Grant Newsletters

If you or someone you know would like to be added to our monthly grants newsletter, you can sign-up for the newsletter by clicking here. Below you can find previous months' grants newsletters.

November Grants Newsletter

We are excited to share upcoming grants and federal funding opportunities for local governments, universities, community organizations, businesses, and individuals.

You can find up-to-date information on open federal grants here. This spreadsheet will be updated throughout the month and includes a wide variety of grants related to agriculture, community development, disaster prevention and relief, food and nutrition, transportation, and much more. The grants can be easily sorted and filtered by category to help find grants relating to specific needs.

Grant News:

The Environmental Protection Agency has started their Clean School Bus RebatesProgram which offers upfront funding to help schools replace existing diesel school buses with new clean and zero-emissions vehicles. This non-competitive program selects recipients through a random lottery, giving preference to school districts listedhere that serve rural and low-income areas, and aims to offer a simpler, more streamlined application process compared to other funding opportunities. The application deadline is January 21st, 2024.

The National Park Service recently announced the Save America's Treasures grant program, which allocated funds towards the preservation of historical sites and properties that have been designated a National Historic Landmark or have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This grant program also includes funding for the preservation of historically relevant collections and is open to museums and libraries. The application deadline is December 19th, 2023.

During the coming year, new rounds of mental health and gun violence prevention grants made possible by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act are expected to be announced. Interested municipalities, school districts, and eligible nonprofits should be on the lookout for mental health grants expected to come out next February and March like Project Aware and Mental Health Awareness Training grants allocated by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The Department of Justice STOP School Violence and Enhancing School Capacity to Address Youth Violence grants programs are expected to reopen in March 2024 to help municipalities, school systems, and nonprofits work to address gun violence in schools.

As temperatures drop, the Colorado Energy Office has an open Weatherization Assistance Program to aid homeowners with energy audits, insulation, solar energy, heat pumps, and more. Interested parties can find more information and apply here. Low-income families and seniors can also receive assistance for winter heating costs from the Colorado Low-income Energy Assistance Program here.

Reminders from last month's newsletter:

The Environmental Protection Agency announced a new $4.6 billion Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program, which will provide individual grants of $2 million or more for municipalities, state agencies, and subgrantees within a coalition to carry out a climate action plan aimed at reducing pollution in their service area. Those interested in applying can find more information at the EPA announcement webinar here. The deadline for the optional Notice of Intent to Apply is February 1, 2024, and the application deadline is April 1, 2024.

As part of the CHIPS Act and the Biden administration's commitment to strengthening and expanding America's domestic semiconductor supply chain, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced a Small Scale Supplier Program. This program will invest in smaller-scale companies wishing to build, expand, or upgrade their facilities that create semiconductors. NIST is accepting concept plans for this grant between December 1st, 2023 and February 1st, 2024. Interested parties can find more information here.

October Grants Newsletter

We are excited to share upcoming grants and federal funding opportunities for local governments, universities, community organizations, businesses, and individuals.

You can find up-to-date information on open federal grants here. This spreadsheet will be frequently updated throughout the month and includes a wide variety of grants related to agriculture, community development, disaster prevention and relief, food and nutrition, transportation, and much more. The grants can be easily sorted and filtered by category to help find grants relating to specific needs.

Grants News:

This month, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a new $4.6 billion Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program, which will provide individual grants of $2 million or more for municipalities, state agencies, and subgrantees within a coalition to carry out a climate action plan aimed at reducing pollution in their service area. Those interested in applying can find more information at the EPA announcement webinar here. The deadline for the optional Notice of Intent to Apply is February 1, 2024, and the application deadline is April 1, 2024.

The EPA also announced $19 million in grants to address water system infrastructure aimed at helping small, underserved communities conserve water and make their water systems more resilient to climate disasters. This program has no local match requirement and is open to municipal water systems in communities with less than 10,000 people. Interested parties can find more here.

As part of the CHIPS Act and the Biden administration's commitment to strengthening and expanding America's domestic semiconductor supply chain, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced a Small Scale Supplier Program. This program will invest in smaller-scale companies wishing to build, expand, or upgrade their facilities that create semiconductors. NIST is accepting concept plans for this grant between December 1st, 2023 and February 1st, 2024. Interested parties can find more information here.

As a reminder from last month's newsletter, the Department of Transportation has an ongoing Thriving Communities Program to establish regional capacity builders in disadvantaged and under-resourced areas that will provide free technical assistance to community partners. Areas selected for support will receive two years of tailored, deep-dive support with the grants projects and three years of facilitated peer learning and networking. The DOT will be selecting which areas will receive technical assistance based on demonstrated disadvantage and need, as well as the number of letters of interest submitted by a community. Communities who wish to receive this assistance must submit a letter of interest at the web form here by 3 p.m. MT on November 15th.

If you know someone who would like to be added to my monthly grants newsletter, they can sign up for the newsletter here or contact my grants program manager, David Clark, at david.clark@mail.house.gov. You can also find resources shared in previous grants newsletters here. Please reach out with any questions, letter of support requests, or if you would like my office to keep an eye out for federal funding in specific areas.

September Grants Newsletter

We are excited to share upcoming grants and federal funding opportunities for local governments, universities, community organizations, businesses, and individuals.

You can find up-to-date information on open federal grants here. This spreadsheet will be frequently updated throughout the month and includes grants related to agriculture; arts and culture; business and commerce; community development; consumer protection; disaster prevention and relief; education; employment, labor, and training; energy; environment; food and nutrition; health; infrastructure; income security and social services; natural resources; opportunity zones; regional development; science, technology, and research and development; transportation; and more. The grants can be easily sorted and filtered by category to help find grants relating to specific needs.

Grants News:

The Department of Transportation has recently announced the opening of their Thriving Communities Program to establish regional capacity builders in disadvantaged and underresourced areas that will provide free technical assistance to community partners. Areas selected for support will receive two years of tailored, deep-dive support with the grants projects and three years of facilitated peer learning and networking. The DOT will be selecting which areas will receive technical assistance based on demonstrated disadvantage and need, as well as the number of letters of interest submitted by a community. Communities who wish to receive this assistance should submit a letter of interest through the web form here by 3 p.m. MT on November 15th.

Those interested in free technical assistance and help with finding, applying to, and complying with grants can find more resources from the Federal Interagency Thriving Communities Network. Created to help communities take advantage of the historic federal investments made in the American Rescue Plan Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the Inflation Reduction Act, the network works to coordinate between government agencies to increase access to these funding opportunities. Interested parties can find more information at the following links on specific technical assistance programs run by the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Economic Development Agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the General Services Administration.

August Grants Newsletter

We are excited to share upcoming grants and federal funding opportunities for local governments, universities, community organizations, businesses, and individuals.

Information on grants open through September and beyond can be found here, with subsections of grants related to arts and the humanities, communities, economic development, education, energy, environment, fire and disaster management, food and agriculture, health care, housing, infrastructure, rural assistance, science, technology, and research, transportation, water, workforce development, and Colorado state agency grants. The grants are grouped by category, then ordered by deadline.

Grants News:

Funding and Tax Credits for Energy Efficiency Upgrades:

The Inflation Reduction Act funded programs to help our country’s transition to clean energy and provided resources for nonprofit organizations, larger companies, and individual families and homeowners. One of these programs is the Department of Agriculture's Rural Energy for America Program, which provides grants and guaranteed loans for rural agricultural producers and small businesses wishing to install clean energy systems or make energy efficiency improvements. Interested parties can find more on that program here.

It's not just businesses that can receive money for energy efficiency upgrades — homeowners can get in on the action too! This month, the IRS announced that home energy audits that meet certain requirements will now be eligible for the Energy Efficiency Improvement Tax Credit, making clean energy home improvements more feasible for many households. You can find more information on tax credits and rebates for home energy efficiency improvements, weatherization, and buying electric vehicles at the Department of Energy dashboard here, as well as state-level tax credits for electric vehicle purchases here.

Cybersecurity Grants:

Over the past year, too many municipalities and organizations in our district have had to deal with ransomware attacks extorting already cash and time-strapped communities. That's part of why I was pleased to see that the Federal Emergency Management Agency allocated over $370 million in additional funds for Colorado's State and Local Cybersecurity grants. Interested local governments can find more information here and can contact my office to request letters of support for their applications.

Stormwater and Sewer System Grants:

The Environmental Protection Agency announced $531k in funding this month going towards stormwater collection and sewer system upgrades for Colorado communities. Created specifically for smaller communities with less financial and technical resources, this program has no local match requirement. Interested parties can contact David Piantanida at the EPA at piantanida.david@epa.gov or visit here for more information.

Letters of Support:

In addition to sharing open federal funding opportunities, my office can also help your grant efforts with a letter of support for any federal grant application. Congressional letters of support help show grant reviewers that your project has buy-in from regional stakeholders and make your application more competitive. If you would like to request a letter of support from our office, please contact my grants program manager, David Clark, directly at david.clark@mail.house.gov.

We can also provide a letter of support to any "pass-through" grants, which occur when the federal government allocates federal dollars to the states for state agencies to decide how to disperse. Despite making up over 80% of all federal grant funding, pass-through grants can often be an overlooked avenue for funding — and require applicants to compete only against other CO entities rather than entities across the country.

July Grants Newsletter

As part of the Biden administration's Investing in America Agenda, the Department of Transportation has announced a new Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant Program through funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. This historic investment in our infrastructure puts $5.5 billion toward major projects across the country, including the National Infrastructure Project Assistance Program focused on large complex projects with national and regional impacts, the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America program focused on highway and railway projects, and the Rural Surface Transportation Grant focused on rural projects.

In exciting news for Colorado and surrounding states, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced that they are taking applications for a Region 8 Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center (TCTAC). In the meantime before a Region 8 TCTAC is selected, Colorado municipalities and organizations can go to the national TCTAC dedicated to our region here for free grant application support and assistance, help with finding relevant available grants, and advice for compliance with grant requirements for any project that has an environmental tie-in or focus.

June Grants Newsletter

We are excited to share upcoming grants and federal funding opportunities for local governments, universities, community organizations, businesses, and individuals.

Information on grants open through July and beyond can be found here, with subsections of grants related to arts and culture, children and education, criminal justice, energy, the environment, fire and disaster management, food and agriculture, government,housing, information technology, infrastructure,miscellaneous grants, pipelines and hazardous materials, public health, science and research,specific communities, transportation, water, and the workforce. The grants are grouped by category, then ordered by deadline.

New Grants and Programs:

This month, the Department of Transportation released a new user-friendly online tool to help grant applicants find and sort through available grants from the Department of Transportation (DOT) and transportation-related grants from ten other federal agencies. Applicants can filter by categories of eligible applicants, what the grant money can be used for, local match waivers, and funding opportunities set aside for rural applicants.

DOT has also announced the Rural and Tribal Assistance Pilot Program, a new grant program aiming to help partially fund an existing transportation project for rural and tribal areas or make the project more feasible. The grant can go towards technical, financial, and legal support for a project, can be used to hire staff to carry out a project, and can even be used to hire a grant-writer to apply for a specific other transportation-related grant. This grant is non-competitive and has no local match requirement, instead being apportioned to all applicants who meet eligibility requirements on a first-come, first-serve basis when applications open on August 14th. Interested parties can learn more here and direct questions to ruralandtribalta@dot.gov.

The Economic Development Administration announced the Recomplete Pilot Program, a grantsprogram appropriated by the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act. This new grants program looks to invest in economic development in communities with higher than average unemployment for workers aged 25-54 years old. Areas within Fremont, Custer, and Chaffee counties are eligible for this program (more info on eligibility with the EDA mapping tool here), and interested parties can learn more here. The EDA plans to announce when the program will start accepting applications in the coming weeks.

Ways to make your application more competitive:

As part of President Biden's ongoing Justice40 Initiative, federal agencies are directed to allocate at least 40% of funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the Inflation Reduction Act towards historically disadvantaged communities in an effort to address systemic inequity, racism, and the unequal impacts of pollution on different communities. Applicants can learn more about the Justice40 Initiative here, and are encouraged by grant reviewers to use some of the following data mapping tools to highlight any disadvantaged communities that would stand to benefit from a proposed project: the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, the Department of Transportation Equitable Transportation Community Explorer, the Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool, the Center for Disease Control's Social Vulnerability Index, and this Department of Transportation mapping tool for areas of persistent poverty and historically disadvantaged communities.

Additionally, grant reviewers from the Department of Energy have said that community buy-in is a major factor when they review grant applications by private companies for programs covered by President Biden's Invest in America agenda. Applicants who are able to show buy-in from community stakeholders, provide a community benefits plan, have letters of support from their federal elected officials (more info below on how to request a letter of support from my office), show buy-in from labor groups, and commit to neutrality should their workers wish to start a union are often able to make their application more competitive.

May Grants Newsletter

We are excited to share upcoming grants and federal funding opportunities for local governments, universities, community organizations, and individuals.

Information on grants open through June and beyond can be found here, with subsections of grants related to the arts and humanities, children and families, communities, criminal justice, economic development, education, energy, the environment, fire and disaster management, food and agriculture, health care, housing, information technology, infrastructure, the military and national defense, miscellaneous grants, rural grants, science and research, seniors, transportation, water, and the workforce. The grants are grouped by category, then ordered by deadline.

A question federal agencies often get asked is how grant applicants can make their applications stand out. Some advice consistently shared, regardless of agency or grant, is for applicants to thoroughly read the grant announcement to get a sense of what agencies are looking for in an application. Additionally, they recommend reading other agency announcements to see if different grants would be a better fit for the proposed project.

Grantors like to see that a proposed project has buy-in from relevant local stakeholders and support from the local Representative or Senator, particularly when a project could affect neighboring localities. Additionally, granting agencies often prioritize projects from parties that demonstrate they have the technical capacity and a clear financial plan to successfully carry out the project. In instances where local match requirements are a financial barrier to applying for a grant, some agencies also offer grants with match flexibility, local match waivers for disadvantaged communities, and the ability for in-kind contributions such as services, employee time, or office space to meet a match requirement.

Agencies often want grant applicants to use data to create an overall narrative about why the project is needed. Many offer technical assistance resources online to help applicants flesh out this portion of their application. Should you have your grant application rejected, it is often worth asking the agency or reviewers for feedback on how your application could be stronger. Many agencies provide post-award feedback to help groups improve their applications in future funding cycles.

April Grants Newsletter

We are excited to share our first monthly grants newsletter as we work to connect in-district county and local governments, community organizations, and various stakeholders with the many federal funding opportunities that exist.

Information on open grants posted within the past month can be found here, with subsections of grants related to arts and culture, children and education, specific communities, criminal justice,education, energy, the environment, fire and disaster management, food and agriculture, government,housing, information technology, infrastructure,pipelines and hazardous materials, public health,science and research, water, the workforce, and miscellaneous grants. The grants are grouped by category, then ordered by deadline.

As part of the President Biden administration's Investing in America Initiative, the Department of Energy, Department of Transportation, and Environmental Protection Agency are beginning to allocate more federal grant money from the American Rescue Plan Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the Inflation Reduction Act to address areas ranging from state and community energy programs to environmental justice, cybersecurity for utilities to environmental cleanup and water investments. These investments are both included in the links above, and more are expected to be announced in the coming future.

The EPA has recently announced its Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers (TCTACs) Program, which offers free grant writing and research assistance to organizations applying to grants with an environmental justice tie-in. The EPA recently announced its first 17 nationwide TCTAC locations here, and they expect to announce a regional TCTAC partner located in Denver in the near future for Colorado groups to be able to take advantage of the program. Created specifically based on community feedback about the many barriers to creating competitive grant applications for smaller community organizations and over-burdened local governments, the TCTAC program is meant to help make the grant writing process more accessible to all interested parties.