Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Landscape Conservation Cooperative | F16AS00298

Opportunity Information: Apply for F16AS00298

The Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Landscape Conservation Cooperative grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number F16AS00298) is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Midwest Region discretionary grant focused on improving aquatic connectivity across the Great Lakes basin. In practical terms, the funding is meant to help partners better understand and address the barriers that prevent fish and other aquatic organisms from moving through rivers, streams, wetlands, and connected habitats. These barriers often include road-stream crossings, dams, improperly sized culverts, and other infrastructure that can fragment habitat, block migrations, and reduce the resilience of aquatic ecosystems.

This opportunity was structured as a single-source award, meaning the Service planned to make one grant without open competition. The intended recipient was the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, selected because it already provides strategic leadership and coordination for the Great Lakes Aquatic Connectivity Collaborative. The Collaborative is the group identifying key needs and the major factors limiting connectivity in the region, and the Commission is positioned as the organization best able to convene partners, manage the process, and move shared priorities forward. Although the general eligibility categories listed include nonprofit organizations (both 501(c)(3) and non-501(c)(3) nonprofits), the narrative makes clear that this specific award was intended to go directly to the Commission as a noncompetitive, single award.

The work supported by the grant centers on three main priority areas. First, it emphasizes testing the real-world usefulness of existing decision support tools for choosing on-the-ground connectivity projects. Decision support tools are typically models, databases, scoring systems, or mapping platforms that help practitioners compare potential projects by estimating ecological benefits, costs, risks, and outcomes. The goal here is less about building brand-new tools from scratch and more about checking whether the tools already developed by regional partnerships actually help practitioners make better, defensible choices in the field, and what adjustments are needed so those tools translate into effective project selection.

Second, the opportunity highlights communications support to strengthen how the Collaborative presents its identity and shares its work with a broader audience. That includes improving outreach to agencies, nonprofits, local governments, Tribal entities, and other stakeholders who may be involved in planning, permitting, or implementing connectivity improvements. Stronger communications can help align partners around shared goals, increase adoption of recommended practices and tools, and build broader understanding of why connectivity projects matter for native species, fish passage, and ecosystem health.

Third, the grant aims to fill knowledge and data gaps that limit goal setting, tool development, and decision making. Connectivity planning depends heavily on reliable data such as barrier inventories, species distribution and movement patterns, habitat quality, hydrology, and information on invasive species risks. By addressing missing or inconsistent data, the Collaborative can improve how it sets measurable objectives, refines prioritization methods, and chooses projects that provide the most benefit while avoiding unintended consequences.

This opportunity also ties directly to earlier efforts supported under the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Landscape Conservation Cooperative, particularly prior work described as optimizing connectivity in the Great Lakes basin to restore native fish migrations while controlling invasive species. That connection is important because it signals a balancing act in Great Lakes management: improving access for native fish and restoring natural movement pathways, while also being careful not to create new pathways for invasive species to spread. The description further notes that the effort builds on aquatic connectivity decision support tools developed by the Great Lakes Basin Fish Habitat Partnership, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, and the Great Lakes Commission, reinforcing that the grant is intended to strengthen and apply an existing foundation of regional science and planning tools rather than starting over.

Administratively, this was a grant (Funding Instrument Type: Grant) within the natural resources category (CFDA 15.669). The anticipated award amount had a ceiling of $200,000, with one expected award. The opportunity was created on 2016-06-21 and had an original closing date of 2016-06-28, reflecting that it was primarily a formal posting for a planned, noncompetitive, single-recipient agreement rather than a broad call for proposals.

• The Fish and Wildlife Service in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Landscape Conservation Cooperative" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.669.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2016-06-21.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2016-06-28. (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 $200,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: 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.

Apply for F16AS00298

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