Coastal Habitat Restoration and Resilience Grants for Tribes and Underserved Communities Under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) (Select Areas) - FY 2025
| Agency: | U.S. Department of Commerce |
|---|---|
| CFDA: | 11.463 |
| Federal FON: | NOAA-NMFS-HCPO-2025-29689 |
| Office: | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Habitat Conservation Program Office (HCPO) |
| Multipart Grant: | No |
| Next Due: | 05/12/2025 (Application) |
|---|---|
| Solicitation Date: | 12/13/2024 |
| Match Required: | Recommended |
| Match Type: | Unspecified |
| Actual Funds: | Unspecified |
| Range: | $20,000,000 (Max) |
| Award Range: | $75,000 (Min) / $2,000,000 (Max) |
Summary:
The purpose of this program is to support opportunities for tribes, tribal entities, and underserved communities to meaningfully engage in coastal habitat restoration activities. The funding agency intends to support capacity building, meaningful engagement, 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. 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 is 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.
Applicants may apply for funding to support one or more of the following activities:
- Capacity building, which may include:
- Participation in municipal or regional-scale resilience planning
- Project planning and feasibility studies
- Stakeholder engagement
- Proposal development for future funding
- Outreach and education
- Hiring of staff to increase capacity to support the planning, design, and implementation of restoration actions
- Capacity to support overall award management, including tracking, reporting, and project coordination/development
- Meaningful engagement, which may include engaging the community through educational opportunities, community discussions, and/or paid experiences that support the successful execution of the proposed project activities
- Restoration project activities, including for demonstration projects, which may include:
- Engineering and design, permitting, on-the-ground restoration
- Pre- and post-project implementation monitoring
Applicants may apply for funding to support one or more of the following program priorities for a range of activities connected to each priority:
- Enhancing habitat in support of ecosystem and community resilience
- Increasing organizational and technical capacity of tribes, tribal entities, and/or underserved communities to lead and/or participate in habitat restoration activities
The funding agency is committed to the goals of advancing equity and support for underserved communities, and therefore encourages applicants to include and demonstrate principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility through proactive, meaningful, and equitable community engagement in the identification, design, and/or implementation of proposed projects. The funding agency also encourages applicants to appropriately consider and elevate local or Indigenous knowledge in project design, implementation, and evaluation.
Eligible costs may include those in the categories of personnel, fringe benefits, travel, equipment, supplies, contractual costs, and other.
Optional webinars are scheduled for this program. Refer to the Application section for details.
Eligibility is limited to applicants that propose work in coastal, estuarine, marine, or Great Lakes areas. Refer to the Eligibility section for details.
Last Updated: December 16, 2024
Eligibility Notes:
Eligible applicants are those that can demonstrate their status as, or connection to, a tribe, tribal entity, and/or an underserved community. Entities that partner with tribes, tribal, entities, and/or underserved communities may include institutions of higher education; nonprofit organizations; commercial, for-profit organizations; U.S. territories; and state, local, and Native American and Alaska Native tribal governments.
Applicants must propose work in coastal, estuarine, marine, or Great Lakes areas. Eligible applicants for Great Lakes projects must propose work within the Great Lakes basin within one of the eight U.S. Great Lakes states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Projects may also be located in American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Applicants demonstrating a connection to a tribe, tribal entity, and/or an underserved community may do so through proposed subawards, contracts, informal collaboration, or other engagement with, or approval of, one or more tribes, tribal entities, and/or underserved communities.
Federal agencies are not eligible to apply, but may serve as collaborative project partners. Foreign entities may also participate as partners of a prime recipient based in the United States.
Previous award recipients include:
- Mid Klamath Watershed Council (CA)
- Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (OR)
- Lummi Indian Business Council (WA)
- Franklin's Promise Coalition (FL)
- Georgia Conservancy (GA)
Refer to the Award file for additional information on previous award recipients.
Eligible Applicants:
Local GovernmentAcademic Institutions
Consortia
Native American Tribe
Non Profits
Private Sector
State Government
Tribal Organizations/Institutions
Application Notes:
Applications must be received by 11:59 p.m. ET on May 12, 2025.
Prior to submitting an application, applicants are strongly encouraged to contact the program staff, using the information provided in the Contact section, to discuss their project ideas.
Applications must be submitted online at www.ecivis.com/grants.gov.
Applications must include:
- SF 424
- SF 424A
- SF 424B
- CD 511
- SF LLL (if applicable)
- Recommended components:
- Proposal summary and project narrative (20 pages max)
- Budget narrative (10 pages max)
- Supplemental materials and project designs (45 pages max)
The recommended components should be organized into a maximum of three flattened .pdf files, and it is recommended that file sizes not exceed 100 MB. Page limits assume an 11- or 12-point font and one-inch margins.
The following are required in order to submit an application:
- Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) number
- SAM (System for Award Management) registration
- SPOC (state Single Point of Contact) notification
Applicants may obtain a UEI number and verify or renew SAM registration status at www.ecivis.com/sam. Applicants in states participating in the SPOC program must contact the relevant SPOC listed in the SPOC file before applying.
Optional webinars will be held for this program as follows:
January 16, 2025
3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. ET
Registration: register.gotowebinar.com
Tribal-Focused Webinar:
February 24, 2025
3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. ET
Registration: register.gotowebinar.com
April 10, 2025
4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. ET
Registration: register.gotowebinar.com
Applications will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
- Importance/relevance and applicability to program objective (40 points)
- Technical/scientific merit (20 points)
- Overall qualification of applicant (10 points)
- Project costs (15 points)
- Outreach and education (15 points)
Refer to the NOFA file for additional application information.
| Match Required: | Recommended |
|---|---|
| Match Type: | Unspecified |
| Actual Funds: | Unspecified |
| Range: | $20,000,000 (Max) |
| Award Range: | $75,000 (Min) / $2,000,000 (Max) |
|---|
Match Notes:
Matching funds are not required for this program; however, the funding agency encourages partnerships among government, community, industry, and academia, which may result in informal leverage for projects. Nonfederal match may be optionally included within the application to demonstrate stakeholder support for the proposed work. Nonfederal match will not be considered during the application evaluation process.
The funding agency encourages applicants whose proposed initiatives exceed the budgetary limits for this program to apply to this program and also for other, complementary federal funding for separate components of their larger initiatives.
Funding Notes:
Up to $20 million is expected to be available to support cooperative agreements ranging from $75,000 to $2 million through this program. Typical awards are expected to 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 capacity building and meaningful engagement, versus being solely focused on capacity building and/or meaningful engagement activities.
Of the total funding available, up to 15 percent will be specifically available as direct awards and subawards to Indian tribes and Native American organizations that represent Indian tribes through formal legal agreements. The remaining funding will be available to all eligible applicants.
The funding agency encourages a project period of up to three years, with the potential for up to five years, if necessary. The earliest start date for awards is expected to be January 1, 2026. Priority will be given to activities with the highest certainty to occur within two to three years.
Award recipients may expend pre-award costs up to 90 days before the project period start date at the applicant's own risk without approval from the funding agency, and in accordance with the applicant's internal policies and procedures.
Funds may not be used for:
- Application preparation costs
- Projects in the Freely Associated States
- Projects that focus solely on marine debris prevention and removal
- Projects that focus solely on acquisition of real property
- Projects that focus solely on beach renourishment for recreational purposes
- Projects addressing hard infrastructure only for water quality improvement, including wastewater treatment plant upgrades, elimination of combined sewer outfalls, replacement of failing septic systems, and implementation of agricultural animal waste management plans
- Activities that are required by a separate local, state, or federal consent decree, court order, statute, or regulation
For FY 2023, more than $45 million was recommended to be distributed via 27 awards ranging from $491,000 to $3 million through this program. Refer to the Award file for details.
Contacts:
Julia Royster
(301) 427-8686
underserved.community.grants@noaa.gov
Agency Address
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
1401 Constitution Avenue, NW, Room 5128
Washington, D.C. 20230
Contact Notes:
Questions should be directed to the program staff.
Applications must be submitted online at www.ecivis.com/grants.gov.
The agency address provided is for reference purposes only.
Files:
NOFA File: US18381_NOFA_FY2025.pdf (252.9 Kb)Other Pre-Award File: US18381_Webinar_FY2025.pdf (139.9 Kb)
Award File: US18381_Award_FY2025.pdf (211.1 Kb)
Federal Forms:
SPOC (67.7 Kb)File Notes:
The NOFA file contains the full solicitation for this program. The Webinar file contains information regarding optional webinars scheduled for this program. The Award file contains information on previous award recipients. The SPOC file contains information on the state Single Point of Contact program. Additional program resources can be found online at www.fisheries.noaa.gov.
Grant Keywords
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Environment/Natural ResourcesHuman Services
Water Supply/Quality
Science/Technology