Oregon Wildlife Heritage Foundation

Oregon Wildlife Foundation, a tax-exempt nonprofit based in Portland, Oregon, receives federal grant funding from the Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service to deliver wildlife conservation, habitat restoration, community engagement, and recreation-access programming across the Pacific Northwest. The organization operates exclusively as a grant recipient (100% of recent awards) with no federal prime contracting footprint; all fourteen awards in the source data are cooperative agreements or project grants from federal agencies rather than competitive procurements.

The organization's customer concentration is heavily weighted toward the Department of Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service Region 1, which accounts for 11 of 14 awards (78% of the award count) with a combined potential value of $15 thousand across those grants. The remaining awards split between the Department of Agriculture Forest Service Washington Office Acquisitions and a separate Department of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service grant, representing 7% combined coverage. The potential-value rankings align closely with award volume — Region 1 USFWS dominates both dimensions.

Recent grant work centers on four primary capability areas. Oregon Wildlife Foundation received a cooperative agreement from USFWS Region 1 beginning August 2025 (completion August 2028) to increase recreation access, volunteerism, and conservation programming delivery on and around National Wildlife Refuges in Oregon and Washington, with activities including field trips, staff support, stewardship events, and direct engagement with USFWS professionals. The organization also holds a multiYear cooperative agreement (April 2024 through April 2029) with USFWS Region 1 to treat 4,000 acres of sagebrush steppe habitat in southeast Oregon through invasive annual grass and conifer removal to reduce wildfire risk and increase habitat resilience. A second cooperative agreement (awarded July 2024, completed March 2025) with USFWS Region 1 supported disability-led water access programming in collaboration with Adventure Without Limits, providing eight on-water events and ten hikes to disabled communities during summer 2024. Most recently, in July 2026, the organization received a project grant from USFWS to install a permanent Motus wildlife tracking station in Hooper Bay, Alaska within the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta to support international migratory bird research and provide data to subsistence communities and local youth education.

Activity has been episodic rather than growth-oriented — one award in 2021, two in 2022, two in 2024, one in 2025, and one in 2026 — with only two awards reaching completion inside the next twenty-four months. The organization's combined dollars obligated across all awards ($864 thousand) substantially exceeds the combined potential value reported ($19 thousand), reflecting either conservative potential-value estimates at award time or multi-year obligations already drawn down. Oregon Wildlife Foundation's federal footprint is narrow, consisting entirely of conservation and community-engagement work routed through regional Fish and Wildlife Service offices rather than broader federal agency customer diversification.