NFWF's New Great Plains Grassland Fund Puts $10 Million Behind One Rule: Never Plow It

Once native prairie is plowed, it is effectively gone. Its soil carbon, root structure, nesting cover and water-filtering capacity can't be rebuilt on any useful timescale. The World Wildlife Fund's 2024 Plowprint Report, which the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation cites, found that about 1.9 million acres of Great Plains grassland were converted to cropland in 2022 alone, and that only about 55 percent of the region's grasslands remain intact.

The Great Plains Grassland Fund is NFWF's answer, and the requirement that defines it is one sentence in the 2026–2027 request for proposals: any easement it funds must "confirm or attest that the easement will not allow for tilling/sod-busting on the land." The first competitive round makes up to $10 million available. Full proposals are due January 27, 2027, at 9:59 p.m. Mountain Time, and awards are expected in May 2027.

Who Is Paying, and What They Want for It

NFWF launched the fund on October 7, 2026 with a $9 million grant from the Walmart Foundation. Another $9 million in "aligned investment" comes from McDonald's USA and several of its suppliers through the Grassland Resilience and Conservation Initiative (GRCI), for a combined $18 million commitment. The fund's partner list reads like a beef and beverage supply chain: Cargill, Golden State Foods, Lopez Foods, OSI Group and The Coca-Cola Company.

GRCI is a year old. NFWF, McDonald's USA, its suppliers and USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service launched it in 2025 with a goal of reaching 4 million acres over seven years. According to Cesar Piña, McDonald's USA's chief supply chain officer for North America, it has already "supported two rounds of grantees advancing voluntary conservation practices." The most recent was a roughly $2.4 million slate announced in August 2026. The Great Plains Grassland Fund is the land-protection counterpart to that practice-focused work.

The goals are stated in acres. NFWF wants to "permanently protect 150,000 to 200,000 acres of high-conservation-value grasslands at potential risk of conversion" and improve grazing management on another 150,000 to 200,000 acres. Its fact sheet places the fund within a 30-year conservation strategy for the region. The fund is meant to be "a durable funding mechanism that aggregates public and private capital." In practice, NFWF expects other funders to join later, and this first $10 million is a starting point, not a cap.

The arithmetic shows why match matters. Even at a few hundred dollars an acre for an easement's value, $10 million can protect only a fraction of 150,000 acres. Meeting the goal depends on leverage, and the RFP says so directly.

The Match Is 1:1 on Paper and Higher in Practice

Every award requires "a minimum 1:1 match of cash or contributed goods and services." The RFP adds a line applicants should read as guidance: "Other NFWF programs involving land conservation typically receive proposals with matching funds at a 5:1 ratio or greater."

Two features make high match ratios achievable:

• Federal money counts. "Both federal and non-federal funds may be considered as match." For easement projects, this points to NRCS's Agricultural Conservation Easement Program. Its Agricultural Land Easement component typically covers up to half of an easement's appraised value, and more for grasslands of special environmental significance. A land trust that has already secured an ACEP-ALE commitment can bring that money in as match.
• Pending sources count. Applicants must list all matching sources "no matter the status (intend to apply, application submitted, pledged, received)." You don't need every dollar secured by January. You do need a realistic plan.

Donated easement value, which is often a large share of a rancher's bargain-sale transaction, also counts as contributed match. Applicants should document it with appraisals, not estimates.

Eligibility: Narrower Than NFWF's Older Plains Program

Eligible applicants are "non-profit 501(c) organizations, state government agencies, local governments, municipal governments, Tribal governments and organizations, and educational institutions." Federal agencies, for-profit businesses, individuals and international organizations cannot apply as the primary applicant, but they can take part as subrecipients or contribute match.

That is a change from NFWF's Northern Great Plains Program. That program accepts federal agencies as applicants, funds 15 to 25 grants a year typically ranging from $200,000 to $1.5 million, and focuses on four landscapes: the Dakota Grasslands, Missouri-Milk River, Nebraska Sandhills and Powder River-Thunder Basin. Its 2026 cycle closed in February. The new fund covers "grass-dominated landscapes across the Great Plains," a broader area than the four Northern Great Plains focal landscapes. That potentially opens the door to land trusts and conservation districts outside the northern program's focal areas. The RFP shows the boundary as a map with no state list, so check your parcel against the map before you start writing.

Individual ranchers can't apply. They take part through an eligible partner, usually a land trust, a conservation district or a grazing association.

What a Competitive Proposal Looks Like

The fund lists six priorities: protecting intact grasslands at high risk of conversion; conserving habitat for fish, wildlife and plants; connecting protected lands and migration routes; improving water quantity and quality; supporting ranching livelihoods and local economies; and showing strong community leadership. Preference goes to proposals that "demonstrate more than one priority."

Read the RFP and the fact sheet together, and the strongest proposal pairs a permanent no-till easement with a grazing-management package on the same operation or neighboring ones. According to High Plains Journal coverage, projects are expected to use voluntary easements plus "grassbanks, grazing associations and other community-based models," with practices such as wildlife-friendly and virtual fencing, invasive species removal, prescribed fire and riparian restoration. Chris West, director of NFWF's Rocky Mountain Regional Office, told the paper that sustainable management means "helping ranchers manage grasslands in ways that keep them healthy, productive and resilient over the long term."

Several requirements catch applicants off guard:

• Show conversion risk with data. The RFP points to tools including WWF's Plowprint, Climate Action Reserve's GrassTool and WRI's Aqueduct. A parcel next to recent cropland conversion is a stronger case than a remote one.
• Submit a shapefile. Easygrants requires project boundaries.
• Accept the deed language. Required NFWF language must go into grant agreements and recorded land documents. Make sure the landowner's attorney has seen it before you submit.
• No carbon deals. Funders "will not make claims on carbon or purchase carbon credits" from avoided conversion. But McDonald's has contracted Kateri and Carbon Yield to monitor soil-health improvements independently, so expect monitoring access to come up.
• Plan for reimbursement. Payments are "primarily reimbursable," and monthly advances "will not be considered." Small land trusts closing easements will need bridge capital.
• Check your drones. Federally funded activities can't use drones on the Covered Foreign Entities list.

The Next Eleven Weeks

The October 23 applicant webinar has passed, but the recording is on the RFP page. NFWF "strongly encourages applicants to meet with NFWF staff," and has posted a booking calendar for that. Contacts are Seth Gallagher, program director for Grasslands and Mountain West (seth.gallagher@nfwf.org), and Nora Ong, manager of Central Region Working Lands (nora.ong@nfwf.org). Book early, because a December call leaves time to change a project's scope and a mid-January call doesn't.

Easement transactions take longer than grant cycles, so the projects most likely to be funded in May are the ones with a willing landowner, an appraisal in progress and an ACEP application already filed. If you're assembling that kind of package before January 27, Granted can help you organize the match table, the conversion-risk evidence and the narrative.