The Outdoor Recreation Legacy Program (ORLP) is a nationally competitive grant program, established in 2014 and funded through the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). The program targets grant assistance to help economically disadvantaged urban communities with little to no access to publicly available, close-by, outdoor recreation, acquire and/or develop land to create, or substantially renovate, public parks and other outdoor recreation spaces
in urban areas. In this sixth round of funding, there is $192 million available. The Department of Interior has made a few changes to the program for this application round which should help more communities qualify. They include:
· The city size cap has been decreased from 50,000 to 30,000 residents;
· The maximum grant amount has increased from $5 million to $10 million;
· Cities no longer need to be in a Census-designated Urban Area boundary;
· The pre-application requirement that states were required to submit has been removed.
Project sponsors must match the grant award 1:1 with non-federal dollars. Learn more about the opportunity at the National Park Service website.
