Fiscal Year 2024 Emergency Management Baseline Assessment Grant | DHS 24 NPD 131 00 99

Opportunity Information: Apply for DHS 24 NPD 131 00 99

The Fiscal Year 2024 Emergency Management Baseline Assessment Grant (EMBAG) is a FEMA discretionary funding opportunity designed to strengthen emergency management nationwide by supporting the standards, assessments, and professional practices that help state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) emergency management programs perform effectively before, during, and after disasters. The central idea behind the program is that communities are better prepared and more resilient when emergency management programs and the people who run them can measure themselves against credible, consistent national benchmarks and then use those results to improve. EMBAG aligns with FEMA's broader all-hazards preparedness mission and reflects the expectations set out in the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 (PKEMRA) and Presidential Policy Directive 8 (PPD-8) on National Preparedness, emphasizing coordinated, whole-community capability building across prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery.

Rather than funding direct disaster response operations, EMBAG focuses on the underlying quality and consistency of emergency management practice by investing in voluntary national-level standards and the peer-review processes that validate and apply those standards. Funding supports the maintenance, validation, and revision of these standards, along with the peer assessment methods used to evaluate SLTT emergency management programs and individual emergency management professionals. A major outcome area is supporting SLTT program accreditation and professional certification, helping jurisdictions and practitioners demonstrate that they meet recognized performance expectations. The grant also supports outreach and training intended to broaden awareness of national standards and improve understanding of what effective emergency management programs and professionals should look like in practice. FEMA notes that in prior years (FY 2018 to FY 2020), EMBAG contributed to 22 SLTT emergency management programs achieving accreditation and 60 SLTT emergency managers achieving certification, which illustrates the program's role in expanding the field's capacity and professionalization.

The opportunity is grounded in a longer history of post-9/11 efforts to create consistent preparedness expectations across sectors. The description references the 9/11 Commission Report (2004), which highlighted private-sector experiences during the World Trade Center emergency and the need for shared preparedness standards. It also points to work led by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) toward consensus-based preparedness standards, and to broader collaboration among federal, SLTT partners, and whole-community stakeholders, including FEMA, to establish and refine standards for both emergency management programs and emergency managers. EMBAG essentially provides resources to keep these voluntary standards credible and up to date, and to ensure the peer-review assessment ecosystem remains functional and accessible so SLTT agencies and professionals can continuously improve.

From an administrative standpoint, this is a cooperative agreement under the disaster prevention and relief funding activity category (CFDA/Assistance Listing 97.131). FEMA expects to make 2 awards, with an award ceiling of $445,000. Eligible applicants include public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, private institutions of higher education, and nonprofit organizations (including both 501(c)(3) and non-501(c)(3) nonprofits that are not institutions of higher education). The opportunity is issued by the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), under Funding Opportunity Number DHS 24 NPD 131 00 99. Applications are submitted through FEMA Grants Outcomes (GO) at https://go.fema.gov/, and the listed closing date for submissions is September 16, 2024.

• The Department of Homeland Security - FEMA in the disaster prevention and relief sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Fiscal Year 2024 Emergency Management Baseline Assessment Grant" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 97.131.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-08-15.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-09-16. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $445,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 2 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

Apply for DHS 24 NPD 131 00 99

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