Funding Database: National Coastal Resilience

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) National Coastal Resilience Fund aims to support projects that enhance the resilience of coastal communities and habitats to a changing climate. NFWF makes award decisions based on regional needs. All proposals must address the following priorities:

• Nature-Based Solutions: Projects identify or implement natural, nature-based or hybrid solutions. Examples include restoring coastal marshes and reconnecting floodplains. Other examples are rebuilding dunes, installing living shorelines and nature-based stormwater infrastructure. 
• Community Resilience Benefit: Projects should reduce current and projected threats to communities from natural coastal hazards. Relevant coastal hazards include sea level rise, lake level change, coastal erosion and increased frequency and intensity of storms. Projects may also address impacts from other chronic or episodic factors (e.g., nuisance flooding during high tides). 
• Fish and Wildlife Benefit: Projects must help improve habitats for fish and wildlife species.
• Community Impact and Engagement: Projects provide risk reduction or job creation benefit to underserved or tribal communities (both federally recognized tribes and those tribes that are not federally recognized) and that directly engage community members in project design and implementation.
• Transferability and Sustainability: Projects seek to re-shape thinking on what constitutes coastal community resilience to climate impacts as experienced across different landscapes. This may include developing solutions that are scalable and transferable to other communities or that can catalyze further action toward resilience.

This opportunity funds activities in four categories. Each category is designed to advance a project through NFWF’s project pipeline from planning to implementation. Categories include: 1) Community capacity building and planning, 2) Site assessment and preliminary design, 3) Final design and permitting and 4) Restoration implementation. Applicants can only apply under one category.

Eligible Applicants

Eligible applicants include nonprofit 501(c) organizations, state and territorial government agencies, local governments, municipal governments, tribal councils (both federally recognized tribes and non-federally recognized tribes) and organizations, educational institutions and commercial organizations.

Eligible Projects

Projects must demonstrate dual benefits to both coastal communities and habitats. Projects must create or restore natural systems to increase the resilience of communities against coastal hazards and improve habitats for fish and wildlife species. 

Projects must be located within the coastal areas of U.S. coastal states, including the Great Lakes states and U.S. territories and tribal lands. Eligible project areas include all coastal Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC) 8 watersheds that drain to the sea and any adjacent HUC 8 watersheds that are particularly low-lying or tidally influenced. See a map of eligible geographies.

Funding Amount

NFWF expects that average awards for projects involving categories 1) Community capacity building and planning, 2) Site assessment and preliminary design and 3) Final design and permitting to be in the range of $100,000 to $1 million. For category 4) Restoration implementation projects, NFWF expects the average awards to be in the range of $1 million to $10 million. However, awards amounts will vary significantly based on the scope of the project, the work proposed and regional variation in costs.

Match Requirements

NFWF does not require a non-federal match, but they do encourage non-federal matching funds to demonstrate broad support for the project. Match can be any combination of non-federal cash or in-kind goods and services. There is no priority given to higher cash percentages. NFWF encourages larger match ratios and matching fund contributions from a diversity of partners to increase application competitiveness. NFWF is unlikely to consider funds originating as a federal appropriation as non-federal match. However, federal input will help reviewers understand the amount of resources partners are contributing to the overall project.

Application Schedule

Pre-proposals are typically due in April. Full proposals, by invitation only, are due in June. NFWF announces successful awards in late November or early December.

Application Process

All application materials must be submitted online through the NFWF Easygrants system.

Application Assistance

Refer to the most recent tip sheet (usually posed on the website) for quick reference during the application process. It is strongly encouraged to review the tip sheet and other helpful resources provided by NFWF before starting any application materials. 

Proposals should identify the expected benefits to habitats and species.

Funding Source

The availability of funds for this grant is contingent upon the federal appropriations process.