Funding Opportunities

Throughout its existence, the success of Union Pacific's business has been inextricably linked to the economic and community wellbeing of cities and towns across the nation. We take pride in the role we have played in helping communities thrive and believe the impact we can have on local communities is greatest when it is authentic to our history and reflective of the diverse company we are today. As such, we have carefully aligned our Local Grants cause areas to our company's unique heritage, strengths, and assets. Specifically, we prioritize funding for direct services and efforts that build the capacity of organizations focused on the following causes within our local operating communities. Within each focus area, we aim to support programs and organizations working to advance the diversity, equity and inclusion of underrepresented populations within the local context and issue areas addressed. Find more information about our commitment to DEI in our FAQs.

The EPA Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ) is issuing this NOFO to announce the availability of funds and solicit applications from eligible entities to help ports nationwide transition to zero-emission (ZE) operations under the EPA’s Clean Ports Program. The EPA’s Clean Ports Program will fund ZE port equipment and infrastructure to reduce mobile source emissions (criteria pollutants, air toxics, and/or greenhouse gases) at United States ports, delivering cleaner air for communities across the country. The Clean Ports Program will also fund climate and air quality planning activities as part of a separate NOFO – including emissions inventories, strategy analysis, community engagement, and resiliency measure identification – that will build the capacity of port stakeholders to continue to reduce pollution and transition to ZE operations over time. This new funding opportunity, made possible by funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, builds on the EPA’s Ports Initiative, an ongoing program that helps our nation’s ports, a critical part of our infrastructure and supply chain, address public health and environmental impacts on surrounding communities.

The EPA Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ) is issuing this NOFO to announce the availability of funds and solicit applications from eligible entities to conduct climate and air quality planning activities under the EPA’s Clean Ports Program. The EPA’s Clean Ports Program will fund climate and air quality planning activities at United States ports – including emissions inventories, strategy analysis, community engagement, and resiliency measure identification – that will build the capacity of port stakeholders to continue to reduce pollution and transition to zero-emissions (ZE) operations over time. The Clean Ports Program will also fund ZE port equipment and infrastructure as part of a separate NOFO to reduce mobile source emissions (criteria pollutants, air toxics, and/or greenhouse gases) at United States ports, delivering cleaner air for communities across the country. This new funding opportunity, made possible by funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, builds on the EPA’s Ports Initiative, an ongoing program that helps our nation’s ports, a critical part of our infrastructure and supply chain, address public health and environmental impacts on surrounding communities.

Through this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), the National Cancer Institute (NCI) invites applications for investigator-initiated Program Project (P01) applications. The proposed Program may address any of the broad areas of cancer research, including (but not limited to) cancer biology, cancer prevention, cancer diagnosis, cancer treatment, and cancer control. Basic, translational, clinical, and/or population-based studies in all of these research areas are appropriate. Each application submitted in response to this FOA must consist of at least three research projects and an Administrative Core. The projects must share a common central theme, focus, and/or overall objective.

The Cultural and Community Resilience program supports community-based efforts to address the impacts of climate change and COVID-19 by safeguarding cultural resources and fostering cultural resilience through identifying, documenting, and/or collecting cultural heritage and community experiences. The program prioritizes projects from disadvantaged communities in the United States or its jurisdictions.

Projects should fall into one of two categories: community collecting initiatives or oral history programs. All projects must address the impacts of either climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic on one or more communities. The program welcomes both modest projects and larger ones and supports projects at any stage, from preliminary planning to final steps and implementation.

Project activities may take many forms, including but not limited to:

Collaborative planning to identify cultural and historical resources;
Documentation of cultural and historical resources through digital means;
Recording oral histories;
Preserving Traditional Knowledge, practices, or technologies, and memories of elders and community, including in languages other than English; or
Establishing shared resources and protocols for rapid response collecting.
NEH welcomes applications at all stages of project development and encourages the use of inclusive methodologies. These might include folkloric, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic modes of inquiry; oral histories; participatory archiving; shared stewardship arrangements; and community-centered access. NEH also encourages leveraging open access online resources and using Creative Commons licenses, when possible and as appropriate.

Please note: the proposal should budget funds for two members of the project team to attend a two-day meeting in Washington, D.C., in May 2026. See Research and Related Budget, section D in the Notice of Funding Opportunity, for more information.

A new pre-recorded webinar with updated information discussing the Cultural and Community Resilience program will be posted to this page by March 21, 2024.

This is a competitive grant solicitation. The CEC announces the availability of up to $4,070,070 to provide grants to local governments.

The Effectiveness Monitoring Committee (EMC) is seeking project proposals that:

(1) Address one or more of the EMC’s Research Themes and Critical Monitoring Questions and;

(2) Address natural resource protection issues that are important for California forestlands.

The critical monitoring questions are organized under 12 Research Themes. Four prioritized critical questions were determined by vote amongst the current EMC members at the beginning of each calendar year:

Are the FPRs and associated regulations effective in...

Question 1h: managing WLPZs to reduce or minimize potential fire behavior and rate of spread? Question 6c: managing fuel loads, vegetation patterns and fuel breaks for fire hazard reduction? Question 6d: managing forest structure and stocking standards to promote wildfire resilience? Question 12a: improving overall forest wildfire resilience and the ability of forests to respond to climate change (e.g., in response to drought or bark beetle; reducing plant water stress) and variability, and extreme weather events (evaluate ecosystem functional response to fuel reduction and forest health treatments)?

I. FUNDING AVAILABILITY. Funding available for newly proposed projects is anticipated as follows: $973,392 over three FYs beginning in 2024/25, comprising: $173,232 in FY 2024/25; $375,160 in FY 2025/26; and $425,000 in FY 2025/26.

II. AWARD LIMITATIONS. Applicants requesting more than the stated annual amount available for funding will not be considered. In the case that EMC funding for the full three years is awarded to one new project, project solicitation may not occur in the subsequent two FYs. While the EMC may choose to fund projects that span multiple FYs up to the annual funding cap, the EMC generally prefers to fund multiple research projects annually. Proposers should keep this in mind when developing their project and annual budget requests. Longer-term projects (greater than three years) may re-apply for funding for additional years through the competitive grants process advertised in the EMC’s Request for Proposals. Annual allocations are dependent upon demonstrated progress towards project completion pursuant to the project schedule and workplan.

a. ELIGIBLE ACTIVITIES. Eligible projects will test one or more specific FPRs or other rule or regulation under the Board’s jurisdiction and which addresses one or more of the EMC’s Research Themes and Critical Monitoring Questions. Proposed projects must clearly apply to management activities on private timberlands in California. Projects on public land may be eligible for EMC funding provided they clearly apply to the activities and systems that also exist on non-federal timberland.

b. ELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS. Eligible applicants are local, state, and federal agencies including federal land management agencies; institutions of higher education; special purpose districts (e.g., public utilities districts, fire districts, conservation districts, and ports); Native American tribes; private landowners; for-profit entities; and non-profit 501(c)(3) organizations.

The purpose of this solicitation is to develop and demonstrate the impact of a DC-powered HVAC heat pump in a self-contained module that includes solar PV and energy storage, also known as a DC HVAC nanogrid module, in residential and commercial settings.

The United States Department of the Interior (Department), Bureau of Reclamation’s (Reclamation) Snow Water Supply Forecasting Program (Program) aims to improve the skill of water supply forecasts via enhancing snow monitoring through the deployment of emerging technologies to complement existing monitoring techniques and networks. This new program was authorized in December 2020 by P.L. 116-260, Sec. 1111, Snow Water Supply Forecasting Program Authorization Act. The program was authorized for FY 2022 -FY 2026.Reservoir operations and related water management decisions rely on estimates of current and future water availability. These estimates depend on technologies to observe basin conditions such as snowpack. In many Western basins, snowpack and subsequent snowmelt runoff constitutes a significant portion of the annual water supply. Accordingly, monitoring snowpack is of great interest to water managers and water users alike. Traditionally, basin snowpack information is based on a sparse network of observing stations across large watersheds. These networks provide high quality information at station locations but extrapolating that information to an entire watershed is a challenge. This challenge, in large part, motivates the Program.As such, the NOFO invites proposals from eligible applicants that are invested in and capable of demonstrating emerging or deploying existing snow monitoring technologies and/or use of snow monitoring data to enhance water supply forecast skill. Considering this and the Act’s emphasis on partner agency coordination, strong applications will have partnerships with water management and forecasting entities to facilitate transfer of knowledge, foster use of data in forecasts, and evaluate utility of information for informing water management decisions. This supports Department of the Interior priority of addressing the drought crisis by providing water managers the best available information to inform the management of this scarce and critical resource.In Phase I, applicants submit technical proposals in the required format and length as specified in Section D.2.1.4 Project Proposal as well as with the required content. Submission to Phase I is required for Phase II consideration.Reclamation’s application review committee (ARC) will select a set of highly qualified applications from Phase I to move to Phase II of the application process. Submission to Phase I is required for Phase II consideration. If the selected applicants are not present for Phase II, their proposals are automatically disqualified from proceeding further and will be ineligible for an award. Phase II will entail a 30-minute virtual (web meeting) project/proposal “pitch” presentation to a review panel, followed by 20 minutes of question and answer with the review panel. Those selected to advance to Phase II will be notified of the presentation requirements and logistics with a minimum 4 weeks’ notice.

The purpose of this solicitation is to fund applied research to increase California’s hydropower generation through precipitation enhancement (cloud seeding). Research funded by this solicitation will foster cost-effective, robust approaches to manage anticipated needs for zero-carbon, fast-ramping resources in the context of a rapidly evolving energy system and climate change.