The National Park Service (NPS) has announced the availability of funding through Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership (ORLP) Program. The ORLP Program is a competitive grant initiative under the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Act, aimed at enhancing parks, recreational opportunities, and conservation areas in urban, underserved communities.
Applications must be submitted to the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation (OPRHP) through this application link. General steps to apply are available in the Notice of Funding Opportunity and Guidance Documents listed below.
The grant opportunity for:
Complete applications and those that most meet the criteria/goals of the ORLP program will be submitted to NPS for participation in the national competition. All projects recommended by OPRHP may require additional materials prior to submission to NPS. There is no guarantee that applications submitted by OPRHP will ultimately be selected for award by NPS.
The application process for ORLP is multi-step:
Final applications (listed as Step 4 above) must be submitted to NPS within one year of the NPS public announcement of the project's selection to remain eligible for funding.
OPRHP has been designated by the Governor as lead agency to implement the LWCF Program for New York State. Only OPRHP is eligible to submit applications for ORLP Grants. OPRHP will submit applications on behalf of eligible sub-recipients (aka project sponsors). Sub-recipients/project sponsors can include state agencies, local units of government such as cities, towns, counties and special purpose districts (park districts) and federally recognized Indian Tribes.
Although private individuals, not-for-profit organizations, for-profit corporations, planning and engineering firms and other non-public entities are not eligible, they are strongly encouraged to partner with eligible public entities to plan and submit proposals.
Parks/sites that are currently receiving an LWCF formula grant, or that received an LWCF formula grant that closed within the last seven years (even if the scope of the project is different) and, parks/sites that received more than one previous ORLP award are not eligible.
The objective of the ORLP Program is to improve parks, recreation opportunities and conservation areas in urban underserved communities, consistent with the requirements of the LWCF Act To meet ORLP objectives and goals, projects must be:
Federal Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) issued | December 12, 2024. | |
State opportunity application period Opens | Monday, March 17, 2025 at 12:00 p.m. EST. | |
State opportunity application period Closes | Friday, May 2, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. EST. | |
Federal Application submission into Grants.gov | Friday, May 30, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. EST. | |
NPS Project Selection for funding Award: | September 1, 2025* | |
*Selected projects must submit a full application for NPS final review within one year of the announcement (Sept. 1, 2026 for period 1 applications and February 1, 2027 for period 2 applications) to remain eligible for funding. Awards will be made upon NPS’s final review and approval of the full application. |
Further information is available in the below documents.
NPS Opportunity Number: P25AS00189
Diana Carter, Director of Planning and Analysis/LWCF Alternate State Liaison Officer
LWCFGrants.info@parks.ny.gov