Community Wildfire Defense Grant 2023 Northeast-Midwest | USDA FS 2023 CWDG NEMW

Opportunity Information: Apply for USDA FS 2023 CWDG NEMW

The Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) 2023 Northeast-Midwest opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number: USDA FS 2023 CWDG NEMW) is a discretionary grant program run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. Its core aim is to help communities that face meaningful wildfire risk take practical steps to plan for, reduce, and manage that risk. The program is designed around the idea that wildfire is not only a Western issue; communities in the Northeast and Midwest can also face increasing wildfire exposure, especially in and around the wildland-urban interface (WUI), where homes, businesses, and public infrastructure sit close to fire-prone vegetation.

The grant is authorized under Public Law 117-58, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (often called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law). Funding supports two main types of work: (1) developing a new Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) or revising an existing CWPP, and (2) implementing projects that are already described in an existing CWPP, as long as that plan is less than ten years old. In practice, this means applicants can seek support either to build the planning foundation (risk assessment, priorities, community coordination, and treatment strategies) or to carry out on-the-ground and community-focused actions that a recent CWPP has already identified as needed.

A major emphasis of the CWDG program is prioritizing support for communities and Tribes that are most at risk and have fewer resources to manage wildfire threats on their own. The program specifically highlights three priority conditions: communities located in areas identified as having high or very high wildfire hazard potential, low-income communities, and communities that have been impacted by a severe disaster. The details and definitions for how these priorities are evaluated are laid out in the official Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), which applicants are expected to review carefully before submitting an application.

The program is also tied directly to the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy (the Cohesive Strategy), which frames wildfire resilience across three connected goals. The first is restoring and maintaining resilient landscapes, meaning work that helps lands across boundaries (regardless of who owns or manages them) better withstand wildfire, insects, disease, invasive species, and climate-driven stressors. The second goal is creating fire-adapted communities, which focuses on helping people, homes, and critical infrastructure become as ready as possible to prepare for wildfire, respond during an incident, and recover afterward. The third goal is improving wildfire response by encouraging coordinated, risk-based decision-making across jurisdictions so that wildfire management is safer, more effective, and more efficient.

Eligible applicants are broad and include state governments, county governments, city or township governments, special district governments, public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, federally recognized Tribal governments, other Tribal organizations, and nonprofit organizations (including both 501(c)(3) and non-501(c)(3) nonprofits, as long as they are not institutions of higher education). The funding activity category is listed as Disaster Prevention and Relief and Natural Resources under CFDA 10.720, reflecting the program’s dual focus on reducing disaster risk and strengthening natural-resource and community resilience.

Key logistics from the posting include a creation date of July 31, 2023, and an original application closing date of October 31, 2023. The award ceiling is listed as $10,000,000, and the program anticipated making around 100 awards. Applications are submitted through the CWDG application portal at cwdg.forestrygrants.org, with the NOFO serving as the main instruction set for requirements, eligibility details, priority scoring considerations, and submission components.

To support applicants, the Forest Service scheduled a set of Applicant Webinars for CWDG Round 2. The webinars cover the same application process across regions (unlike Round 1, which had regional differences). Any eligible applicant, regardless of location or Tribal affiliation, may attend any session, though the August 10 webinar was noted as having a stronger focus on Tribal applications and a Tribal-oriented Q and A segment. The live webinar dates and times listed were August 4, August 9, August 10, and August 15, each from 2pm to 4pm Eastern, with registration links provided in the announcement. Recordings were planned to be posted afterward on the Forest Service CWDG website for anyone who could not attend live.

• The Department of Agriculture, Forest Service in the disaster prevention and relief, natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Community Wildfire Defense Grant 2023 Northeast-Midwest" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 10.720.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jul 31, 2023.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Oct 31, 2023. (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 $10,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 100 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), 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.

Apply for USDA FS 2023 CWDG NEMW

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