In January 2023, the North American Wetland Conservation Grant Program announced significant changes to its programs that will go into effect the first funding cycle of Fiscal Year 2024.

Major Changes/Updates

See a PDF of this list here.

• The following items are no longer required on the Project Officer’s Page:

1. Regional Information:
   • List of State(s)
   • List of County(ies)
   • Joint Venture Information
   • Bird Conservation Regions (BCRs)
2. Applicant Job Title
3. Applicant Organization Address
4. Applicant Phone Number
5. Applicant Email Address
6. Additional Contacts
7. Unique ID Number
8. Applying for Gulf Spill funding question
9. Matching Contributions Plan (MCP) question
10. Programmatic grant questions
11. Number of proposals in the proposal area
12. For U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and/or Federal funds, comment about additional lines of accounting
13. Carbon Sequestration question

• Proposal Summary – total pages are reduced from three to two pages maximum.

• Projects that include a statewide project area may indicate ‘statewide’ instead of listing all counties within the state.
• Over $1 million one-page justification is no longer required.
• Total indirect costs are lumped in the Financial Plan Table. Indirect Cost Rate tables for each tract are no longer required.
• Central Location data is eliminated throughout work plan.
• Narrative in Technical Assessment Question (TAQ) 1 was removed except for projects that contain tracts that have not yet been identified. TAQ 1 allows for estimated numbers when sufficient data is not available, and the table has been reformatted.

• TAQ 2 revised to include ‘estimated’ numbers and the table was reformatted.
• Emphasis added in TAQ 3 to not include information for National plans (Part A) under Part B.
• TAQ 3 includes a table under Part B. No separate narrative is required under TAQ 3.
• Funding categories were removed from TAQs 4 and 5.
• Narrative for TAQ 6 was removed. TAQ 6 is in tabular format that lists species and benefits only.

• Moved Tract Table after workplan. In addition to the project area map, individual tract maps are now required. Examples have been provided in the maps section of these instructions. The GIS shapefile must also include the project area and individual tract polygons.
• On January 1, 2022, DOI implemented the project abstract summary for all applications in www.grantsolutions.gov. See page 34 & 35 of these instructions for completion guidance.
• SF-424 completion guidance has been updated to complement GrantSolutions application process. See page 34 & 35 for instructions.

Learn more about the updates and changes from previous U.S. Standard North American Wetland Conservation Act (NAWCA) changes for Fiscal Year 2024 here.