Top 5 Things To Consider Before You Prepare a Grant Application

Top 5 Things To Consider Before You Prepare a Grant Application for the US Economic Development Administration (USEDA)

Here are five, high level things to think about before you decide to apply for a federal grant to USEDA. Although this is specific to USEDA, the general concepts apply to most funding sources.

APPLICANT ELIGIBILITY & CAPACITY

You need to make sure that you even meet the requirements to apply for an application for funding to USDA. They’re written in the NOFO. And if you’re a nonprofit, you need to have the support of a government agency and the devil is in the details in these NOFOs because each one has different restrictions on certain organizations that can apply and in some cases, you have to be from a certain area dependent like indigenous peoples for that NOFO.

Along with applicant eligibility is your capacity to be able to manage a grant. Do you have any flags like you know, any sort of audits, those types of things? Eligibility and capacity for the actual applicant? And there’s ways that you can work with that to work with other organizations.

PROJECT ELIGIBILITY

There’s project eligibility and again, each NOFO has some specific things that they say that they will not fund, and they will fund, which varies by NOFO. In general, the USEDA has things that they will cover, and they will not. So, that’s where your economic development representative is helpful. Take a look at the NOFO. The most flexible funding source is the Economic Adjustment Assistance (EAA).

TIMELINE

The timeline is going to be in the NOFO, as well. You have to be able to have completed your project by a certain date, because the EDA funding is through an act of Congress and there’s deadlines. I’m not going to go into that whole process, but they have to be able to close out all the funding by a certain date. With some of these, like ARPA, they have a quick turnaround time and I’m not sure how many extensions would be applicable, so you need to think about that.

Non-construction is typically 12 months, maybe 12 to 18 months and includes feasibility studies, technical assistance, and strategic planning. Also think about the timeline that it takes for procurement to be able to put an RFP out. Then, construction is a little bit longer. So again, you can talk to the NOFO, but I’m just trying to give you a high level if you’ve never worked with USEDA before.

USEDA INVESTMENT PRIORITIES & NOFO GOALS

The next thing is the USEDA investment priorities and they’re listed on their website. The top is equity. The second one is recovering resilience. And then there’s several others, again, they’re all on the website, but they are different. They changed this spring, so a lot of people have come to me saying “oh, we’re located in opportunity zones.” You still should highlight that in your application because in my mind that’s demonstrating that it’s leveraging other funding opportunities and working with other agencies. But, when it comes to the actual investment priorities, that’s no longer listed.

You also want to look at any sort of goal. This requires you to read between the lines with how they’re describing it in the NOFO or even some of these one pagers that are on EDA websites. You need to have a nexxus to the outcomes and goals of the Notice of Funding Opportunity.

BUDGET & LOCAL SHARE

Is your budget reasonable? Do you have local share? Most of these projects will require at least 20%. There are certain circumstances, but those are rare instances, where you could get 100% cover. And this is true across the board. Usually it’s 50/50. But with the special need right now, it’s about 80/20. The more you’re able to demonstrate that, the better. With local share, you can be creative (legally).

In cash is king. This is coming from my perspective, it’s easier to be able to show that you have it available and it’s unencumbered, but there are different kinds of things you can do. There are other funding sources that can match, it doesn’t have to be just from your organization.

You need to be able to demonstrate that you have that and what that percentage is. But. is the project reasonable? A few million dollars for a feasibility study is probably not going to fly, unless it’s something very unique. But typically, that’s a construction project. Ensure that the budget users themselves are eligible. And again, that’s in the NOFO and talking to your EDR For more assistance.

You want to make sure that you’re not funding someones’ staffing position by another funding source, especially if it’s EDA. You don’t want to have over 100% of that person’s time and salary being paid by different grants because obviously that’s double dipping and it will come back to bite you.

CONCLUSION

These are some high level things– applicant eligibility and capacity project eligibility, the timeline of your project that it meets the deadlines and the NOFO if you were to be awarded, EDA’s investment priorities and the goals of the NOFO itself, and that your budget and your local share are available and are reasonable. Again, the devil is in the details of looking at that NOFO and reaching out to your state’s EDR. Reach out to me if you need assistance, as well.