“Critical infrastructure.” It’s a phrase you might find in many grant guidelines and requests for proposal. But what is it? Where is it? How much does your area have? The answers might surprise you.
What is critical infrastructure?
According to DHS, critical infrastructure comprises physical and virtual systems “so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof.”
There are 16 sectors:
Chemical
Commercial Facilities
Communications
Critical Manufacturing
Dams
Defense Industrial
Emergency Services
Energy
Financial Services
Food and Agriculture
Government Facilities
Healthcare and Public Health
Information Technology
Nuclear Reactors, Materials, and Waste Sector
Transportation Systems
Water and Wastewater
Where is critical infrastructure?
Critical infrastructure can be anywhere.
How much critical infrastructure does your area have?
And that, folks, can be the big hairy unknown. Critical infrastructure can be in or around your area, and you might not know it.
What to do about it?
We are working on some new resources to help agencies like yours plan around critical infrastructure and how to include details about critical infrastructure in grant applications.
April 4-5, 2019, ILEAS Training Center, Urbana, IL
Just south of Chicago, our friends at Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System (ILEAS) are once again opening their doors for 2 days of grant-writing training. First responders and public safety grant writers from around the country will be gathering for plain-talk, meat-and-potatoes training that gives you the ins and outs for writing competitive grants.
Start talking with your chief, captain, or municipal contacts now so your department can join us.
Remember: The FY 2018 FP&S grant application period will open on Monday, November 12, 2018 at 8 AM ET and will close on Friday, December 21, 2018 at 5 PM ET.
Grant Application Webinars
The FP&S Program Office will host 2 webinars to help you with your FY 2018 FP&S grant application. The webinars will provide potential applicants with general information about the FP&S grant program, how to navigate the grant application, and tips for preparing an application. FP&S Program Officers will be available to answer questions.
FY 2018 Fire Prevention & Safety Application Assistance
Please make sure to thoroughly review the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) prior to beginning your application, as it contains the latest updates to the FY 2018 FP&S Grant Program. Begin preparing your application now by using the following application assistance tools:
FY 2018 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) – This document contains key programmatic updates and application requirements for all eligible applicants.
FY 2018 FP&S Application Checklist – This checklist will help you prepare to answer questions within the grant application. Collecting this information will reduce the time and energy needed to complete your application.
FY 2018 FP&S Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) – This document contains answers to frequently asked questions about the FP&S Grant Program.
FY 2018 Research & Development (R&D) Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) – This document contains answers to frequently asked questions specifically about the Research and Development Activity within the FP&S Grant Program.
FY 2018 FP&S Self Evaluation Sheet – This Self Evaluation Sheet will help you understand the criteria that you must address in your Narrative Statement when applying for FP&S grants.
FY 2018 FP&S Cost Share Calculator – This calculator will help you understand and determine your organization’s cost share for FP&S grants.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is holding webinars for stakeholders nationwide to discuss the agency’s efforts in updating the National Response Framework (NRF) to incorporate lessons learned from the unprecedented 2017 hurricane and wildfire season. First released in 2008, the NRF is a guide for how our nation responds to all types of disasters and emergencies. As part of FEMA’s renewed effort to build a national culture of preparedness, this update will include the following areas:
Additional emphasis on non-governmental capabilities to include the role of individuals and private sector/industry partners in responding to disasters;
A new Emergency Support Function to leverage existing coordination mechanisms between the government and infrastructure owners/operators; and
Focus on outcomes-based response through the prioritization of the rapid stabilization of life-saving and life sustaining Lifelines.
The updated NRF will continue to focus on the capabilities necessary to save lives, protect property and the environment, and meet basic human needs during disasters. The NRF will continue to be scalable, flexible and adaptable, using the core capabilities identified in the National Preparedness Goal.
FEMA is hosting a series of one-hour engagement webinars to describe the update and answer participants’ questions. These webinars are geared toward the whole community, including individuals and communities, the private and nonprofit sectors, faith-based organizations, and all governments (state, local, tribal, and territorial, as well as federal agencies).
Advance registration is required and on a first-come, first-served basis. To register, click on your preferred webinar session from the list below.
Once summer gives way to fall, we all know how close we are to the holidays… and then to another new year. As we head into the final months of 2018 and look ahead to 2019, there is lots your department can be doing right now to prepare for next year’s grant opportunities.
Conduct a needs assessment
Proper planning involves a myriad of things, one of which is assuring that you have proper manpower and equipment to carry out your basic mission for your citizens. A needs assessment gives you the facts you need to know about how well prepared your department is to carry out its primary function.
Each year, public, private, corporate, and non-profit organizations provide thousands of grants worth billions of dollars. What programs are out there that your agency could benefit from? What program will you try for for the first time? What programs have you tried for and gotten rejected, but you’re determined that this year be the year you get to the winner’s circle? Remember: Lots of grants open for applications during the first quarter!
Know and practice the 4 things grant winners have in common
Over the years we’ve looked at thousands of grant applications, and we have seen it all. The good. The bad. The ugly. And there are things that consistently set the winners apart from the losers. Put our 4 tips to work in your grant efforts, and you will be far more likely to celebrate a grant award in 2019.
You can make a well-stated case for why your department needs a grant more than another, but you also have to back up your story with hard data. Luckily, there’s lots of that out there. Demographics, critical infrastructure, economics, you name it.
Law Enforcement, EMS, Emergency Management, Fire Service. You name it, no matter what part of the Public Safety sector an agency is in, when it comes to winning grants those winning agencies have 4 things in common.
1. They all got an early start.
Winning agencies don’t wait till the last minute. They tend to start their application and narrative 3-6 months ahead of the grant program’s opening date.
2. They all know the NOFO backward and forward.
The number one reason grants are rejected is that the applying agency committed “failure to follow directions.”
Know where these directions are?
Every single direction is in one document, known as the NOFO or RFP, the Notice of Funding Opportunity and Request for Proposal. This vital document spells out every detail of a grant program. Losing agencies sometimes barely open or skim the NOFO.
Winning agencies read, re-read, and re-read these documents again, and keep them close at hand for further reference throughout their application process.
3. They know what they need and why they need it.
Winning agencies have conducted a “needs assessment” in order to identify the highest priority item not just for themselves, but that also falls into the high priority category defined by the grant funding source.
In order to be competitive, you have to know the difference between a “need” and a “want.” They are distinctively different. Only seek “high” priority projects to go after in your grant.
Be sure you have thoroughly vetted your project with agency administrators and command staff. That way, prior to you even starting the grant application, everyone is reading from the same page and knows exactly what you will be writing for and why.
4. They seek out professional training, advice, and consulting.
Winning agencies know that you don’t just train for incident response. You train for writing grants too. They get the professional expertise they need to understand the grant process. They seek professional advice and assistance to guide their efforts and check their work for mistakes prior to submission.
As an example, the wrong answer to a single question can result in lowering your grant’s priority from a “high” to a “medium or low” priority. As such, your grant would end up rejected by the computer as not being competitive enough to go further through the vetting process. All because of one error.
While no one person or no amount of preparation can guarantee a grant’s success, these 4 steps can make it far more likely that your grant will make it to the winner’s circle.
How can you put these 4 things to work in your agency’s grant efforts today?
Before we know it, summer will be on the wane. Vacations will be ending. School will be starting. Someday the temperature might even cool off…
As we start to think about fall and–can you believe it?–the year to come, it’s also a great time to talk with your department and municipality about getting grant-writing training. Since our training is only for first responders, emergency management, and public safety agencies, it’s tailored exactly for what you need to write and send out the most competitive grants you can.
Check out our schedule and sign up for the in-person or online class that’s best for you.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and emergency management partner organizations today released two new PrepTalks from Michele Gay and Kristina Anderson focused on improving school safety.
NIMS Alert 21-18: FEMA and Emergency Manager Partners Release School Safety PrepTalks
Gay’s PrepTalk, “Rethinking School Safety”, relays her personal experience as the parent of a child killed in the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. She highlights some of the simple solutions that students and staff needed during the crisis at Sandy Hook, and presents Safe and Sound Schools’ Framework for Comprehensive School Safety Planning and Development: Emergency Management, Community Engagement, Physical Safety, Mental and Behavioral Health, Climate and Culture, and Health & Wellness.
Anderson’s PrepTalk, “Safety is Personal: Lessons Learned as a Survivor of the Virginia Tech Tragedy”, begins with her experience of the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, when she was shot three times. She translates her experience into a focus on the importance of threat assessments in schools to identify and mitigate potential threats. She explains that it’s important to improve physical safety, but it’s just as important to encourage people to monitor their environment and to build a supportive culture in a school.
The next PrepTalks Symposium will be held on September 6, 2018 in Washington, DC. All PrepTalks, question-and-answer sessions, discussion guides, and related resources are available at https://www.fema.gov/preptalks.
PrepTalks are presented by FEMA, the International Association of Emergency Managers, the National Emergency Management Association, the National Homeland Security Consortium, and the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security.
What does this mean for your department?
Here are things to examine in your organization:
What are your policies and procedures for responding to incidents at schools, colleges, and universities?
How will your department coordinate with other responding agencies?
What protocols are in place to protect your personnel or minimize risk?
If you are trying to figure out how your organization can better prepare for and respond to school-related incidents, we may be able to advice on grants or other programs that may be able to assist your department.
Budget cuts. Shrinking tax bases. A public—and sometimes, government officials—who don’t understand why your agency needs the funding it needs. Whether Fire, EMS, Law Enforcement, or Emergency Management, public safety agencies have it harder than ever. Threats to the public loom every day, yet your department lacks resources for equipment, personnel, and training.
What if you could do something about it?
Find grants fast
Here’s the thing: every year, billions of dollars are available from public, private, and non-profit sources. That doesn’t mean there’s a big pot of gold waiting around the corner for you (though we’ll wait if you want to check real quick). But it does mean that, with a little work, your department can find other ways to procure the funding you need.
The hard part, of course, is finding those funding sources. That’s why, a while back, we at First Responder Grants partnered with GrantFinder, a real-time, online, searchable database of every federal, state, foundation and corporate grant available to your community.
“In our short term of using GrantFinder, we have been able to find and apply for over 20 grants,” says Sandra Newland, Grants Manager with Laramie County, Wyoming. “These grants range in scope from law enforcement, fire, library and numerous non-profit agencies in our community.”
Through its extensive database, GrantFinder gives you the tools you need to find and track funding sources that can help your public safety agency. Instead of having to comb through the entire Internet or spend hours googling, you can leverage GrantFinder’s powerful tools to help you find grants fast.
GrantFinder can transform the way you search for grants. Even though it’s so powerful, it’s also simple to use:
Simple user management. One person can oversee all users and permissions directly from the application.
Simple setup. Simple to use. Instantly start searching for grants right out of the box. No onboarding needed. No need to upgrade plugins. Nothing to worry about.
The most cost-effective grant search tool on the market. No hidden costs. No setup fees.
Over 500 cities, towns, counties, regional planning organizations, and Councils of Government (COGs) have subscribed. The result? They are finding more funding sources than ever.
“GrantFinder has been very helpful in finding grants as well as finding information,” Matthew Lane, Administrative Budget Analyst with the City of Saginaw in Michigan. “It’s a great tool!”
Powerful search
Last time we checked, GrantFinder listed 7,862 grants. Luckily, you don’t have to wade through those one by one to find what’s relevant to your department.
Before you put on another pot of coffee and start burning some midnight oil, you can instead search those grants with these powerful filters:
Keyword
Grant Category
Funder Type
Funder Name
Application Deadline
Rolling Deadline
Matching Requirement?
Administering State
Geographic Coverage
Who Can Apply?
Save and share
Once you’ve found a grant that you’re interested in, you can save that to “My Grants,” a part of your GrantFinder account that gives you at-a-glance access to the grants you are researching, applying for, or following for its next application period.
Want to share that grant with your colleagues? GrantFinder will create a PDF of the grant listing that you can share with your chief, municipal officials, or other personnel.
Find specific grant sources & funding organizations too
At last check, GrantFinder listed grants and other programs from 2,619 funding sources throughout the US. That’s an average of 52 funding sources for every state in the country—and many funding sources offer multiple grants.
With those kind of numbers, odds are you’re going to find a funding source and a grant that your agency can use. And GrantFinder makes it easy: you can search funding sources by name, funder type, and funder state.
Help is a click away
Even though GrantFinder has been setup to be intuitive and easy to use, sometimes we all need a hand figuring powerful tech tools like this. A robust help section walks you through:
Common questions
Technical difficulties
Video tutorials of GrantFinder’s tools
And if you need help beyond that? Additional support is only an email away.
Have those grants come to you
Sure, you can hunt for grants, but wouldn’t it be nice if the grants could come to you?
With GrantFinder’s Grant Alerts, you can set up email notifications based on your needs and preferences. Once setup, Grant Alerts will monitor GrantFinder’s system and email you the latest news about programs relevant to your needs.
You can customize your email alerts by:
Grant Categories
Matching Requirement
Funder Type
Who Can Apply?
Geographic Coverage
From there, you can even tell GrantFinder what day or days of the week you’d like to receive your emails.
Grant Alerts turn GrantFinder into your own grant search engine, but it does the work for you—and lets you know when it’s time to go into application mode.
Don’t miss that grand deadline!
Of course, all this work means nothing if you miss the grant deadline. You know how it is: deadlines can sneak up on you… and then fly by.
To make sure you are not missing any important application deadlines, GrantFinder’s deadline calendar shows you a list of the next month’s grants, complete with their associated deadlines.
Find the grants you need to get the funding you need
Finding funding is harder than ever nowadays… but you can do something about it. You can find grants that help your agency get the equipment, personnel, and training you need.
“GrantFinder gives all of our member communities real-time access to thousands of grants,” says Greg Chew, Senior Planner with the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG). “It was an easy decision for our member jurisdictions to request that SACOG subscribe to the service.”
Remember: The FY 2018 FP&S grant application period will open on Monday, November 12, 2018 at 8 AM ET and will close on Friday, December 21, 2018 at 5 PM ET.
