National Fish and Wildlife Foundation issues RFP for National Coastal Resilience Fund

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation(NFWF) has issued the 2024 Request for Proposals for the National Coastal Resilience Fund(NCRF), which aims to enhance protection for coastal communities from the impacts of storms, floods, and other natural coastal hazards and to improve habitats for fish and wildlife.Through the fund, NFWF will award approximately $140 million in grants to create and restore natural systems to increase protection for communities from current and future coastal hazards and improve habitats for fish and wildlife species. Natural habitats such as coastal marshes and wetlands, coastal forests, rivers, lakes, and streams, dune and beach systems, and oyster and coral reefs—maintained at a significant size for the habitat type and natural hazard being addressed—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. 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. Program priorities include:Nature-Based Solutions:Projects must focus on identifying or implementing natural, nature-based, or hybrid solutions, such as restoring coastal marshes, reconnecting floodplains, rebuilding dunes or other natural buffers, or installing living shorelines.Community Resilience Benefit: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).Fish and Wildlife Benefit:Projects must help 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.Projects will be prioritized that provide risk reduction or job creation benefits to underserved or tribal communities (both federally recognized tribes and those tribes that are not federally recognized) and that directly engage community members in project design and implementation. Additionally, 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. The National Coastal Resilience Fund will award approximately $140 million in grants in 2024, subject to congressional appropriations and the availability of funds. 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 million. For restoration implementation projects, NFWF expects the average NCRF awards to be in the range of $1 million to $10 million. Eligible applicants include nonprofit 501(c)(3) 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). Pre-proposals are due April 10, 2024, and upon review, selected applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal, due July 2, 2024.For complete program guidelines and application instructions, see the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation website.