Funding Opportunities

National Leadership Grants for Museums support projects that address critical needs of the museum field and that have the potential to advance practice in the profession to strengthen museum services for the American public.

The Museum Grants for African American History and Culture (AAHC) program is designed to build the capacity of African American museums and support the growth and development of museum professionals at African American museums.

The AAHC program supports projects that nurture museum professionals, build institutional capacity, and increase access to museum and archival collections at African American museums and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

Inspire! Grants for Small Museums is a special initiative of the Museums for America program. It is designed to support small museums of all disciplines in project-based efforts to serve the public through exhibitions, educational/interpretive programs, digital learning resources, policy development and institutional planning, technology enhancements, professional development, community outreach, audience development, and/or collections management, curation, care, and conservation. Inspire! has three project categories:

Lifelong Learning
Institutional Capacity
Collections Stewardship and Access

President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act authorized the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to implement the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), a historic $27 billion investment to combat the climate crisis by mobilizing financing and private capital for greenhouse gas- and air pollution-reducing projects in communities across the country. As part of this program, EPA is launching a $7 billion Solar for All competition — designed to spur the deployment of residential distributed solar energy to lower energy bills for millions of Americans and catalyze transformation in markets serving low-income and disadvantaged communities. Solar for All will tackle the financial and non-financial barriers that limit the ability of low-income and disadvantaged communities across the country to benefit from the rapid growth in distributed solar capacity, thus advancing the Biden-Harris Administration’s climate and environmental justice goals.

This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is for the $7 billion Solar for All competition. This competition will award up to 60 grants to states, territories, Tribal governments, municipalities, and eligible nonprofit recipients to expand the number of low-income and disadvantaged communities primed for distributed solar investment—enabling millions of low-income households to access affordable, resilient, and clean solar energy. Grantees will use funds to expand existing low-income solar programs or design and deploy new Solar for All programs nationwide. EPA will not fund individual projects under this competition.

EPA’s $7 billion Solar for All competition will help deliver on the climate and environmental justice goals of the United States. To achieve these goals, Solar for All grantees will provide subsidies and other financial assistance to residential rooftop and residential-serving community solar projects in and benefiting low-income and disadvantaged communities in addition to project-deployment technical assistance such as workforce development, community outreach, and other project-deployment support (e.g., interconnection technical assistance, siting and permitting support) to help overcome barriers to solar deployment.

The purpose of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is to provide a means by which the ecosystems upon which endangered and threatened species depend may be conserved, to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species, and to take appropriate steps to achieve the purposes of treaties and conventions set forth in the ESA. Section 2(a)(5) of the ESA authorizes the use of Federal financial assistance to encourage the states and other interested parties to develop and maintain conservation programs to safeguard the Nation’s heritage in fish, wildlife and plants for the benefit of all citizens. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) Ecological Services Program provides Federal financial assistance on a competitive basis to states, landowners, educators, non-profit organizations, researchers and other potential partners to secure information about candidate and other at-risk species to avert listing of species pursuant to the ESA, and to help conserve the ecosystems upon which these species depend. II. Program Objective The principal objective of this Candidate Species Conservation funding opportunity is to accomplish conservation tasks for high priority candidate species (based on our annual Candidate Species Assessments) or other at-risk species in the United States, such that identified threats to the species may be reduced or eliminated. These efforts are based on cooperative relationships with states, non-governmental organizations, private landowners and those interested in habitat restoration or undertaking candidate and at-risk species research, surveys and monitoring, or educational outreach efforts. III. Program Priorities This opportunity will help to support the Administration’s priorities of Build Back Better framework, integrate climate change mitigation, and advance racial justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, as well as supports America the Beautiful initiative. Projects should show a clear conservation benefit that will help prevent listing of a candidate or at-risk species, remove identified threats and improve status, or contribute information on the species response to changes in the environment. Priority will be given to proposals that (1) enhance partnerships with states, non-governmental organizations, private landowners, Federal agencies, and others, and (2) leverage our resources and authorities with those of our partners. Priority will be given to projects that aid in improving the conservation status of a species to preclude the need to list. These projects could include, but are not limited to, activities that will secure scientific information about candidate or at-risk species and their habitat, implement restoration actions that will lead to removing threats to the species, or help prevent extinction of a species. This opportunity addresses the Presidential priority articulated in Executive Order 14008: Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad by supporting biodiversity efforts. Species eligible for this funding opportunity include both candidate and at-risk species. A full list of candidate species is available through the Service’s ECOS website: https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp/report/candidate-species. Candidate species with a Listing Priority Number of 1-6 are especially important to focus on. Projects must include the purpose of conserving species that are candidates for ESA listing status (50 CFR 424.15), included in the Service National Listing work plan, or otherwise identified as priority at-risk species. At-risk species are those that have a reasonable potential to be considered for listing. Listing of at-risk species can be found on the National listing work plan, state endangered species list, and/or have a state heritage rank of G1 or G2, as a few examples. The Service has prioritized at-risk species in their national listing work plan by assigning a priority number. The at-risk species with a priority number of 3 or 4 are especially important to work on – see https://www.fws.gov/endangered/what- we-do/listing-workplan.html for a list of species on the work plan, and see https://www.fws.gov/endangered/what-we-do/listing-workplan-prioritizati… for a description of the prioritization methodology. Funds may be provided via cooperative agreements or project grants. Land acquisition or easement purchase is not allowed under this Notice of Funding Opportunity. Projects for NMFS-managed species are not included in this funding opportunity.

The FWS strives to meet the Federal Government’s goal that 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain Federal Investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution. The categories of investment are: climate change, clean energy and energy efficiency, clean transit, affordable and sustainable housing, training and workforce development, remediation of reduction of legacy pollution, and the development of critical clean water and wastewater infrastructure. The Public Lands Corps (PLC) Program is authorized by Congress under Title 16 USC Sec. 1721-1726; Public Law 109-154, Public Lands Corps Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2005 (amends the Public Lands Corps Act of 1993), and all subsequent amendments. Guidance authorizes U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to (1) establish PLC Programs (2) certify participants who meet the PLC eligibility requirements for the PLC non-competitive hiring authority status, and (3) ensure consistent program standards throughout the FWS.  The purpose of the FWS PLC Programs is to provide work and education opportunities for youth (defined as ages 16-30 inclusive, and up to age 35 for veterans) participants in the areas of natural and cultural resource conservation, development, and scientific research. Participants perform work on our nation’s public lands by providing additional, unique capacity designed to boost the impact of the FWS for the conservation and management of fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the American people. The PLC FWS Youth Corps Program allows the FWS to establish partnerships with Partner organizations (Partners), generally defined as “qualified youth or conservation corps,” using financial assistance/cooperative agreements or MOUs, to employ the next generation of conservationists in paid PLC projects and internships. Partners must be designated as an official member of the FWS Youth Corps in order to certify Participants. FWS Youth Corps application information is available in the attachments to this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO). The purpose of this NOFO is not to establish new partnerships. See Full Announcement for additional information and application instructions. Unsolicited partnership applications or projects that are not collaboratively developed between an existing FWS Youth Corps member and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will be returned as ineligible. ***Applicants seeking technical or financial assistance from a FWS PLC programs are requested to consult with a local FWS office BEFORE developing or submitting an application (see FWS Youth Program Contacts included in the Related Documents of this announcement or visit U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (fws.gov) to locate a FWS office in your area. ***Unsolicited Partnership applications submitted through Grants.gov will be returned as ineligible.  See Related Documents for application instructions for FWS Youth Corps

The Legacy Foundation of Southeast Arizona is seeking applications for Innovative grants. Grant Cycle – June 3, 2024 through August 30, 2024. Awards will be announced by December 15, 2024. Grants will be awarded January 2025.

Every year the Legacy Foundation of Southeast Arizona funds Innovation Grants for projects up to $50,000 that are aligned with the Foundation Mission of Promoting Population Health and Community Wellness.

Collaboration and forging partnerships with other community organizations are key determinants in funding decisions.

The Legacy Foundation of Southeast Arizona will kick off the Innovative Grant Cycle with a workshop that will provide full information regarding the goals of the cycle.

The Forest Service is seeking proposals to support the participation of underserved landowners and landowners owning less than 2,500 acres in emerging private markets for climate mitigation or forest resilience.

The California Climate Crisis Act (AB 1279, 2022) established targets to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 85% below 1990 levels and reach carbon neutrality by 2045.

Through two phases, CONCEPT and DEVELOP, the Power at Sea Prize will provide winners with access to direct support, including trainings, testing assets, and new connections that aim to accelerate the advancement of concepts into real prototypes.

In the CONCEPT Phase, competitors will select a blue economy application that their proposed system, subsystem, or component will support, and an integration challenge their solution intends to resolve. (See official rules for complete lists of challenges and applications). At the end of this phase, up to 20 winners will be awarded from a cash prize pool of up to $200,000.

In the DEVELOP Phase, teams will continue their concept development and prepare it for future technology development after the prize. Up to 20 winners will be awarded from a cash prize pool of up to $1,500,000.