The Nature Conservancy

The Nature Conservancy, a global non-profit environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, operates as a prime recipient on federal conservation grants and cooperative agreements focused on habitat restoration, ecosystem management, wildfire resilience, and climate adaptation across the United States and internationally. The organization does not hold federal service contracts as a prime contractor; instead, it functions primarily as a grant recipient and occasionally as a subcontractor on service agreements managed by other organizations.

The Nature Conservancy's federal footprint is overwhelmingly grant-driven rather than contract-based. Recent prime grant awards span ecosystem restoration, wildlife habitat conservation, prescribed fire and forest management, invasive species control, and coastal resilience initiatives. Representative recent work includes a 25-year, $4.3 million cooperative agreement with Army Installation Management Command to advance military land management resilience under the Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) Program (CFDA 12.017); a $12 million cooperative agreement with NOAA to coordinate young adult conservation corps crews implementing restoration across 10,000 acres of Gulf of Mexico habitats (awarded October 2024); a $19.9 million NOAA cooperative agreement to improve fish passage on the Piscataquis River in Maine and restore endangered Atlantic salmon habitat (awarded August 2024); and an $8 million U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service project grant under the Inflation Reduction Act Urban & Community Forestry Program (CFDA 10.727) to establish and manage urban forests and green spaces in Newark, New Jersey (awarded August 2024). Additional recent grants fund landscape-scale longleaf pine restoration across the Southeast, sagebrush steppe conservation in the Interior West, coral reef restoration in Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands, nutrient management in the Chesapeake Bay, and hazardous fuels reduction and fire-adapted community capacity-building nationwide.

Customer concentration is spread across 116 federal agencies, with the top funding sources by award count being the Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service (242 awards), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (184 awards), and the Department of Agriculture National Resources Conservation Service (111 awards). These three agencies account for approximately 38 percent of recent awards. By potential dollar value, the Department of the Army Installation Management Command Southeast Region leads with 23 awards valued at $1.3 million combined, followed by Fish and Wildlife Service Region 1 with 51 awards valued at $433 thousand and NOAA with 184 awards valued at $331 thousand combined. The organization's primary contract vehicle is Indefinite Delivery Contract M6700491D0010 with 90 task orders; it also places work under IDC DABJ2503G4002 (45 task orders, $1.5 million combined potential value) and several agency BPAs, including a single-award blanket purchase agreement with Fish and Wildlife Service for support and transportation services at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in Hawaii (established March 2023, through March 2033, with multiple call orders totaling approximately $194 thousand).

Activity has grown year over year through 2024, with 63 awards in 2022 climbing to 138 in 2024, though 2025 and 2026 show moderation (104 awards in 2025, 45 awarded year-to-date in 2026). Sixty awards with completion dates within the next twenty-four months carry combined potential value of $594 thousand and face recompete risk. The Nature Conservancy operates predominantly as a prime recipient (86 percent of recent awards) and maintains a small subcontractor footprint (14 percent), appearing as a sub-recipient on grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, state fish and game agencies, universities, and other non-profit intermediaries such as Ducks Unlimited and the Choctawhatchee, Pea, and Yellow Rivers Watershed Management Authority. It routinely issues sub-awards to partner organizations, including state agencies, universities, tribal entities, and conservation groups such as the Smithsonian Institution, Montana Conservation Corps, Ohio State University, and regional land trusts, to deliver implementation and technical assistance for habitat restoration, workforce development, and monitoring work.

The Nature Conservancy's Service Contract Inventory profile is minimal—six SCI records spanning FY2022 through FY2025, all as a named subcontractor on service agreements rather than as a prime contractor, with negligible FTE representation (0.9 FTEs in FY2024 at peak). SCI does not reflect the organization's true federal footprint, which is grant-driven; the six SCI records represent only a narrow slice of service work embedded within larger cooperative agreements and do not capture the bulk of the organization's federal revenue, which flows through cooperative agreements and project grants rather than reportable service contracts above the SCI threshold.

The organization's award portfolio spans natural resource conservation, habitat restoration, and ecosystem management across NAICS codes dominated by environment and conservation work (99 awards) and environmental consulting services (43 awards). Primary federal grant programs active with The Nature Conservancy include the North American Wetlands Conservation Fund (CFDA 15.623), Partners for Fish and Wildlife (15.631), Fish and Aquatic Conservation programs (15.608), National Wildlife Refuge System Enhancements (15.654), State & Private Forestry programs (10.664, 10.697, 10.698), Natural Resources Conservation Service cooperative agreements (10.902, 10.912, 10.927, 10.069), NOAA Habitat Conservation (11.463), NOAA Congressionally Identified Awards (11.469), NOAA Geographic Programs—Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (66.469), and USAID Foreign Assistance (98.001). The organization also receives research grants from NSF and USGS and serves as a sub-recipient under FEMA Risk Mapping, Assessment and Planning initiatives (97.045).