The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is soliciting applications for its Regional Conservation Partnership Program Alternative Funding Arrangements.
Donor Name: Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 07/02/2024
Size of the Grant: More than $1 million
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
The RCPP promotes the coordination of NRCS conservation activities with partners that offer value-added contributions to expand our ability to address on-farm, watershed, and regional natural resource concerns. Through the RCPP, NRCS seeks to co-invest with partners to implement projects that provide solutions to conservation challenges thereby measurably improving the resource concerns they seek to address. RCPP promotes collaboration with partners, stakeholders, and various communities, which is paramount to achieving equity in NRCS programs and services
RCPP AFAs are intended to support project structures and approaches that cannot be carried out as effectively through the RCPP Classic NFO. RCPP AFA applicants must describe the innovative nature of the conservation approach they are proposing to justify potential funding through an RCPP AFA NFO rather than an RCPP Classic NFO.
Moreover, applicants should consider the additional administrative and technical assistance responsibilities that accompany receipt of an RCPP AFA award.
NRCS delivers conservation solutions so agricultural producers can protect natural resources and feed a growing world. NRCS provides leadership and funding to ensure that all programs and services are made accessible to all customers, fairly and equitably, with emphasis on reaching historically underserved farmers and ranchers and Native American tribal governments and organizations.
RCPP applicants must work closely with the appropriate NRCS state offices and state conservationists to:
- determine if a proposed project aligns with RCPP’s goals and policies,
- identify and negotiate partner TA needs and capabilities, and
- develop and submit a project proposal using the guidance in this notice
- The RCPP follows a partner-driven approach to conservation that funds solutions to natural resource challenges on agricultural land. The following are the three key principles of RCPP
- Impact
- RCPP proposals must include effective and compelling solutions that address one or more natural resource concern to help solve natural resource challenges. Partners are responsible for evaluating a project’s impact and results.
- Partner Contributions
- Partners are responsible for identifying any combination of cash and in-kind value-added contributions to leverage NRCS’s RCPP investments. Partner contributions are evaluated based on their share of overall project costs and the value of qualified expertise that they add to achieving project goals and objectives.
- Partnerships and Management
- Partners must have the experience, expertise, and capacity necessary to manage the partnership and project, provide outreach to producers, and quantify the environmental impacts, and when possible, economic, and social outcomes of an RCPP project. The RCPP ranking criteria give priority consideration to applicants that meaningfully engage historically underserved (HU) farmers and ranchers.
Funding Information
NRCS will award up to $1.5 billion through this funding opportunity and the FY 2024 Classic announcement. The maximum RCPP funding available for a single project selected under this announcement is $25 million, including both FA and TA. The minimum funding amount for an RCPP project is $250,000.
Eligibility Criteria
Entities that are classified as one of the following organizational types can serve as an eligible RCPP partner:
- an agricultural or silvicultural producer association or other group of producers;
- a state or unit of local government;
- an Indian tribe;
- a farmer cooperative;
- a water district, irrigation district, acequia, rural water district or association, or other organization with specific water delivery authority to agricultural producers;
- a municipal water or wastewater treatment entity;
- an institution of higher education;
- an organization, or entity with an established history of working cooperatively with producers on agricultural land (as determined by NRCS) to address:
- local conservation priorities related to agricultural production, wildlife habitat development, or nonindustrial private forest land management; or
- critical watershed-scale soil erosion, water quality, sediment reduction, or other natural resource issues;
- an entity, such as an Indian tribe, state government, local government, or a non-governmental organization, that has a farmland or grassland protection program that purchases agricultural land easements, as defined in 7 CFR § 1468.3; or
- a conservation district.
Proposals are accepted from all 50 States, the Caribbean Area (Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands), and U.S. territories in the Pacific Island Areas (Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands).
For more information, visit Grants.gov.
