Overview:
With funding managed by the Wildlife Conservation Society, the WCS Climate Adaptation Fund will provide up to $2.5 million US in competitive grants in 2016. Grants will be 1-2 years in length. Awards will be made to non-profit conservation organizations for applied, on-the-ground projects focused on implementing priority conservation actions for climate adaptation at a landscape scale.
The WCS Climate Adaptation Fund is expanding its focus and inviting applications for ecosystem and wildlife adaptation projects based in and around urban environments. This focus does not replace, but is in addition to, WCS' continuing priority to support adaptation projects in less developed landscapes. See the accompanying Applicant Guidance Document for more detail on this expanded area of focus.
Eligibility:
This program provides grants to US-based non-profit conservation organizations with approved IRS 501(c)(3) status. Grants can be awarded for projects only within the 50 US states and 6 US territories. The WCS Climate Adaptation Fund is unable to make grants to for-profit corporations, individuals, universities, public agencies, municipalities or other types of government entities. Public agencies, tribal governments and universities may partner on proposals submitted by an eligible nonprofit conservation organization or work as paid contractors on funded projects. We encourage and expect that many project proposals will emerge from collaborations between the applicant organization and any number of partners from academia, public agencies, and other non-profit organizations.
To apply: Submit a completed WCS Pre-proposal Application using the online application form no later than 5:00 PM EDT on Friday, April 8, 2016.
Funding Priorities:
This program seeks to support actions that anticipate and respond to potential climate change impacts and maximize long-term conservation success. To achieve these ends, the program prioritizes projects that manage for dynamic ecological processes, landscape functionality, and species assemblages, rather than those aimed at maintaining historical conditions or individual species. Applicants must articulate how climate adaptation science informs the proposed conservation actions and specify the sources of science and analyses upon which their adaptation project is based. The program also prioritizes projects that will use strategic communications activities to scale up their conservation impact.
The Climate Adaptation Fund is focused on a narrow range of wildlife conservation projects: 1) those projects conducting applied, on-the-ground management for climate change adaptation and; 2) projects that are able to achieve tangible outcomes over a two-year time frame. We acknowledge that there are other types of important adaptation projects underway for wildlife and ecosystems, including research and planning efforts, but emphasize that this grant program aims to fill a specific niche, as described below and in the Applicant Guidance Document.
The WCS Climate Adaptation Fund will support projects that demonstrate land and water management techniques to assist wildlife adaptation to climate change, for example:
- Projects that demonstrate applied management responses for wildlife adaptation in terrestrial, freshwater, or estuarine systems, including efforts to implement active measures to enhance resilience of climate-impacted habitats or facilitate their transition to a new functional ecological state.
- Pilot projects to exhibit successful on-the-ground actions for climate adaptation that can be replicated across a landscape.
- Projects to enhance or sustain the adaptive capacity of ecosystems, landscape functionality, and critical biological processes in the face of climate change.
- Projects that restore and sustain core habitat or create connectivity for fish and wildlife based on explicit adaptation goals.
- Projects that implement innovative or novel conservation activities in response to existing or expected climate-driven changes; or likewise mitigate pressures on wildlife and ecosystems caused by potential human responses to the impacts of climate change.
- Projects consistent `with the priorities above for biodiversity-focused climate adaptation, but located in and around urban areas, with the potential to provide co-benefits to human communities.
Prioritizing communications: The Climate Adaptation Fund is increasingly prioritizing the need for strong communications around both the challenges and successes of on-the-ground adaptation projects around the country. In this emergent field, there is great opportunity to amplify and scale up the adoption of climate adaptation activities across landscapes. We believe that other conservation practitioners and the ecosystems they work to protect will benefit from the knowledge gained from your work. For this reason, WCS prioritizes and evaluates projects based on their potential to communicate project results to others who might learn from and replicate similar adaptation actions.
To support these efforts, we allow each applicant organization to program up to $25,000 of their grant request for communications. In addition, we will allow all or part of that $25,000 to be passed through to a partner organization that specializes in outreach and strategic communications activities.
We strongly recommend that all applicants review the Applicant Guidance Document for detailed information on programmatic priorities and guidelines for writing a competitive proposal.
Funding Restrictions:
- Assisted migration of species
- Land acquisition and conservation easements (both capital and non-capital costs)
- Building construction
- Offshore marine conservation
- Political lobbying
- Organizational capacity building (e.g., fundraising costs, staff training, etc.)
- Captive breeding
- Zoo exhibits
- Lethal eradication of wildlife
Proposals that are primarily focused on conducting scientific research, data collection or planning will not be considered. However, the collection of data as part of an inventory, monitoring, or evaluative assessment of adaptive management efforts can be included in a proposal if those activities represent a small component of a larger, applied conservation project.