FY 2026 BLM Threatened and Endangered Species Grants: $10,000–$1 Million for Conservation Projects

FY 2026 BLM Threatened and Endangered Species Grants: $10,000–$1 Million for Conservation Projects

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is accepting applications for its FY 2026 Threatened and Endangered Species opportunity, funding cooperative agreements for conservation and recovery work on BLM-managed public lands. The notice covers endangered, threatened, and BLM Sensitive Species, which the BLM groups together as special status species. Projects can address species and habitat needs while improving the information and management practices needed to balance conservation with the multiple uses of public lands.

The Grants.gov listing identifies approximately $5 million in total program funding, about 60 anticipated awards, and an individual award range of $10,000 to $1 million. Applications are due through Grants.gov by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on September 11, 2026. The listing says the competition opened August 11, 2026, and that extensions to the closing date will not be allowed. The funding instrument is a cooperative agreement rather than a simple reimbursement award, so applicants should expect meaningful BLM involvement in project development and delivery.

This is a strong fit for a public agency, university, tribe, or nonprofit that already has a defined species or habitat problem, a relationship with the relevant BLM office, and the technical capacity to complete field, research, monitoring, restoration, or related work. It is not a personal grant, a general environmental donation, or a funding route for a for-profit company to apply on its own. The current listing says individuals and for-profit organizations are ineligible.

Key details

The award range is a ceiling and floor for the competition, not a promise that every applicant will receive the amount requested. The number of awards and total funding are also estimates. A credible request should match the actual work plan, personnel, equipment, travel, field costs, partner roles, and reporting burden rather than defaulting to the $1 million maximum.

What the BLM program supports

The BLM’s Threatened and Endangered Species Program works with species that are federally listed as threatened or endangered and with species the Bureau identifies as sensitive. BLM describes special status species as native species found on, likely to occur on, or historically associated with BLM-administered lands that need focused management. The program includes plants, fish, mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians, invertebrates, and other wildlife, along with the habitats on which they depend.

The FY 2026 notice is designed for work that advances conservation and recovery while producing useful information for managing public lands. A project might center on habitat restoration, population surveys, monitoring, research, recovery implementation, or another activity that directly serves a defined special status species need. The project should be tied to BLM-managed lands and to a BLM resource-management responsibility. A proposal about biodiversity in the abstract, without a clear BLM site, species, or management use, will be difficult to position.

The listing also places the program in the context of multiple uses of BLM land, including energy, minerals, timber, grazing, recreation, and fish and wildlife habitat. That does not mean an applicant must frame conservation as secondary. It means the application should explain how reliable species and habitat work improves decisions, reduces uncertainty, supports recovery, or helps land managers carry out their responsibilities. The notice emphasizes administration priorities related to conservation, streamlined permitting, and reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens. Applicants should connect those priorities to a specific conservation result rather than repeating them as slogans.

The BLM’s general program page states that the Bureau coordinates with state and federal agencies, Tribal governments, universities, industry, private landowners, and nongovernmental conservation organizations. That makes partnership design especially important for a cooperative agreement. A university may bring research capacity, a tribe may bring Indigenous Knowledge and local stewardship expertise, a state agency may bring species data, and a nonprofit may bring restoration crews or community relationships. Those roles should be specific and documented rather than listed only as potential collaborators.

Who can apply

The current Grants.gov eligibility listing includes state governments, county governments, city or township governments, and special district governments. It also includes public and state-controlled institutions of higher education and private institutions of higher education. Eligible Tribal applicants include federally recognized Native American tribal governments and Native American tribal organizations other than federally recognized tribal governments. Both 501(c)(3) nonprofits and nonprofits without 501(c)(3) status are listed, provided they are not institutions of higher education.

Individuals and for-profit organizations are not eligible to apply for awards under this notice. A company with useful technology or field expertise therefore cannot treat this as a direct business grant. It may be able to participate through an eligible applicant if the full notice, the BLM project office, and federal award rules permit that arrangement, but the company should not submit as the applicant. Do not assume that a prior BLM partnership or a different natural-resources notice creates eligibility here.

Eligibility is only the first screen. The applicant must also be able to carry out the proposed work, manage federal funds, meet reporting requirements, and coordinate with the BLM office responsible for the land or species. Before drafting, identify the legal entity that will submit the application, confirm its federal registrations, and determine who will be responsible for the cooperative-agreement relationship.

The notice materials also identify office-specific limitations. Idaho, Utah, the National Interagency Fire Center, and the National Operations Center are not accepting applications under this announcement. A project team should check the current attachment and contact the relevant BLM office before investing in a regional proposal. If the work spans multiple BLM states or offices, explain who will coordinate the project and verify that each proposed location is eligible for submission under the notice.

Choose a project that fits

Start with one defined conservation problem. Name the species, population, habitat, or management decision involved; identify the BLM-administered land or office; and describe the evidence showing why action is needed now. The project can be broad enough to justify federal funding, but it should not be so broad that reviewers cannot tell what will be delivered during the award period.

The strongest concepts usually connect four elements: a documented resource need, a practical intervention, a capable team, and measurable evidence of progress. For habitat restoration, that could mean a defined treatment area, a restoration method, a rationale based on habitat condition, and monitoring indicators. For monitoring, it could mean a sampling design, a baseline, a data-management approach, and a decision the resulting information will support. For research, it should be clear how the study will improve conservation or management rather than simply produce a publication.

A cooperative agreement also requires a realistic description of BLM involvement. Explain what the BLM office will contribute, review, authorize, supply, or coordinate, and what remains the applicant’s responsibility. Do not promise work on federal land as if it were a private property project. Access, environmental review, safety, data standards, consultation, permits, and post-award maintenance may all affect the schedule. Confirm those dependencies with the BLM contact before finalizing the narrative.

The program can support requests at very different scales. A $10,000 project might address a focused survey, a small monitoring effort, or a discrete planning need. A much larger request could support several years of field implementation, a multi-partner recovery effort, or a substantial data and habitat program. The right amount depends on the work, not on the maximum available. Use a phased plan if the project has a clear sequence, and state which result will be delivered at each stage.

Application process and deadline

Applications must be submitted electronically through Grants.gov. Begin by opening the official listing and downloading the complete notice package and attachments. The Grants.gov page links the current funding opportunity record and identifies the BLM contact, Stephanie Lund, at [email protected]. The full notice and its attachments control if a summary page and a form appear to differ.

Federal registrations take time. The application materials require applicants to have the registrations and identifiers needed for submission through the federal systems, including an active SAM.gov registration and UEI where applicable. An organization that has never applied for federal funding should begin this check immediately. Registration problems discovered on September 11 cannot be solved by improving the project narrative.

The notice is open from August 11 through September 11, 2026, and the closing time is 5:00 p.m. ET. This is a hard deadline; the listing says extensions to the NOFO closing date will not be allowed. Treat the prior business day as the internal deadline. Leave time for Grants.gov validation, corrections, authorized-organization review, and the possibility that an uploaded attachment is rejected for format or size.

Do not wait for a polished final narrative before testing the submission path. Create or confirm the workspace, review the required forms, check the authorized organization representative, and identify who will click submit. The submission is not safely complete until Grants.gov provides a confirmation and the organization has retained the final package.

Required materials and project design

The current notice package identifies a project abstract, a project narrative, a budget narrative, and federal application forms as part of the submission. The application instructions describe a project narrative limit of 15 pages. The package may also require an SF-424, SF-424A, and an SF-LLL when the applicable disclosure threshold is met. Confirm the exact forms, attachment names, page limits, and file rules in the live Grants.gov package before submitting; a downloaded copy or an earlier template should not replace the current instructions.

The narrative should make the project understandable to a reviewer who did not design it. Explain the problem, the target species or habitat, the connection to BLM-managed land, the approach, the schedule, the responsible people, the partner contributions, and the evidence that will show progress. Separate activities from outcomes. “Conduct surveys” is an activity; “produce a validated population estimate that informs a specified BLM management decision” is an outcome.

The budget should follow the work plan line by line. If fieldwork requires seasonal crews, travel, equipment, laboratory analysis, data management, or subcontracted expertise, show where those costs appear and when they will be incurred. Avoid a budget that is evenly divided by year when the field season, procurement schedule, or restoration sequence is not even. Explain any large equipment request and distinguish new costs from resources already available.

The notice does not require cost sharing or matching. That removes one eligibility barrier, but it does not remove the need to show capacity. Describe relevant staff, facilities, equipment, permits, data, and partner contributions. If a partner is essential, document the partner’s role and the practical commitment to the work. A voluntary contribution should not be presented as required match or used to conceal an underfunded work plan.

How reviewers may assess the proposal

The Grants.gov listing says applications will be reviewed, rated, ranked, and selected through a merit review committee. The application therefore needs more than a statement that the species matters. It should show why this project is a timely and effective use of the requested federal funds, why the team can deliver it, and how the results will remain useful after the award.

Organize the proposal around the questions a reviewer must answer. Is the conservation need credible? Is the proposed action appropriate to the species and site? Does the team have the authority, expertise, access, and partners required? Are milestones specific enough to track? Is the budget proportionate? Will the data be usable by the BLM and other authorized partners? What risks could delay the work, and what is the response plan?

Evidence quality matters. Use current surveys, habitat maps, recovery-plan objectives, prior monitoring, land-management documents, or other reliable sources that directly support the problem statement. Explain the age and limitations of the evidence. If the project addresses a data gap, say what is unknown and how the proposed method will reduce that uncertainty. Avoid unsupported claims about population trends, acreage, or expected recovery.

The BLM program is partnership-oriented, but a long list of names is not a partnership plan. Give each important collaborator a role, deliverable, decision point, or resource contribution. Make clear who owns data, who approves field changes, who maintains restored sites, and who will use the results. Those details demonstrate that the cooperative agreement can function after award.

Common mistakes to avoid

The first mistake is applying as an ineligible entity. Individuals and for-profit organizations cannot apply directly under this notice. Resolve the applicant structure before writing the proposal, and do not rely on a consultant’s eligibility opinion when the current NOFO is available.

The second is proposing general environmental work without a BLM connection. A project must serve a special status species or habitat need and make sense on BLM-managed land. A statewide conservation idea may be valuable but still be a poor fit if it does not identify the BLM office, location, species, and management use.

The third is treating the cooperative agreement like a hands-off grant. Include BLM coordination, access, review, implementation approvals, reporting, and data responsibilities in the schedule. If those relationships are not yet established, use the remaining time to contact the relevant office.

The fourth is asking for too much or too little without explaining why. The $1 million ceiling is not a target. A small request can be competitive when it answers a focused need, while a large request needs a correspondingly detailed plan, team, budget, and set of outcomes.

The fifth is leaving registration and submission mechanics until the final hours. SAM.gov, UEI, Grants.gov roles, attachment formatting, and authorized submission can all create avoidable failures. Build a complete-package review into the internal schedule and submit before the 5 p.m. ET cutoff.

Frequently asked questions

Is this a scholarship or a personal grant?

No. It is a federal natural-resources opportunity for eligible organizations proposing conservation work. Individuals are ineligible applicants.

Can a for-profit company apply directly?

No. The Grants.gov listing says for-profit organizations are ineligible. A company may explore a permitted partner or subaward role with an eligible applicant, but the current notice and BLM office must confirm that structure.

Is matching funding required?

No. The listing states that cost sharing or matching is not required. Applicants still need a credible budget and evidence that they can carry out the work.

What is the largest possible award?

The award ceiling is $1,000,000. The listed floor is $10,000, and approximately $5,000,000 is available across about 60 anticipated awards. Actual selections and amounts depend on review and available funds.

What is the deadline?

Applications are due through Grants.gov by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on September 11, 2026. The listing says extensions to the NOFO close date will not be allowed.

Can I apply for work outside BLM-managed land?

The program is focused on species and habitats associated with BLM responsibilities and BLM-managed public lands. If a project includes other landowners or jurisdictions, explain the BLM connection and confirm the arrangement with the relevant BLM office.

Where should I ask questions?

Start with the official Grants.gov listing and its complete notice package. The listing identifies Stephanie Lund at [email protected] as the BLM contact for this opportunity. Project-specific questions should also be directed to the BLM office responsible for the proposed work.

Official links and next steps

Read the FY26 Bureau of Land Management Threatened and Endangered Species listing on Grants.gov, download the complete notice and attachments, and verify the current forms and regional instructions. Review the BLM’s Threatened and Endangered Species Program for program context and the Bureau’s special status species information for the species categories used by BLM.

Before submitting, confirm five things: the applicant is eligible; the species, habitat, and BLM land connection are explicit; the responsible BLM office has been consulted; registrations and attachments are ready; and the final package can be submitted before September 11 at 5:00 p.m. ET. A focused proposal with defensible evidence and a workable cooperative-agreement plan will give reviewers a much clearer basis for assessing the request.