability to connect the particular populations the project is seeking to engage to public lands, not only on their scale of impact on the ground.
Geographic Restrictions
Projects must take place on U.S. National Forests or Grasslands or adjacent public lands, and demonstrate benefit to National Forest System lands.
Funding Information
There is not an official minimum or maximum award amount for the MAP program and successful proposals vary widely in budget size. In recent years, NFF has considered applications ranging from less than $5,000 to over $80,000. The NFF suggests that new MAP applicants submit applications requesting $35,000 or less.
Performance Period: Projects funded in this round will begin in mid-Aug or Sept 2023 and may run for up to 18 months.
Eligible Activities
Eligible activities include, and are not limited to:
- Recreation area cleanup
- Native trees and shrub planting
- Trail maintenance
- Invasive species control
- Forest and watershed restoration
- Hazardous fuels reduction
- Ecological or social monitoring to inform management decisions
- Educating others about sustainable recreation principles
The NFF will consider proposed activities in part on the applicant’s ability to connect the particular populations the project is seeking to engage to public lands, not only on their scale of impact on the ground.
Eligible Criteria
Nonprofit organizations, Tribal governments and organizations, and universities are eligible to receive MAP grants.
For more information, visit NFF.
