Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act grants via USFWS

Application deadline is November 16, 2016.

Applications must be submitted in English. However, you may submit a second version of your application in Spanish or Portuguese if you feel the translation to English may affect your ability to effectively communicate your proposal. We must receive an English version of your proposal.
To successfully submit your application in Grants.gov, you must add your Proposal Narrative document as an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file on the “Project Narrative Attachment Form” of your Grant Opportunity Package from Grants.gov. Go to the Project Narrative Attachment Form and select “Add Mandatory Project Narrative File”, then browse for the .pdf of your Proposal Narrative and Open it to add it to your Grant Application Package.
In the Budget and Budget Justification section of the Proposal Narrative there are now required statements pertaining to Negotiated Indirect Cost Rates.
The program’s Fiscal Year 2017 funding may not be appropriated by Congress before your proposal is submitted; therefore any grant selections are contingent on the availability of funds.
In 2016, several sections of the application instructions were changed to clarify various items; please review all sections carefully.
Phased projects must evaluate their progress towards long-term goals with measurable indicators and provide those measures to justify continued funding (see Proposal Narrative: Section 3f and Section 9).

Applying for a NMBCA grant overview:

All applicants (except offices of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service) must apply through Grants.gov, which provides an online form that you must fill out completely and correctly. However, before you begin filling out the online form, you should familiarize yourself with the guidance on this page. If you understand the guidance before you begin, the application process will likely be easier. In addition, you should review the management and reporting pages as well as the following grant administration standards to understand your commitments before writing a proposal; if you are selected and accept an award, you will agree to comply with these standards. You may find it useful to browse through the presentation (1.9MB) we gave at the 2016 North American Ornithological Conference before beginning the application process.

For projects with field activities located exclusively within the United States: U.S. Grant Administration Standards (468.6KB).
For projects with field activities located exclusively outside of the United States: Grant Administration Guidelines for Projects Outside of the US (184.9KB).
For projects with field activities located both inside and outside the United States: both the U.S. Grant Administration Standards (468.6KB) and Grant Administration Guidelines for Projects Outside of the US (184.9KB) apply.

Your application will consist of five parts: a proposal narrative, Partner Contribution Statements, a Standard Form 424 (“Application for Federal Assistance”), a second Standard Form (either 424b “Assurances”) and a GIS shapefile (or Google Earth .kmz file) of your project area. Each is described in the steps below and further detailed in the links given belowS.

Applying for an NMBCA grant:

Register in Grants.gov. You should start this very early in the process! Registering in Grants.gov requires several preliminary steps. First your organization must have a current Dun and Bradstreet number (DUNS). (To obtain a DUNS number or to check the status of your number, see Dun and Bradstreet Guidance (19.4KB).) After acquiring a DUNS number, you will then need to register in the System for Award Management (SAM) or update your previous registration. You must have an active System for Award Management (SAM) registration to apply through Grants.gov, to receive an award, and to be able to receive funds. (We recommend that you read the steps to register an organization in Grants.gov.) We strongly encourage applicants to initiate this process at least 6 weeks before our deadline, because it can be a complex process.

If your organization is based outside the USA, you will need to go through additional steps in SAM, which could take many additional weeks. Only then can you register in Grants.gov. (Click here to see a more detailed overview of the Grants.gov application process and SAM.)

If you are an office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service you do not need to apply through Grants.gov; follow the instructions for the proposal narrative and submit your proposal narrative to [email protected].

If you encounter problems with SAM, DUNS or GRANTS.GOV, read Troubleshooting, DUNS, SAM, and Grants.gov (437.3KB).

Your application will consist of a Proposal Narrative (12 pages), Partner Contribution Statements, a Standard Form 424 (“Application for Federal Assistance”), another Standard Form: SF-424B “Assurances”, and a project area shapefile or .kmz file. Each is described below.

Write the Proposal Narrative, as described in the linked document below entitled "How to Apply for a NMBCA Grant". If you are applying through the IMPACT Program, you also need to follow the instructions in the second pdf, “How to Apply for - a NMBCA IMPACT Program Grant”, to include additional IMPACT Program proposal information. You will be attaching the Proposal Narrative to your grants.gov application.

Obtain signed Partner Contribution Statements. You will be attaching these to your grants.gov application.

Make your project area shapefile using a GIS or create a .kmz file using Google Earth. For instructions, go here: Instructions for Submitting Data via Google Earth (613.2KB)

Start your online application in grants.gov and fill out all required fields. Go to http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/search-grants.html. n the “Search by CFDA Number” insert “15.635”. This is the CFDA number for the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act. Your Grants.gov Grant Opportunity Package is the equivalent of Standard Form (SF) 424 and will include the SF424B and your Proposal Narrative that must be added on the “Project Narrative Attachment Form”. To successfully submit your application in Grants.gov, you must add your Proposal Narrative document as an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file on the “Project Narrative Attachment Form” of your Grant Opportunity Package from Grants.gov. Go to the Project Narrative Attachment Form and select “Add Mandatory Project Narrative File”, then browse for the .pdf of your Proposal Narrative and Open it to add it to your Grant Application Package. You can then check for errors, save the package and submit it. If there is a Grants.gov system outage on the application deadline, you must submit your complete application, including a SF-424 with assurances (SF-424B) to us via an email to [email protected] before the deadline.

If you are unable to complete the Assurances via Grants.gov, fill out the SF-424B Assurances separately by going to Assurances Non-construction Programs: SF-424B.

In box 15 of your Grants.gov application package, use the “Add Attachments” button to upload your 12-page Proposal Narrative, your signed Partner Contribution Statements, your SF-424B Assurances if not digitally signed Assurances Non-construction Programs: SF-424B and your project area shapefile or .kmz files.

We recommend that you also submit all application materials as one single PDF file (except the Project Area GIS Shapefile/Google Earth .kmz, which should be attached separately) to: [email protected]. Please include the complete proposal title (identical to that in your grants.gov application) in the subject line of this email. Your official application, however, is the package submitted through grants.gov.

Further details and links:

Eligible Species:

Bird Species Considered as Neotropical Migrants under the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act is the list of 386 bird species defined as neotropical migrants under the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act.

Also indicated in the Bird List are species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (as of 2010) and those listed on the National Audubon Society/American Bird Conservancy’s Watchlist (2007) or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (2008) Birds of Conservation Concern.

Birds marked as Birds of Conservation Concern, Watchlist species or species listed under the Endangered Species Act are eligible for research, monitoring, or assessment focused projects under the NMBCA IMPACT program. Please see the How To Apply for details.

Applications must be submitted to grants.gov, and emailed to [email protected], no later than November 16, 2016.

Funding Opportunity /