FY25 Bureau of Land Management Youth Conservation Corps- Bureau wide | L25AS00305

Opportunity Information: Apply for L25AS00305

The FY25 Bureau of Land Management Youth Conservation Corps - Bureau wide opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number L25AS00305) is a discretionary funding program from the Bureau of Land Management that will be awarded through cooperative agreements under CFDA 15.243 (Natural Resources). It is built around the Public Lands Corps Act (PLC) framework, which BLM has used for many years to partner with qualified youth and conservation corps organizations to complete priority conservation and stewardship work on public lands. The central idea is to fund projects that both get real, on-the-ground work done for BLM and create structured, paid work experiences that help young people build skills, explore conservation and land management careers, and develop a long-term stewardship ethic.

A defining feature of this program is the participant focus and eligibility requirements tied to the PLC Program. Projects supported through this NOFO are intended to engage individuals ages 16 to 30 (inclusive), as well as veterans up to age 35 (inclusive), with explicit inclusion of tribal members. The PLC program is designed to employ youth who want hands-on conservation experience, so proposed projects are expected to be practical, field-oriented, and connected to public land protection and management needs. BLM also notes that projects are typically developed collaboratively with BLM staff, including State Youth Program Leads and District or Field Office project coordinators, which signals that applicants should anticipate coordination with local BLM units and should be ready to align project scopes to BLM-identified priorities.

The program supports a broad range of conservation, recreation, and resource stewardship activities, as long as they clearly advance BLM mission needs and provide meaningful training and mentorship for participants. Examples of eligible project types include improving recreation opportunities through trail building, maintenance, and restoration, along with upgrades to visitor facilities such as kiosks, campgrounds, and signage. It also includes monitoring and data collection work like riparian vegetation and hydrologic function monitoring, soil and stream data collection, and timber stand improvement to benefit wildlife habitat and forest health. Habitat restoration and wildlife protection activities are specifically called out, including invasive species reduction, tree planting, fence removal or installation, and riparian restoration. The NOFO also supports planning and education outputs, such as creating stewardship plans or visitor education materials, and it allows for studies and inventories including resource inventories, historic or archival research, archaeological excavation or stabilization, oral history collection, habitat surveys, and related work. Additional eligible activities include preservation of cultural resources (including historic structures), seed collection to support restoration after natural disasters, and projects that reduce wildfire risk to communities, watersheds, and other public land ecosystems. BLM also highlights communication, interpretation, and educational programming around natural, cultural, and paleontological resources as eligible when tied to stewardship outcomes.

While the opportunity supports a wide array of work, BLM sets a clear expectation that projects should provide tangible benefits to natural or cultural resources and should emphasize field-based learning. Even for “in-house” type projects such as cartography, records management, realty support, or wildland fire support, the proposal must show a clear resource benefit and must include at least 120 hours of field component work. That requirement is important for applicants considering more office-based roles, because it effectively limits proposals that are purely administrative or fully remote, and it pushes projects toward direct engagement with the land and resources BLM manages.

Eligibility to apply is limited to organizations and governmental entities, not individuals or for-profit organizations. Eligible applicants include state, county, and city or township governments; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized tribal governments; tribal organizations (including those other than federally recognized tribal governments); and nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status (other than institutions of higher education). BLM explicitly states that individuals and for-profit entities are ineligible for awards under this NOFO, which is consistent with the program’s intent to fund organized corps-style or institutional partnerships capable of recruiting, training, supervising, and mentoring participants.

This NOFO is also positioned to support coordination with tribal communities through alignment with the Indian Youth Service Corps Program goals, mainly by encouraging outreach to Indian tribes and tribal-serving youth corps organizations. Practically, that means proposals that include strong tribal engagement, recruitment of tribal youth, or projects that benefit tribal communities and culturally significant resources may be especially well aligned, so long as they also meet PLC requirements and BLM project needs.

The award ceiling listed for this opportunity is $210,000, and the original application closing date is July 11, 2025. Because the instrument is a cooperative agreement, applicants should expect substantial involvement by BLM during project implementation, such as collaboration on project design, coordination with field offices, and ongoing technical input or oversight, rather than a hands-off pass-through grant relationship.

Finally, BLM emphasizes that this funding supports corps and youth organizations hiring interns or crews specifically under the Public Lands Corps Act of 1993, and it highlights that PLC is the legislative authority BLM relies on to “hire” interns through these partnerships. A key compliance point in the notice is that projects must be developed under the BLM youth conservation framework associated with CFDA 15.243 (referenced in the notice as “BLM Youth Conservation Opportunities on Public Lands”). In practical terms, strong applications will clearly connect proposed activities to PLC-eligible conservation work, show how participants will receive hands-on training and mentorship, demonstrate coordination with the relevant BLM offices, and explain how the project outcomes will measurably improve recreation access, ecosystem health, cultural resource preservation, wildfire resilience, or other BLM-managed resource priorities.

• The Bureau of Land Management in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "FY25 Bureau of Land Management Youth Conservation Corps- Bureau wide" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.243.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2025-06-10.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-07-11. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $210,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

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