Department of the Interior – Bureau of Land Management Oregon/Washington Plant Conservation and Restoration Management | L21AS00270

Opportunity Information: Apply for L21AS00270

The Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is offering a discretionary funding opportunity focused on plant conservation and restoration management activities in Oregon and Washington. The opportunity is identified as Funding Opportunity Number L21AS00270 under CFDA 15.245, and awards are made through cooperative agreements, meaning recipients should expect active involvement and coordination with BLM rather than a simple pass-through grant. The program sits within the Natural Resources funding activity category and is intended to support work that advances BLM priorities for conserving native plant communities and restoring habitats on public lands within the Oregon/Washington BLM jurisdiction.

Eligibility is limited to public and nonprofit or educational entities, not private commercial applicants. Specifically, eligible applicants include state, county, and local governments; special districts; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized tribal governments; other tribal organizations; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; and nonprofits both with and without 501(c)(3) status (excluding higher education institutions in those nonprofit categories where specified). Individuals and for-profit organizations are explicitly ineligible to apply under this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), so proposals must be submitted by one of the listed organization types.

A key restriction in this NOFO is that it does not support entities hiring interns or crews. The notice emphasizes that the Public Lands Corps Act of 1993 (16 USC, Chapter 37, Subchapter II) is the only legislative authority that allows BLM to "hire" interns, and that youth-focused or intern/crew-based projects must be pursued under a different funding path. As a result, Youth Conservation Corps and similar youth workforce proposals are directed to apply only for projects developed under NOFO 15.243, titled BLM Youth Conservation Opportunities on Public Lands, rather than through this plant conservation and restoration management opportunity. In practical terms, applicants to L21AS00270 should design projects around organizational staff, partners, volunteers (where allowable), and other non-intern/crew structures consistent with the cooperative agreement and federal assistance requirements.

The award ceiling for this opportunity is $75,000 per award. The original application closing date was May 28, 2021, and the opportunity was created on February 3, 2021. While the listing does not specify the number of expected awards in the provided data, the ceiling indicates a relatively small-grants scale suited to targeted, on-the-ground restoration actions, plant conservation planning or implementation work, monitoring, seed collection/handling projects, invasive plant management support tied to restoration, habitat improvement efforts, and similar applied conservation outcomes that align with BLM Oregon/Washington priorities and that can be completed within a modest budget.

Overall, this NOFO is best understood as a BLM Oregon/Washington cooperative assistance mechanism to help qualified government, tribal, nonprofit, and academic partners carry out native plant conservation and habitat restoration management work on or benefiting public lands, while clearly separating this program from youth corps or internship hiring models that must be funded and authorized under the distinct Public Lands Corps/youth opportunity pathway.

• The Bureau of Land Management in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Department of the Interior – Bureau of Land Management Oregon/Washington Plant Conservation and Restoration Management" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.245.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2021-02-03.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2021-05-28. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $75,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

Apply for L21AS00270

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