OpportunityTitle: LWCF State Assistance Formula Grants - State Planning - FY21 Cycle I
CategoryExplanation: Outdoor Recreation - State-wide Planning
AdditionalInformationOnEligibility: In accordance with 54 U.S.C. 200305(a), only the State lead agency for LWCF is eligible to submit applications in response to this announcement, whether on behalf of itself or another entity.  In this context &amp;#8220;States&amp;#8221; include the 50 U.S. States, as well as American Samoa, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.  The State lead agency may apply for a SCORP grant even if the program is otherwise ineligible for LWCF grants (i.e., because they don&amp;#8217;t have a currently approved SCORP). The NPS cannot make grants to entities other than the state lead agency; applications submitted to this funding opportunity announcement by an entity other than the state lead agency will automatically be rejected without consideration.
Description: The LWCF State and Local Assistance program is operated by the National Park Service (NPS) in partnership with designated lead agencies in each of the 50 States as well as American Samoa, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Northern Marianas Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Each fiscal year Congress allocates money from the LWCF for this program, which is in turn allocated to the States based on a legislative formula. To be eligible to submit applications for funding, States must have a current Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan, or SCORP, in place that assesses demand and need for outdoor recreation resources and sets priorities for the use of LWCF funds. LWCF grants are available to the States to comply with this legislative requirement. The NPS must review and approve each State&#8217;s SCORP. A new or updated SCORP must be prepared at least once every 5 years.
GrantorContactEmailDescription: elisabeth_fondriest@nps.gov
GrantorContactText: Elisabeth Fondriest&lt;br/&gt;elisabeth_fondriest@nps.gov
CloseDateExplanation: Applicants are responsible for their proposals being submitted to the National Park Service. To be processed in this funding cycle, complete applications must be submitted by Friday, April 30, 2021, 11:59 PM ET.  Applications must be submitted electronically through Grants.gov. Applications sent by facsimile, email, or mail delivery will not be accepted. Applications submitted to Grants.gov after the deadline will not be accepted.  The receipt date and time stamp given by Grants.gov will establish whether the application met the deadline.  An applicant&apos;s failure to meet an eligibility criterion by the time of the application deadline may result in the application being excluded from consideration during this cycle.  This includes but is not limited to late and incomplete application packages.  You are encouraged to submit the application well before the deadline and not wait until the last minute.  The uploading and transfer process can take a while, especially when Grants.gov is getting heavy use. In addition, after the application is submitted it gets validated before it is forwarded to the NPS.  Normally this happens within a few minutes to a couple of hours, but it can take Grants.gov up to a day or two to validate or reject an application.  You can monitor your application&amp;#8217;s status by email.  You will receive four (4) emails from Grants.gov in the submittal process:  the first confirms successful receipt and contains a Grants.gov tracking number; the second confirms that the application has been validated; the third confirms the application was &amp;#8220;received&amp;#8221; by the agency, and the fourth assigns an NPS tracking number.  If you do not get the first email, you should assume the application did not successfully submit to Grants.gov.  If you do not receive all four emails, you should assume the application was not actually forwarded to NPS, notwithstanding the email about receipt, in which case you should let your NPS program officer know.  Sometimes there are glitches that prevent actual transmission, for example, applications that exceed 25mg in size do not get forwarded to the DOI system.  Most problems occur at the validation step so you should always check the second email; if there was a problem it should be described in this email.  Technical difficulties with application submittal should be directed to the Grants.gov help desk. NPS staff can confirm receipt of submission, but cannot resolve issues with Grants.gov or extend the application deadline due to difficulties with submission via Grants.gov.