Many cities, counties and special districts qualify for more funding than they have staff to pursue. The limit isn't eligibility. It's the time to read the notices, the calendar of council or board meetings, and the question of where the local match will come from.
This article covers how funding reaches local governments, how to plan internal approvals and match around a notice's timeline, and when working with neighbors beats applying alone. By the end you'll have a way to decide which opportunities your small team should chase.
Know the kinds of funding that reach you
Grants.gov lists state governments, county governments, city or township governments and special district governments among the organization types that can be eligible for federal funding. The notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) defines who is eligible for a specific program, so eligibility is always a question for the notice.
The Congressional Research Service describes two broad types of federal grants that matter here:
- Formula grants are allocations of money to states or their subdivisions for activities of a continuing nature, and include block grants to states and local governments. The allocation follows factors written into law or regulation, such as population or poverty.
- Project grants fund specific projects or services for fixed or known periods. These are the competitive, discretionary grants, and you apply for them in response to a NOFO.
CRS also describes a hybrid. A formula divides money among the states, and each state then runs its own application process to award funds competitively among local governments and other eligible applicants. For example, under the Land and Water Conservation Fund, National Park Service guidance allows states to award federal funds to local governments, so a local government looking to fund a park may start with its state's parks agency.
Practically, that means your best opportunities may not appear in a federal search at all. Start with your state agencies, and read how to find state and local funding for where those programs are listed. If federal money reaches you through a state, the rules in pass-through funding and subawards apply to your agreement.
Plan internal approvals around the notice window
Applying for a grant often requires a decision your staff can't make alone: a council or board vote to apply, to accept the award or to commit local funds. Local rules vary, so use your charter, procurement rules and clerk's calendar as your source here.
What you can count on is the notice window. Under 2 CFR 200.204, federal agencies should make funding opportunities available for at least 60 calendar days, and no opportunity should be available for less than 30 calendar days unless the agency finds exigent circumstances. Some notices also list an Executive Order 12372 intergovernmental review date among their key dates, so check for one.
Work backward from the due date, not forward from the day the notice appears. Say a county's council meets every 14 days, and the clerk's agenda packet closes 10 days before each meeting. A notice opens on day 0 and applications are due on day 60. Meetings fall on days 14, 28, 42 and 56. The last meeting before the deadline is day 56, and its packet closes on day 46. So the final budget and authorizing resolution must be ready by day 46, which is 14 days before the posted deadline.
Add three more entries to your calendar for each opportunity: the date your department head approves the concept, the date your finance office signs off on the budget and the date legal reviews the terms.
Plan the match into the budget cycle
Many programs require cost sharing or matching funds. Under 2 CFR 200.306, an agency or pass-through entity must accept cost-share contributions, whether cash or third-party in-kind, when they meet these conditions:
- They're verifiable in your records.
- They aren't counted toward any other federal award.
- They're necessary and reasonable for the project and allowable under the cost principles.
- They aren't paid by another federal award, unless the program's authorizing statute specifically allows it.
- They're in the approved budget when the agency requires it.
Funds from your general fund that you can document may qualify under those conditions, but the notice controls. Say a project costs $400,000 and the notice requires a 25 percent non-federal match of total project cost. The match is $100,000 and the federal request is $300,000. If that $100,000 isn't in an adopted budget or isn't clearly available, the application is a promise your finance office hasn't agreed to make. Ask finance early, in the same conversation where you ask whether the match must be cash or can include in-kind contributions.
Our guide to cost share and match goes deeper on the rules and the common mistakes.
Apply together when it makes sense
Regional applications can bring a project within reach that no single town could fund alone, and they spread the compliance work across partners. A notice may allow a consortium or require one lead applicant.
The registration rules cover both. Under 2 CFR 25.200, if a consortium applies and the award will be made to the consortium as the recipient, the consortium needs its own unique entity identifier. If the agency's policy is to make the award to a lead entity, the lead applicant's identifier is used. Decide early which entity will be the recipient, because that entity holds the registration, signs the agreement and carries the reporting.
Before you partner, agree on who leads, how funds will flow to the others and who monitors them. If the lead passes funds to the other members, those members are likely subrecipients, and the lead is the pass-through entity.
Decide what is worth chasing
With more eligible programs than hours, a short screen keeps a small team from spreading itself thin. Before you commit staff time to a notice, ask:
- Does the project appear in a plan your governing body has already adopted?
- Can finance confirm the match and the cash flow before the award arrives?
- Does someone have capacity for the reporting and records the award brings?
- Can the approval steps fit inside the notice window?
If the answer to any is no, either fix it or let the notice go. Letting go of a poor fit is a decision, not a failure.
Your next step
This week, map one cycle of approvals for your next likely application. Write down who must approve applying, accepting an award and committing match, how many days each step takes, and the dates of the next four meetings. Add that timeline to your grants calendar so that every new notice can be dropped into it.
If your team is small, SoliContraX can help with the part between "we should apply" and "submitted". Upload a public notice and it helps you get from the document to a draft built from your own materials. Check your agency's technology and data policies first about what you may upload. Get started with SoliContraX.
Sources
- Grant Eligibility (Grants.gov Learning Center)
- Grants Work in a Congressional Office, RL34035 (Congressional Research Service)
- Federal Grants to State and Local Governments: Trends and Issues, R40638 (Congressional Research Service)
- 2 CFR 200.204, Notices of funding opportunities (eCFR)
- 2 CFR 200.306, Cost sharing (eCFR)
- 2 CFR 25.200, Requirements for notices of funding opportunity (eCFR)