Funding Opportunities

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) is pleased to announce the 2024 National Coastal Resilience Fund (NCRF) Request for Proposals (RFP). NFWF will make investments in planning, design, and implementation of natural and nature-based solutions. The goal is 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.

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. The availability of federal funds estimated in this solicitation is contingent upon the federal appropriations process; funding decisions will be made based on level of funding and timing of when it is received by NFWF.

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. NFWF’s regional coastal resilience assessments identify areas, called Resilience Hubs1, where natural resource restoration efforts will have the greatest impact for human community resilience and fish and wildlife. Projects need not be located in an area identified by NFWF as a Resilience Hub to be eligible, but applicants may find this tool useful to assess projects based on the dual benefits to habitats and human communities. Applicants may explore Resilience Hubs on the Coastal Resilience and Evaluation Siting Tool (CREST).

This program is primarily funded by, and coordinated with, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Limited funding is available in partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to support projects advancing nature-based solutions in the vicinity of but not within the boundaries of DOD installations and ranges that enhance military resilience to coastal hazards (for more information see the Funding Availability and Match section). Additional funding is provided by other partners, including Occidental and Shell USA, Inc. NFWF will also seek to leverage public or private funds that align with the goals of the NCRF projects to extend the impact of this program.

The purpose of this cooperative agreement is to support recipients as they develop high-quality, impartial, policy-relevant rural health services research to inform the improvement of health care in rural areas.

The objectives of research funded through this program will be:
1) to inform health care providers, administrators, policymakers, and other interested parties at the federal, state, and local levels of the challenges facing rural communities relating to health care, and
2) to inform policies designed to improve health care in rural areas. Rural Health Research Center program recipients will conduct policy-oriented health services research, which may include the updating of trend analyses and existing research and conducting of literature reviews on rural issues.

The CDC National Asthma Control Program is announcing a new, FY24 non-research notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) designed to improve the health and quality of life for people living with asthma. This NOFO builds upon the work of state, local and territorial public health departments and their strategic partners supported by CDC through funding opportunity announcement CDC-RFA-EH19-1902. Asthma is a complex, highly prevalent chronic disease. It is consistently one of the top five most costly health conditions. According to 2021 asthma prevalence estimates, almost 25 million Americans have asthma, including about 4.7 million children and 20.3 million adults. There were 986,453 emergency department visits for asthma in 2020, 94,560 hospitalizations in 2020, 13.8 million missed school days in 2013, and 14.2 million missed workdays in 2018. In 2013, the estimated cost to the U.S. economy was $81.9 billion in medical expenses, missed school and workdays, and deaths. Despite available drugs and approaches to treat and control asthma, in the United States on average 10 people die of asthma each day.There are significant disparities in asthma outcomes by race, ethnicity, and income level. In the U.S., the burden of asthma falls disproportionately on non-Hispanic African American, Hispanic, and American Indian and Alaska Native populations. Disparities persist in asthma prevalence and outcomes in the United States. Non-Hispanic African American people are nearly three times as likely to die from asthma than white individuals. People from Puerto Rico have higher asthma prevalence compared to other people in the United States.Given evidence that a multi-component approach to controlling asthma is more effective than individual strategies applied in isolation, this NOFO is based on a technical package known as EXHALE (https://www.cdc.gov/asthma/pdfs/exhale_technical_package-508.pdf).

EXHALE represents six evidence-based strategies selected for their potential of having the greatest collective impact on controlling asthma. These strategies include: Education on asthma self-management, eXtinguishing smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke; Home visits for trigger reduction and asthma self-management education (AS-ME); Achievement of guidelines-based medical management; Linkages and coordination of care; and Environmental policies or best practices to reduce indoor and outdoor asthma triggers.

This NOFO aims to address the systems-level, environmental, and social drivers of disparities by leveraging and expanding strategic partnerships to implement EXHALE strategies. Recipients will strengthen existing organizational infrastructure (i.e., leadership and program management, strategic partnerships, surveillance, communication, and evaluation) and leverage existing partnerships with different sectors (e.g., community- and faith-based organizations, racial and ethnic minority-serving organizations, tribal communities, school and transportation systems, housing and healthcare systems, nongovernmental organizations) and community members to expand the reach and sustainability of asthma control services through implementation of EXHALE.

The Active Transportation Plan include, but are not limited to, increasing the proportion of trips accomplished by walking and biking, increasing the safety and mobility of non-motorized users, advancing efforts of regional agencies to achieve greenhouse gas reduction goals, enhancing public health, and providing a broad spectrum of projects to benefit many types of users including disadvantaged communities.

The Clean Bus Planning Awards (CBPA) program reduces barriers to zero-emission bus deployment by providing school and transit bus fleets with free technical assistance to develop comprehensive and customized fleet electrification transition plans.

CBPA is managed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and funded by the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation (Joint Office). CBPA connects transit and school bus fleets with technical experts to support planning for bus electrification. Fleets also have the option to receive free deployment assistance from NREL at the completion of their plan.

CBPA is not an incentive program, and fleets do not receive direct funding—rather, selected applicants will be allocated technical assistance resources by NREL.

EDA provides strategic investments on a competitive merit basis to support economic development, foster job creation, and attract private investment in economically distressed areas of the United States. Under this NOFO, EDA solicits applications from applicants in order to provide investments that support research and technical assistance projects under EDA’s R&E and NTA programs. Grants and cooperative agreements made under these programs are designed to leverage existing regional assets and support the implementation of economic development strategies that advance new ideas and creative approaches to advance economic prosperity in distressed communities.

This NOFO employs a two-step application process: (1) the Concept Proposal and (2) the Full Application. EDA will only review Full Applications submitted by applicants who first submitted a Concept Proposal. Any Full Application received from an applicant that did not submit a Concept Proposal will be deemed ineligible and not considered for funding. For the Concept Proposal, applicants may use the optional template available at https://eda.gov/programs/rnta/resources/. Full Applications must be submitted through Grants.gov using the link that EDA will provide with its response to the Concept Proposal.

*Please note: While the published Notice of Funding Opportunity (available under "Related Documents") states that the ED900A form and the SF424B form are both required for a complete application, these forms are no longer required and have therefore been removed from the package template.

EDA has authority to provide grants to meet the full range of communities’ and regions’ economic development needs from planning and technical assistance to construction of infrastructure. These grants are made through a series of Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs) that can be found on EDA’s website at https://www.eda.gov/funding/funding-opportunities and are designed to support the economic development activities most useful to a community based on its needs and circumstances. EDA funds community or regionally generated ideas and assists communities to advance to the next level of economic development.

This NOFO, which supersedes the FY20 PWEAA NOFO, sets out EDA’s application submission and review procedures for two of EDA’s core economic development programs authorized under the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965, as amended (42 U.S.C. § 3121 et seq.) (PWEDA): (1) Public Works and Economic Development Facilities (Public Works) and (2) Economic Adjustment Assistance (EAA).

EDA supports bottom-up strategies that build on regional assets to spur economic growth and resiliency. EDA encourages its grantees throughout the country to develop initiatives that present new ideas and creative approaches to advance economic prosperity in distressed communities.

Through this NOFO EDA intends to advance general economic development in accordance with EDA’s investment priorities, but also to pursue projects that, where practicable, incorporate specific priorities related to equity, workforce development, and climate change resiliency so that investments can benefit everyone for decades to come.

The Environmental Sustainability program is part of the Environmental Engineering and Sustainability Cluster together with 1) the Environmental Engineering program and 2) the Nanoscale Interactions program. The goal of the Environmental Sustainability program is to promote sustainable engineered systems that support human well-being and that are also compatible with sustaining natural (environmental) systems. These systems provide ecological services vital for human survival. Research efforts supported by the program typically consider long time horizons and may incorporate contributions from the social sciences and ethics. The program supports engineering research that seeks to balance society's need to provide ecological protection and maintain stable economic conditions. There are five principal general research areas that are supported.

Circular Bioeconomy Engineering: This area includes research that enables sustainable societal use of food, energy, water, nitrogen, phosphorus, and materials, with the reduction and eventual elimination of fossil fuel combustion that lacks carbon capture. The program encourages research that helps build the raw material basis for the functioning of society principally on biomass, drawing heavily on sustainable agriculture and forestry. Additionally, material flows must reduce or preferably eliminate waste, with an emphasis on closed-loop or “circular” processing.

Industrial ecology: Topics of interest include advancements in modeling such as life cycle assessment, materials flow analysis, net energy analysis, input/output economic models, and novel metrics for measuring sustainable systems. Innovations in industrial ecology are encouraged.

Green engineering: Research is encouraged to advance the sustainability of manufacturing processes, green buildings, and infrastructure. Many programs in the Engineering Directorate support research in environmentally benign manufacturing or chemical processes. The Environmental Sustainability program supports research that would affect more than one chemical or manufacturing process or that takes a systems or holistic approach to green engineering for infrastructure or green buildings. Improvements in distribution and collection systems that will advance smart growth strategies and ameliorate effects of growth are research areas that are supported by Environmental Sustainability. Innovations in management of stormwater, recycling and reuse of drinking water, and other green engineering techniques to support sustainability may also be fruitful areas for research.

Ecological engineering: Proposals should focus on the engineering aspects of restoring ecological function to natural systems. Engineering research in the enhancement of natural capital to foster sustainable development is encouraged.

Earth systems engineering:Earth systems engineering considers aspects of large-scale engineering research that involve mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation to climate change, and other global concerns.

The California Tahoe Conservancy (Conservancy) leads California's efforts to restore and enhance the extraordinary natural and recreational resources of the Lake Tahoe Basin. The principal goal of the Conservancy's Science and Lake Improvement Account program (SB 630, 2013) is to support near-shore environmental improvement program activities and projects, particularly projects that manage aquatic invasive species or improve public access to sovereign land in Lake Tahoe.More specifically, such projects manage aquatic invasive species, or improve public access to sovereign land in Lake Tahoe, including planning and site improvement or reconstruction projects on public land, and land acquisitions from willing sellers. SB 630 (2013) allocates the Conservancy approximately $350,000 annually. Please contact staff at robert.larsen@resources.ca.gov and 916.402.7508 for more information.

These projects must be consistent with the State’s climate adaptation strategy (Safeguarding California Plan), contribute to the carbon sequestration goals of AB 32, and support WCB’s Strategic Plan. In addition, projects will be consistent with other statewide plans and priorities, including the California Water Action Plan and California State Wildlife Action Plan 2015 Update.

Program funding is directed toward projects that:

Protect and restore ecosystems on natural and working lands to provide climate change adaptation and resilience for wildlife.
Assist natural and working lands managers in implementing practices that provide climate adaptation and resilience.
Increase carbon sequestration in natural and working lands, and provide additional social, economic, and environmental benefits, or "co-benefits".