The purpose of the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act (NMBCA) is to provide financial support and foster international cooperation for initiatives that perpetuate healthy bird populations by conserving birds throughout their life cycles and addressing their needs on a continental scale.
The NMBCA program provides matching grants to neotropical migratory bird conservation projects throughout the Western Hemisphere, with at least 75 percent of funding going to projects outside the United States. The competitive grants require that grant requests be matched by partner contributions at no less than a 2-to-1 ratio.
From 2012 to 2024, the IMPACT program targeted a portion of NMBCA funding on a group of particularly threatened Neotropical migratory birds, with the goal of achieving measurable biological improvements in these species over a 5-10 year period. The remaining funds supported the traditional NMBCA program, where conservation projects addressing any Neotropical migratory bird species are eligible. The IMPACT program is currently on pause for evaluation to determine its future direction.
You can see a list of projects and summaries on our project summaries page.
Since 2002, the NMBCA grant program has provided more than $94.2 million in funds to support 747 projects in 43 countries. These projects have positively affected more than 6 million acres of bird habitat and spurred partnerships on multiple levels contributing an additional $363 million.
This year, $4,871,748 million in federal funds will be matched by $17,150,022 million in partner contributions going to 30 collaborative conservation projects in 19 countries across the Americas.