Includes fundraising, events, grants, and other income generating activities.

Great American Outdoors Act & Refuges

  • Post category:Funding
  • Reading time:2 mins read

Double rainbow over field of grain

The Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) provides funds to address the maintenance backlog of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other public lands agencies. The funding for GAOA comes from energy development on Federal land and water. Up to $1.9 billion will be available in each fiscal year from 2021 to 2025 to address these maintenance needs. USFWS receives 5 percent of this annual allocation. The following links provide information on FWS projects:

The GAOA also provides full and permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). Congress created LWCF in 1964 to protect Federal lands and waters and provide recreational opportunities. GAOA provides LWCF with $900 million annually to support this program. Annually, FWS receives a portion of these funds to support projects, access and land acquisition.

For more information on GAOA and LWCF click here.

Photo credit: Alex Galt/USFWS

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What’s In The President’s Budget for Refuges?

  • Post category:Funding
  • Reading time:2 mins read
bird with a seed in its mouth

The Biden administration has released the FY 2022 Budget Request, with big increases for National Wildlife Refuge System funding. Senior management of the National Wildlife Refuge System joined Friends on Tuesday, June 29th to review and discuss the budget.

Links to the recording and slides:

We want to thank our amazing and knowledgeable presenters:

  • Cynthia Martinez, USFWS, Chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System
  • Ketti Spomer, NWRS, Division Chief for Budget, Performance, and Workforce
  • Eric Alvarez, NWRS, Division Chief for Realty

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Grant for Friends/FWS Projects

  • Post category:Funding
  • Reading time:1 mins read
Two people cleaning a wood duck box.

The Association of Retired Fish and Wildlife Service Employees is soliciting proposals for projects that align with both the Association’s and the FWS’s conservation goals. They are currently seeking to award four grants in the range of $10,000 for direct project expenses. Ideally Friends proposals should be for a project supported by a partnership between Friends and the Service. Awarded funds will be donated directly to a Service account. Click here for detailed information.

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DID YOU TAKE PART IN THE CORFA/NWRA FRIENDS SURVEY?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like it when I take part in a survey and then never hear anything about the survey results. So, for the 88 of you who generously gave your time to provide us with answers to our questions and for those of you who didn’t but would like to know what the respondents told us, here you go with the results of our recent Friends Webinar Survey.

I’m going for the focus of the survey first, specifically, what webinar topics seemed to be of most interest to the respondents of our survey. Look for information from other parts of the survey in coming blog posts.

We provided 11 general subjects that we thought might be of interest to Friends and asked them to rate their interest in each topic as High, Medium, Low, or No interest. Here’s what you told us:

The winning topic in both “High” plus “Medium” interest and with the most “High” interest votes was OUTREACH & COMMUNICATIONS. We need to dig deeper now and find out exactly what kinds of things you are interested in but be sure to check out our Webinar on June 9 at 2:00 Eastern, with Angie Horn the NWRA Southern California Regional Refuge Partnership Specialist and Angelina Yost, The FWS Urban Programs Coordinator. They will be telling us about successful ways of building community partnerships, no matter where your refuge is located. To register click here.


No surprise that the second most “High” plus “Medium” interest votes was FUNDRAISING, followed closely by GRANTS. We have one fundraising webinar planned for the near future and will continue to seek presenters and subjects related to these two high-demand topics for additional presentations in the future.


The last topic we will highlight was GOVERNANCE & LEADERSHIP. Again, this is such a broad topic that we will be looking for some guidance from you as to what aspects of governance and leadership you would like more information about.

A couple of the remaining topics are areas that we have already provided webinars on, specifically, ADVOCACY & LOBBYING and FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT.


The remaining topics were Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI), Organizational Planning, Technology, Volunteer Management, and Sales/Retail. While these topics did not receive as many “High” or “Medium” interest votes as the ones mentioned above, none of the suggested topics received fewer than 54% “High”/”Medium” votes. It looks like we have our work cut out for us. If you have ideas for a webinar in one of the categories listed or know of a Friends member/supporter who might be a good presenter on one of these topics, please reach out to Cheryl Hart or Joan Patterson. Thanks for your hel

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