When municipalities have more needs than funds, grants are the most common consideration. The process for finding, applying for and managing grants is a discipline with a great deal of liability if things are mishandled.
Finding Grants
Finding grants begins with knowing where to look. State and Federal grant opportunities are available through official .gov web portals like:
“The CSFA is required to provide a single, authoritative, statewide, comprehensive source of financial assistance program information. State agencies have populated the CSFA with federal, federal pass-through and state awards received. The CSFA also records grantee awards under each CSFA number. “
“We believe that applying for federal financial assistance should be simple and straightforward. We aim to be the best tool for posting, finding and sharing funding opportunities.”
Applying for Grants
There are also commercial services like Lexipol, GrantWatch and the American Grant Association that advertise their sure-fire gateway to grant success, for a price.
Professional grant writers often charge between $50 and $150/hr for their time in researching, applying for and managing grant lifecycles.
We currently have an engineering firm assisting with infrastructure grants: water system mostly. Our police department has successfully applied for and received grants for law enforcement (Recruitment/Retention, Squad Cars and all manner of technology and safety gear)
The most significant hurdle for applying to Grants is proof of need. This is usually accomplished using the Village’s financial audit and Census Bureau data. After Census data, the Median Household Income is CRITICAL to illustrating the urgent need for grant money. Without the right details, Kansas will never qualify for significant funding opportunities.
While a grant opportunity might be listed, it has to be Actively accepting applications. If it’s not, then there is no Grant. Doing an AI search for “Municipal Grant Opportunities” will give you a list of grants but won’t likely indicate it they’re Active.
Grant Management
If you’re awarded a Grant, it’s not just a pile of free money. There are degrees of record keeping required to validate that every single dime is spent on the intended project.
Some grants are ‘reimbursal’ grants where the agency pays the cost up front and then submits actual invoices and bills for reimbursement.
Some grants are ‘matching’ where the awarded funds are contingent on the award winner meeting a spending threshold. This threshold is often met by loans of various types potentially incurring long term debt.
Once a grant project has been completed and the money spent, there are often years of audit reporting requirements to meet further compliance standards.