California Fish Passage Forum Funding Opportunity

The California Fish Passage Forum receives funding through the National Fish Habitat Partnership via the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to advance shared goals of protecting, restoring, and enhancing fish habitat – with the Forum’s specific focus on anadromous fish populations in California.

The Forum will award an estimated $250,000-$350,000 in FY2026. Funding is avaliable for design, implementation, monitoring, assessment, research, and other activities that support our mission. To fund a diverse portfolio of projects, strong project proposals that request less than $100,000 are preferred. However, proposals of particular merit may be funded at a higher level, at the Forums discretion. 

The Forum is committed to investing in sometimes hard-to-fund aspects of fish passge and riparian health projects, including watershed and barrier assessment, reasearch, monitoring and evaluation. By remaining flexible to applicants needs, and supporting the above in addition to providing funding for design, planning and implementation, the California Fish Passage Project award has been helping projects reach their cost-share needs since 2012.

Details

Match Requirement

Eligible projects should aim for a 1:1 non-federal match, though match does not need to be fully secured before applying. Tribal-led projects are exempt from the match requirement.

Timeline

The application period is open November 4th 2024 to February 7th, 2025.

How to Apply

During the open RFP period, fill and attach the 3 appendices below to the online application form.

Apply by submitting the Jotform application here: Funding Application (opens in new window)

Instructions Document

California Fish Passage Forum_FY26 RFP_Instructions

Clean Copy of Application Questions for Reference

California Fish Passage Forum_FY26 RFP_Blank Questions

Required Appendices

Appendix A-FY26 Budget Template (fillable excel spreadsheet)

Appendix B-FY26 Project Metrics Summary (fillable excel spreadsheet)

Appendix C-FY26 Project Timeline (fillable excel spreadsheet)

RFP Informational Webinars

The Forum coorindator will host a few informational webinars and Q&A sessions to answer applicant questions throughout the open application period. Reminders will be sent out in advance of each session.

Informational Webinar Recording- This Q&A session occured 2 weeks after RFP opening and covered the details of the opportunity, how to apply, and allowed time for participant questions.