We recently learned that our members and business partners may have received an email notifying them that the hotel block for our Annual Conference & Exhibit is open. This is NOT the League’s hotel room block. The League’s Annual Conference & Exhibit room block information will be sent AFTER you register for the conference and the link will be sent from League staff.


Federal Funding Opportunities


Federal funding opportunities on community and economic development, housing, public safety, transportation, water and storm sewer, and other infrastructure. 


Before applying for grants, ensure the following are up to date and are working:

  • Login.gov or ID.me login credentials work
  • Active SAM.gov registration
  • Know your Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) number
  • Active grants.gov account

Click on the section below to find current grant opportunities: 

Broadband | Community, Economic Development and Housing | Public Safety | Transportation |
Water, Sewer, Storm Sewer, Electrical Infrastructure and Water Resources | Other Opportunities | Grant Resources

Broadband

The Rural eConnectivity Program
The ReConnect Loan and Grant Program furnishes loans and grants to provide funds for the costs of construction, improvement, or acquisition of facilities and equipment needed to provide broadband service in eligible rural areas. The application window for the fifth round of funding will open on March 22, 2024.

Potential awardees must meet a 100 Mbps symmetrical minimum service requirement in all proposed service areas. The applications are evaluated in a competitive process.

Deadline: May 21, 2024


Community, Economic Development and Housing

Community Facilities Direct Loan and Grant Program
This program provides affordable funding to develop essential community facilities in rural areas. An essential community facility is defined as a facility that provides an essential service to the local community for the orderly development of the community in a primarily rural area, and does not include private, commercial or business undertakings.

Deadline: Applications Accepted Year-Round


Public Impact Projects at Smaller Organizations
Small and mid-sized cultural organizations are keepers of history and culture, sources of lifelong learning, and community place makers. Public Impact Projects grants seek to assist you in meeting your community’s needs by expanding the scope, reach, and excellence of your public programs. These awards support a variety of activities that focus on enriching interpretive strategies, strengthening interpretive skill sets or enhancing community engagement with public-facing programs. This program aims to meet small and mid-sized organizations where you are by supporting projects that are appropriate in scope and content to each organization’s resources and community needs.

Deadline: June 12, 2024


NEA Our Town, FY 2025
Our Town is the National Endowment for the Arts’ creative placemaking grants program. Through project-based funding, we support projects that integrate arts, culture, and design activities into efforts that strengthen communities over the long term. Successful Our Town projects demonstrate a specific role for arts, culture, and design as part of strategies for strengthening local communities, ultimately centering equity and laying the groundwork for long-term systems change tailored to community needs and opportunities. All applications are submitted by one organization and require one partner organization. The applicant/partner pair must include 1) a nonprofit organization and 2) a local government or quasi-government entity. Cost share/matching grants range from $25,000 to $150,000, with a minimum cost share/match equal to the grant amount. The Arts Endowment’s support of a project may start on July 1, 2025, or any time thereafter. A grant period of up to two years is allowed.

Deadline: August 1, 2024


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Public Safety

Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program
The Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Grant Program provides funding for state, local, tribal, and territorial governments; nonprofits; and institutions of higher education with funds to establish or enhance capabilities to prevent targeted violence and terrorism.

This program, administered by CP3 and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is the only federal grant program solely dedicated to helping local communities develop and strengthen their capabilities in this area. 

The FY23 TVTP Grant Program has the following priorities:

  • Implementing Prevention Capabilities in Small and Mid-Sized Communities;
  • Advancing Equity in Awards and Engaging Underserved Communities in Prevention; 
  • Addressing Online Aspects of Targeted Violence and Terrorism;
  • Preventing Domestic Violent Extremism; and 
  • Enhancing Local Threat Assessment and Management Capabilities.

The Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) TVTP Application Guidance has been released! View the forecasted opportunity and download the application guidance.

Deadline: May 2, 2024


Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program
The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) seeks applications for funding programs that support cross-system collaboration to improve public safety responses and outcomes for individuals with mental health disorders (MHDs) or co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders (MHSUDs).

BJA provides grant funding to help organizations prepare, create, or expand comprehensive plans and then implement these collaborative projects to target people who qualify.

The program will focus on pretrial, prosecution, courts, probation/parole, and addressing the needs directly related to the criminal activity of adults with mental health conditions, living in homelessness or marginalized communities with minimal access to treatment, needing wrap around services, in the criminal justice system and leaving incarceration.

Match
This funding opportunity requires an escalating percentage cash or in-kind match. “Match” means the portion of project costs not paid by Federal funds or contributions (unless otherwise authorized by Federal statute). For years one and two, a 20 percent match is required. For year three, a 40 percent match is required. 

Deadline: May 14, 2024


Community Policing Development Microgrants
The Fiscal Year 2024 Community Policing Development (CPD) Microgrants Programprovides funding to local, state, tribal, and territorial law enforcement agencies to implement demonstration or pilot projects that offer creative ideas to advance crime fighting, community engagement, problem solving, or organizational changes in support of community policing.

Eligible Project Categories

  • Community Violence Intervention
  • Officer Recruitment, Retention and Workforce Diversification
  • Hate Crimes and Domestic Extremism
  • Underserved Populations
  • Building Trust and Legitimacy with the Community
  • Open Topic Area: Law enforcement agencies are invited to propose projects that offer highly innovative solutions to address complex, locally identified community issues. Proposed project objectives and findings should prove useful to other law enforcement agencies nationally facing similar challenges.

Deadline: May 14, 2024


Promoting Access to Crisis Teams – Community Policing Development Program
Through the decades, law enforcement has made significant improvements in its responses to people experiencing mental health crises through the development of various models of crisis intervention training, crisis triage centers, co-response teams, and embedded mental health and behavioral services.

The evolution of these approaches has improved the safety of law enforcement and people in crisis. It has also resulted in the deflection of individuals with mental health needs away from the criminal justice system and toward the services and care they need.

The goal of FY 2024 Promoting Access to Crisis Teams solicitation is to provide funding to support the implementation of crisis intervention teams, including embedding behavioral or mental health professionals with law enforcement agencies, training for law enforcement officers and embedded behavioral or mental health professionals in crisis intervention response, or a combination of these.

Deadline: May 21, 2024


US DOJ Community Policing Development (CPD) Accreditation Program
The Fiscal Year 2024 Community Policing Development (CPD) Accreditation program funds will be used to develop the capacity of law enforcement to implement effective practices, outcomes, and strategies to prevent crime and promote safe communities.

The Accreditation program awards funding for law enforcement agencies to complete the process of accreditation, as well as the work of national and state accreditation bodies that support accreditation. To obtain accreditation, a law enforcement agency must ensure all policies and procedures are of the highest standards and in compliance with those defined by the accreditation entity. The community benefits when it is assured its law enforcement personnel are following best practice policies and procedures to provide efficient, effective, and fair policing. For additional information, please see the Accreditation Topic Page.

The FY24 CPD Accreditation has three open solicitations, two for which cities are eligible:

  • FY24 Enhancing Existing Law Enforcement Accreditation Entities 
  • FY24 Supporting Law Enforcement Agencies in Seeking Accreditation 

Deadline: May 21, 2024


US DOJ Cops Hiring Program (CHP)
Fiscal Year 2024 COPS Hiring Program (CHP) is a competitive award program designed to provide funding directly to law enforcement agencies to hire and/or rehire additional career law enforcement officers in an effort to increase their community policing capacity and crime prevention efforts.

Anticipated outcomes of the CHP program awards include engagement in planned community partnerships, implementation of projects to analyze and assess problems, implementation of changes to personnel and agency management in support of community policing, and increased capacity of agency to engage in community policing activities.

Deadline: June 6, 2024


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Transportation

Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) Grant Program
The SS4A program supports the development of a comprehensive safety action plan (referred to as an “Action Plan”) that identifies the most significant roadway safety concerns in a community and the implementation of projects and strategies to address roadway safety issues. Action Plans are the foundation of the SS4A grant program.

SS4A requires an eligible Action Plan be in place before applying to implement projects and strategies.

The SS4A program provides funding for two types of grants: Planning and Demonstration Grants and Implementation Grants.

Planning and Demonstration Grants 
Provide Federal funds to develop, complete, or supplement an Action Plan. The goal of an Action Plan is to develop a holistic, well-defined strategy to prevent roadway fatalities and serious injuries in a locality, Tribal area, or region.

Implementation Grants 
Provide Federal funds to implement projects and strategies identified in an Action Plan to address a roadway safety problem. Eligible projects and strategies can be infrastructural, behavioral, and/or operational activities.

The program has 3 deadlines defined in the Notice of Funding Opportunity, which is dependent on the grant type, they are:

  • Planning and Demonstration Grants (first deadline): April 4, 2024
  • Implementation Grants: May 16, 2024
  • Planning and Demonstration Grants (second deadline): August 29, 2024

Innovative Finance and Asset Concession Grant Program  
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law authorized this new program totaling $100 million over five years to fund state and local government technical, financial, and legal advisory service costs for alternative project delivery. The Bureau is administering the program through its technical assistance team. The grants will enable recipients to facilitate and evaluate public-private partnerships in which the private sector partner could assume a greater role in project planning, development, financing, construction, maintenance, and operation, including by assisting eligible entities in entering into asset concessions. 

Two types of grants will be available: Technical Assistance Grants will be awarded to build organizational capacity to develop, review, or enter into asset concessions to advance TIFIA-eligible projects. Expert Services Grants will be awarded for project development of identified assets, including hiring professional services to explore opportunities for leverage. Applicants can seek either type of grant but must choose one for this round of funding. 

Deadline: May 10, 2024


Clean Ports Program
The EPA’s Clean Ports Program will fund climate and air quality planning activities at United States ports – including emissions inventories, strategy analysis, community engagement, and resiliency measure identification – that will build the capacity of port stakeholders to continue to reduce pollution and transition to zero-emissions (ZE) operations over time.

The Clean Ports Program will also fund ZE port equipment and infrastructure as part of a separate NOFO to reduce mobile source emissions (criteria pollutants, air toxics, and/or greenhouse gases) at United States ports, delivering cleaner air for communities across the country.

EPA has announced two separate Notices of Funding Opportunities to disburse the allocated $3 billion – the Zero-Emission Technology Deployment Competition AND the Climate and Air Quality Planning Competition

Eligibility

  • Port authority
  • State, regional, local, or Tribal agency that has jurisdiction over a port authority or port
  • Air pollution control agency
  • Private entity that:
    • Applies in partnership with an eligible entity above, and
    • Owns, operates, or uses facilities, cargo-handling equipment, transportation equipment, or related technology of a port.

Match

  • Zero-Emission Technology Deployment Competition: There is a 10-20% local match requirement depending on the amount of funding requested.
  • Climate and Air Quality Planning Competition: No cost sharing/matching funds or leveraged resources are required as a condition of eligibility under this competition. 

Deadline: May 28, 2024


Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) Program
This program provides funding for projects that improve the safety, efficiency, and reliability of intercity passenger and freight rail. 

Eligible Projects: Projects eligible for funding under this grant program include, but are not limited to:

  • Deployment of railroad safety technology;
  • Capital projects, as defined in section 49 U.S.C. § 24401(2) for intercity passenger rail service, except that a project under this NOFO is not required to be in a state rail plan; 
  • Capital projects that:
    • address congestion challenges affecting rail service,
    • reduce congestion and facilitate ridership growth along heavily traveled rail corridors, and/or
    • improve short-line or regional railroad infrastructure;
  • Highway-rail grade crossing improvement projects;
  • Rail line relocation and improvement projects;
  • Regional rail and corridor service development plans and environmental analyses;
  • Any project necessary to enhance multimodal connections or facilitate service integration between rail service and other modes;
  • The development and implementation of a safety program or institute;
  • The development and implementation of measures to prevent trespassing;
  • Any research that the Secretary considers necessary to advance any particular aspect of rail related capital, operations, or safety improvements;
  • Workforce development and training activities, coordinated to the extent practicable with the existing local training programs supported by the Department of Transportation, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Education;
  • Research, development, and testing to advance and facilitate innovative rail projects;
  • Preparation of emergency plans for communities where hazardous materials are transported by rail; 
  • Rehabilitating, remanufacturing, procuring or overhauling locomotives for emissions reduction; and
  • Deployment of Magnetic Levitation Transportation Projects. 

Match
The Federal share of total costs for CRISI Program projects funded under this NOFO shall not exceed 80 percent. In-kind contributions are allowed.

Deadline: May 28, 2024


Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program
The ATIIP grants will allow communities to identify, prioritize, and implement improvements to the largest barriers to safe, accessible, and equitable pedestrian and bicycle network connectivity through the development of infrastructure that will provide substantial additional opportunities for walking and bicycling.

Eligible organizations will be able to create plans or implement active transportation networks that connect destinations within or between communities or create plans or implement an active transportation spine connecting two or more communities, metropolitan regions, or States. There are two different categories of grants: (1) Planning and Design Grants and (2) Construction Grants. Review program guidelines and requirements in full here. (Grants.gov will have the latest NOFO.)

Deadline: June 17, 2024


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Water, Sewer, Storm Sewer, Electrical Infrastructure and Water Resources

Emergency Community Water Assistance Grants
This program helps prevent damage or restore households and businesses’ access to clean, reliable drinking water in eligible rural areas and towns following natural disasters. Funding can improve the natural environment and encourage manufacturers and other businesses to locate or expand operations.

Deadline: Applications Accepted Year-Round


US Army Corps of Engineers Water Resources Programs
Programs range from studies only that are 100% federally funded to construction projects with a project limit of up to $10M of federal funding on a 65/35 cost share. Programs include:

  • Commercial Navigation
  • Flood Risk Management
  • Ecosystem Restoration
  • Emergency Response
  • Recreation
  • Federal Real Estate Management
  • Regulatory Program and Permit

Deadline: Applications Accepted Year-Round


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Other Opportunities

Waste Analysis and Strategies for Transportation End-uses
The research and development (R&D) activities to be funded under this FOA will support the government-wide approach to the climate crisis by driving the innovation that can lead to the deployment of clean energy technologies, which are critical for climate protection. Specifically, this FOA will aid communities with resource and energy recovery strategies associated with their organic waste streams. Organic waste streams represent major sources of fugitive methane emissions, volatile organic compounds, and other pollutants. The White House set a goal of reducing methane emissions by 30% by 2030. By developing strategies that can prevent the landfilling of these wastes, one of the major sources of fugitive methane can be mitigated. Holistic waste management strategies can also benefit communities by reducing other impacts associated with waste collection and processing infrastructure including reducing truck traffic, odors, litter, and other air, water, and health impacts.

Topic Area 1 is focused specifically on helping communities beyond a conceptualization phase by supporting more in-depth feasibility or scoping analysis. Oftentimes, staff and organizational capacity in communities (particularly in rural, remote, Tribal, or smaller communities) is limited. While technical assistance programs can accomplish some of these objectives, direct financial assistance can close this capacity gap.

Topic Area 2 is targeted towards communities that have previously completed feasibility analysis and are seeking funding to further refine their project concept. Municipal and non-profit staff capacity and availability of funding often makes detailed design work out of reach for many communities and this topic aims to close that gap. Projects selected under Topic Area 2 will have an opportunity to construct and operate their designed pilot facility based on the down-select process described in the FOA.

Deadline: August 14, 2024


Inflation Reduction Act Forest Landowner Support
The Inflation Reduction Act Forest Landowner Support programming provides financial assistance grants for projects that support underserved and small-acreage forest landowner participation in emerging private markets for climate mitigation and forest resilience. The Inflation Reduction Act provides the Forest Service $450 million for Forest Landowner Support opportunities to:

  • Provide cost share payments to underserved forest landowners for implementing climate mitigation or forest resilience practices on their land.
  • Support the participation of underserved forest landowners in emerging private markets for climate mitigation or forest resilience.
  • Support the participation of forest landowners who own less than 2,500 acres of forest land in emerging private markets for climate mitigation or forest resilience.
  • Provide payments to private forest landowners in priority landscapes for implementing key forestry practices that measurably increase carbon sequestration and storage.

There are three tracks based on proposed budgets for this program which are:

  • Track A: Budgets greater than or equal to $2 million and less than $25 million
  • Track B: Budgets less than $2 million
  • Track C: Budgets greater than $5 million and less than $50 million

Deadline: August 21, 2024


Environment and Climate Justice Community Change Grants
The EPA’s new Community Change Grants program (Community Change Grants) has announced a Notice of Funding Opportunity for approximately $2 billion dollars in Inflation Reduction Act funds to benefit disadvantaged communities through projects that reduce pollution, increase community climate resilience, and build community capacity to address environmental and climate justice challenges.

These place-based investments will be focused on community-driven initiatives to be responsive to community and stakeholder input.

Local governments are eligible to apply as part of a partnership with a community-based non-profit organization (CBO).

There will be two tracks of funding under this opportunity. Track I will fund approximately 150 large, transformational community-driven investment grants of $10 million – $20 million. Track II will fund approximately 20 meaningful engagement grants of $1 million – $3 million. Grants cannot exceed 3-years in duration.

Match
No cost-sharing or matching is required as a condition of eligibility under this NOFO. 

Tips on How to Apply
View the recording of the December 7, 2023 webinar

Deadline: November 21, 2024


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Grant Resources

Local Infrastructure Hub
The Local Infrastructure Hub is a national program that was created to inform cities of federal infrastructure funding opportunities along with other resources to help cities successfully apply for funding.

GRANTS.GOV
Grants.gov is a centralized location for grant seekers to find and apply for federal funding opportunities. In addition, the website currently handles grant application submissions to many federal agencies.

GrantFinder
​The Iowa League of Cities is excited to announce our partnership with Praetorian Digital’s EfficientGov, an information service that tracks innovative solutions to fiscal and operational challenges facing cities and towns across the country. EfficientGov provides local government leaders with unlimited access to information and tools that help reduce the cost and improve the efficiency of government.




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