US Fish and Wildlife Service: Five Star-Urban Waters Migratory Bird Program

The grant program, a unique public-private partnership, will invest in urban community-based conservation efforts that result in measurable conservation outcomes, engage the public and provide a better understanding of how fish and wildlife conservation contributes to community well-being. Through the administration of the grant program, NFWF, FWS, FS, EPA, and corporate entities will leverage public and private funding to target resources for priority urban watersheds. All projects selected for FWS Urban Refuge funding will be in proximity of FWS lands or offices or in locations where there are existing FWS urban partnerships.

The objectives of the program include:
â¿¢ Partnerships: Projects proposals should include partner organizations (public and private) with the demonstrated ability or articulated strategy to work with specifically identified urban cultures and communities. Proposals will describe how the partnership with Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) staff can help achieve common goals of connecting people with nature.
â¿¢ Measurable Benefits: Projects should result in measurable outcomes that document greater participation in fish and wildlife related activities among diverse urban audiences and a better understanding of how fish and wildlife conservation contributes to community well-being.
â¿¢ Sustainability: Projects should reflect a commitment to neighborhood and community strength, and long term capacity to remain engaged as a Service partner beyond the life of the grant.
â¿¢ Community Assets: Projects will articulate tangible ways the Service can become an asset to the urban community. Examples of asset building would include, providing technical assistance in fish and wildlife issues, providing pathways for youth employment, supporting urban bird conservation, or community education and recreational enjoyment.

FWS and NFWF both have a desire to work with urban audiences to promote community-based engagement in conservation activities. As populations continue to grow in urban areas, and as communities become less connected to their natural surroundings, increased efforts need to be taken to reengage these communities in local conservation efforts. The Five Star-Urban Waters program provides an opportunity for FWS to take advantage of the NFWF grant program infrastructure already developed, the additional federal and non-federal partners committed to the program, and the broad selection of national, regional, and local organizations who regularly submit community-based projects through this program.

Listed below is the planned annual schedule for administering the program over the life of the cooperative agreement. This timeline includes outreach activities, Five Star partner and review meetings.

â¿¢ October â¿¿ Begin conducting outreach to potential applicants.
â¿¢ November â¿¿ RFP and Application published on program websites and Wildlife Habitat Council Symposium
â¿¢ November â¿¿ Webinar for applicants
â¿¢ February â¿¿ Proposals Due
â¿¢ Mid-Feb to Late-March â¿¿ Proposal Review
â¿¢ April â¿¿ Initial Review Committee Meeting (NFWF, FWS and other partners); final Review Committee Meeting/Funding Decisions
â¿¢ May-June â¿¿ Final slate approval by all funders; Congressional notification
â¿¢ Early/Mid-July â¿¿ Press releases developed; award letters sent to grantees
â¿¢ Mid-July to August â¿¿ Negotiation grant agreements with grantees
â¿¢ August on â¿¿ Monitor progress, track results of funded projects

In 2007, NFWF, in consultation with the Five Star Partners, commissioned Oregon State University to complete an evaluation of the program, which concluded in February 2008. The evaluation analyzed applications, interim and final reports from 123 projects funded between 1999 and 2005. The partners used this evaluation to refine overall programmatic evaluative metrics and then incorporated them into the NFWFâ¿¿s electronic grants management system. The outcomes evaluated by OSU for Five Star subgrant projects completed between 1999 and 2005, as well as new priorities provided by the Urban Bird and Urban Water partners, serve as the basis for the program.

NFWF Five Star-Urban Waters Program staff will continue to work with NFWFâ¿¿s Science and Evaluation staff and agency leads to identify performance measures for the Five Star-Urban Waters Program. These measures effectively gauge progress toward achieving the Programâ¿¿s goals and objectives. On the project level, these evaluation criteria have been incorporated into the RFP, application and the proposal review process. Program partners adapted application materials from NFWFâ¿¿s existing templates to meet specific program needs and streamline evaluation. NFWF requires applicants to identify activities, project outputs and project outcomes, as well as indicators and baseline values to be used to measure change over time. NFWF staff continually evaluates outcomes to ensure that the most effective measures are utilized.

These project-level measures track directly to the program-wide measures and the baseline mentioned above. These may include, for example, the number of volunteers engaged in the project. Indicators defined in proposals are tracked in the NFWFâ¿¿s electronic grants management system.

Under the conditions of the NFWFâ¿¿s standard grant agreement templates, grantees are required to provide periodic and final programmatic and financial reports at the end of their projects to document their accomplishments and ensure appropriate use of Five Star-Urban Waters funds. This approach allows NFWF staff to monitor the progress of each project (e.g., is the grantee meeting their targets and if not, is corrective action required) while also facilitating efficient and timely payments of grant funds. Programmatic and financial reports are due annually. NFWF requires that all grantees use standard reporting templates and data standards to assist NFWF in in ensuring data compatibility with FWS requirements. NFWFâ¿¿s Compliance Department monitors all federal regulations and agreements to ensure that all regulations are met by NFWF and our subgrantees.

Upon completion of each project, grantees are required to provide a project evaluation report summarizing how they satisfied the specific objectives contained in their grant agreement. Grantees also report on the specific activities and targets in terms of outputs, outcomes and environmental results. NFWF similarly evaluates the success of the projects against their applications. NFWF will summarize and report the accomplishments by grantees and analyze the overall program accomplishments in a final report to FWS for the entire cooperative agreement.