Funding Opportunities

This Innovation Challenge seeks to fund research projects and teams that will, in accordance with USDA’s S&RS, drive U.S. agricultural science successfully and cooperatively forward into the next generation of sustainable, resilient, and healthy food systems. With a focus on the next generation of research, this opportunity emphasizes providing resources to support highly creative and highly promising early-career researchers. Proposals will undergo an administrative review followed by a technical peer review.

Top proposals will then be shared with the Innovation Challenge Steering Committee. Based on the technical peer review and the Innovation Challenge Steering Committee review, proposals will be recommended for funding, based on the applicant’s ability to conduct the proposed research; integrate the themes of human health, climate-smart agriculture, and social equity, justice, and opportunity; and articulate innovative ideas for high-risk, high-reward research to improve nutrition security.

Funding will be provided for up to four (4) awards of between $350,000 and $500,000 each. The performance period for awards will be two years. In addition to funding, awardees will gain access to collaboration and networking opportunities with USDA and FFAR scientists and leaders.

Research shows that intersecting systems of privilege and oppression produce and sustain wide and unjust variations in health. The Axes Initiative will support research to understand health at the intersections of social statuses such as race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, and ability, by examining contributions of social and other determinants of health.

This NOFO requires a Plan for Enhancing Diverse Perspectives (PEDP), which will be assessed as part of the scientific and technical peer review evaluation. Applications that fail to include a PEDP will be considered incomplete and will be withdrawn.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to read the NOFO instructions carefully and view the available PEDP guidance material (https://braininitiative.nih.gov/vision/plan-enhancing-diverse-perspecti…)

All proposals must specifically address how the proposed project will directly and measurably contribute to the accomplishment of the Pollinator Fund’s goals as outlined in NFWF’s Monarch Butterfly Business Plan. As such, all proposals must provide the number of acres restored or enhanced as a result of the project.

Proposals must include plans to restore or enhance a minimum of 100 acres in California or 500 acres in all other eligible states. For project ideas related to overwintering sites in California that anticipate preserving, restoring, or improving less than 100 acres, please contact Senior Program Manager Crystal Boyd (crystal.boyd@nfwf.org) to discuss before applying. Acres may be counted from multiple sites; the sites do not need to be contiguous. Since 2015, successful proposals have included a median of 960 acres and an average of 2,120 acres restored or enhanced.

If a project is expected to benefit multiple at-risk native insect pollinator species, the applicant should list the relevant species and how they will benefit. Priority will be given to projects that benefit the monarch butterfly and one or more native insect pollinator species that are federally listed, candidate, or proposed native insect pollinators.

Community Impact and Engagement: Projects that incorporate outreach to communities, foster community engagement, and pursue collaborative management leading to measurable conservation benefits are encouraged. When possible, projects should be developed through community input and co-design processes. Additionally, projects should engage community-level partners (e.g., municipalities, NGOs, community organizations, community leaders) to help design, implement, and maintain projects to secure maximum benefits for communities, maintenance, and sustainability post-grant award.

Each applicant will identify one category that best describes the project. The Pollinator Fund seeks projects in the following two categories:

1. Technical Assistance for Private Working Lands

Funding in this category will support implementation of technical assistance to increase the number of private landowners voluntarily engaged in monarch butterfly and pollinator conservation practices on private working lands. Up to $2 million is expected to be available for grants ranging from $150,000 to $500,000. Funding will be awarded for projects up to three years in length following finalization of the grant agreement.

This category aims to support conservation planning and practice design with private landowners to advance voluntary conservation efforts on working lands that align with NRCS Working Lands for Wildlife frameworks or initiatives, and especially increase Working Lands for Wildlife participation among farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners in the Historically Underserved and Special Emphasis categories.*

2. Habitat Improvement

Funding in this category will support on-the-ground work to increase the quality, quantity, and connectivity of habitat for the monarch butterfly and other native insect pollinators. Up to $3.1 million is expected to be available for grants ranging from $200,000 to $300,000. Funding will be awarded for projects up to two years in length following finalization of the grant agreement.

Applicants in this category should define a step-by-step restoration plan including site preparation, equipment used, planting techniques, size of the project area, description of target native plant community, and maintenance plan (e.g., prescribed burning, mowing, grazing schedules).

If preparing a proposal that includes collecting or propagating native plants, applicants should describe the intended use of the seed or seedlings and how planting success will be monitored. Giveaways of milkweed seeds or seedlings are discouraged unless significant staff time is committed for follow-up, support, monitoring, and mapping with the milkweed recipients.

Plantings must include at least one species of regionally appropriate milkweed. To help meet the nutritional needs of a broad range of pollinator species, plantings must also provide at least three native blooming nectar species (in addition to milkweed) during each of the following periods: spring, summer, and fall.

Projects proposed to benefit other at-risk native insect pollinators should specify habitat needs for those species and how the proposed work will support their breeding, nectaring, nesting, or other habitat needs.

Water Power Innovation Network The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) is issuing this $4.8 million funding opportunity announcement (FOA) “Water Power Innovation Network” to support business creation, entrepreneurship, and regional innovation for water power systems and solutions. WPTO enables research, development, and testing of emerging technologies to advance marine energy as well as next-generation hydropower and pumped storage systems for a flexible, reliable grid.

Through this FOA, WPTO seeks to fund new and/or expanded incubator or accelerator programs that enable entrepreneurship and accelerate water power innovation, business creation, and growth in communities and regions throughout the United States.

Through this FOA, new and/or expanded incubators and accelerators in water power will be able to collaborate with one another and build a stronger water power innovation network in support of accelerating water power technologies to market. Topic Area 1: Water Power Incubation and Acceleration. This topic area will fund programs that accelerate the commercialization and adoption of water power systems and solutions through incubation and acceleration programming and services that support entrepreneurs and small businesses in marine energy and/or hydropower. Questions regarding the FOA must be submitted to WPTOFOA@ee.doe.gov. To view the entire FOA document, visit the EERE Exchange Website at https://eere-exchange.energy.gov.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Justice Programs (OJP), Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), in cooperation with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), is seeking applications for funding. OJP is committed to advancing work that promotes civil rights and equity, increases access to justice, supports crime victims and individuals impacted by the justice system, strengthens community safety, protects the public from crime and evolving threats, and builds trust between law enforcement and the community.

With this solicitation, the Office of Justice Programs seeks to support a training and technical assistance (TTA) provider to facilitate the delivery of national-scale, high-quality TTA for justicefocused community-based organizations that primarily serve historically marginalized and underserved communities, including rural communities, to improve the quality of their programming and service delivery, increase their capacity for applying for and accessing OJP funding opportunities, and strengthen their infrastructure and administrative and financial controls to successfully meet OJP program goals and objectives, if funded.

This program furthers the DOJ’s mission to uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect civil rights.

The purpose of this program is to guarantee up to 90 percent of the unpaid principal and interest on loans borrowed by Indian tribes to support energy development projects and activities. The funding agency is particularly focused on catalyzing the use of commercially available technologies in Indian country. Projects employing commercial technologies are preferred. The program will support a broad range of energy-related projects, including:

Electricity generation, transmission and/or distribution facilities, utilizing renewable or conventional energy sources
Energy storage facilities, whether or not integrated with any of the above
Energy resource extraction, refining or processing facilities
Energy transportation facilities, including pipelines
District heating and cooling facilities
Cogeneration facilities
Distributed energy project portfolios, including portfolios of smaller distributed generation and storage facilities employed pursuant to a unified business plan
The program has the following policy priorities, as they relate to disadvantaged and tribal comunities:

Decrease energy burden
Decrease environmental exposure and burdens
Increase access to low-cost capital
Increase the clean energy job pipeline and job training for individuals
Increase clean energy enterprise creation
Increase energy democracy, including community ownership and other economic benefits associated with the energy transition
Increase parity in clean energy technology access and adoption
Increase energy resilience

The purpose of this NOFO is to provide grants on a competitive basis for projects that seek to achieve a reduction in the number of wildlife-vehicle collisions; and improve habitat connectivity for terrestrial and aquatic species (Title 23, United States Code (U.S.C.), Section 171).

Through this NOFO, HUD will select up to 25 communities, with a priority for communities with substantial rural populations in up to eight locations. This NOFO outlines the methodology HUD will follow to determine award amounts and to alert each community selected of the amount of money available to them through the YHDP. Subject to HUD's right to select lower scoring community selection applications under Section III.F.a, HUD will use the community scores under this NOFO along with the formula in Section II.C of this NOFO to select communities. The CoC's Collaborative Applicant is responsible for submitting the community selection application for this NOFO. Separate from this NOFO, technical assistance will be available to selected communities to assist them in analyzing community strengths and needs, developing a coordinated community plan (CCP), implementing the plan, and then engaging in a process of continuous quality improvement.

HUD is funding studies to improve knowledge of housing-related health and safety hazards and to improve or develop new hazard assessment and control methods, with a focus on lead and other key residential health and safety hazards. HUD is especially interested in applications that will advance our knowledge of priority healthy homes issues by addressing important gaps in science related to the accurate and efficient identification of hazards and the implementation of cost-effective hazard mitigation. This includes studies using implementation sciences in identifying specific conditions under which residential environmental hazard interventions, that have been shown to be effective in specific housing types and residential settings, can be assessed in other contexts.

The purpose of the Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction (LHR) grant program is to maximize the number of children under the age of six protected from lead poisoning by assisting states, cities, counties/parishes, Native American Tribes or other units of local government in undertaking comprehensive programs to identify and control lead-based paint hazards in eligible privately-owned rental or owner-occupied housing populations. In addition, there is Healthy Homes Supplemental funding available that is intended to enhance the lead-based paint hazard control activities by comprehensively identifying and addressing other housing hazards that affect occupant health.