How can communities efficiently fund flood-mitigation efforts?
March 26, 2025
Increasingly volatile storms are leaving many municipalities strapped for cash. Here’s how to break down the funding maze.
In September 2024, Hurricane Helene devastated parts of western North Carolina with severe flooding and wind damage. As the region’s vital infrastructure collapsed, thousands of people, including one of our colleagues, were forced from their homes.
Her family lives in Asheville, North Carolina. The storm wiped out the main and redundant distribution lines from the city’s main water treatment plant that serves 80 percent of the population. It wasn’t until just before Thanksgiving, almost two months later, that potable water returned to the region.
She’s back in her home. But the overall recovery from Hurricane Helene’s impacts will be measured in years, not months. Conservatively, we estimate Asheville is looking at a 10-year recovery.
A decade until things are back to where they were before the storm.
Hurricane Helene was the deadliest to strike the mainland US since Katrina in 2005.
What does the community face? It will go through an initial emergency response. Then follows a long-term recovery and rebuilding phase.
That takes time and resources. Where can communities find the funds for response and recovery? And how can they fund flood-mitigation efforts to reduce the long-term impacts of climate change on their communities?
Those are challenging questions. And our North American Funding Program (NAFP) has decades of experience answering them. For communities big and small, we’ve strategized, applied for, and accessed funding for flood mitigation. And we’ve done it amid funding cycles and priorities that are constantly shifting.
Following, we’ll talk about three key points to help streamline your funding application process. It will help you get the support your community needs. These are the points:
- Scale matters for flood prevention
- Step-by-step guide for flood grant application
- Keep your flood-prevention solutions simple
Scale matters for flood prevention
When it comes to disaster recovery and flood mitigation, smaller communities face different challenges than larger ones. Some examples include a lack of funds, a resource gap, and insufficient organizational capacity.
Following a disaster, many smaller communities won’t have the local funds to complete needed repairs and reconstruction. Typically, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will provide 75 percent of eligible costs. Funding is provided on a reimbursement basis, meaning the community must fund the project first and take care of the remaining 25 percent as match. Some states, like Vermont, have established funding streams to take care of the local match. For those that don’t, smaller communities often can’t access FEMA funds.
It’s important to create flood-prevention plans that are a priority for the community. It helps provide long-term sustainability and livability.
Beyond a lack of local matching funds, there can also be a resource gap. When disasters strike, they reveal vulnerabilities. For example, old land use, zoning, and building code decisions. For many, these were made many decades ago and don’t consider the increasing severity of extreme weather.
These smaller communities also may lack the key organizational capacity to know how to manage federal funds and how to comply with all the requirements. This includes procuring professional services and meeting the terms and conditions of the grant programs.
Most medium and large communities have more funding, resources, and organizational capacity. For them, the challenge can be more so prioritizing flood mitigation. Urbanized areas have more people and property at risk. And they must maintain more extensive public infrastructure—things like water and sewer services and transportation networks. It’s vital to plan and prioritize for flood-mitigation projects that can help achieve long-term sustainability and livability.
Step-by-step guide for flood grant application
We suggest communities take a life-cycle approach to funding. This is opposed to treating funding as an afterthought. It’s important to collaborate with technical teams from concept to design and through final construction. Why? Because if the funding team works with designers and subject matter experts, funding can inform planning and design and vice versa.
You need to engage and solicit input from the communities that will benefit from the funds you’re trying to acquire. If you want your funding application to succeed, you must organize partnership support and have an effective public outreach program. And you need to do it before a notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) is released.
Is the local media calling attention to the need for flood mitigation? Is that creating widespread community support for your project?
We suggest communities take a life-cycle approach to funding. This is opposed to treating funding as an afterthought.
All that feedback should be used as part of the planning and design of the project. Politics can play a factor in a project’s funding success as well. Is your Congressional delegation aware of the project? What about state and local elected officials? Do they have constituents calling and showing up in their offices demanding action?
Once the NOFO is published, you need to be well-versed in each section of the document. Some grant programs are much heavier lifts than others.
For example, some will require a technical benefit-cost analysis. Others won’t. Some funding programs require robust narratives related to the evaluation criteria. However, the NOFO itself will tell you what you need to do to score a high-ranking application.
It’s all in the details.
Once your funding application is submitted—which we recommend doing a week before the actual due date—there is a waiting period of 4 to 6 months. If you’re awarded funds, you move into the agreement phase with the federal agency disbursing the funds—that can often take 9 to 12 months.
That phase is also contingent on environmental assessment completion and approval. Then the applicant executes a “grant agreement” with the federal agency. At that point, the funds are considered obligated. You can start incurring costs and getting reimbursed.
It’s a lot of work with many moving parts.
So, how can we make the process easier?
Keep your flood-prevention solutions simple
A lot of federal agencies offer resources. They have guidebooks, dashboards, and webinars to demystify the funding landscape. Agencies include:
- FEMA
- U.S. Department of Transportation
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
- U.S. Economic Development Association
- Environmental Protection Agency
But it still comes down to two things: 1) your capacity to strategize for funding opportunities and 2) preparing funding submissions.
This is where professional services can transform the funding efforts for your flood mitigation. Our team’s focus is always on assisting through every aspect of the funding process. We bring together experience in federal funding, proficiency in resiliency planning, and our integrated design services. It leads to a holistic team effort.
On average, only 10 percent of the applications received get funded. It’s a highly competitive process. So, a team with experience is key.
The Tottenville Shoreline Protection Project is implementing a series of flood-mitigation measures. They include wetland enhancement, hardened dune systems, shoreline plantings, maritime forest restoration, and earthen berms.
It’s also important to be selective. Just because there’s a funding program out there doesn’t mean you should go after it. We can help analyze if the funding opportunity aligns with your project before you invest your time and energy in pursuing it.
For example, we secured more than $20 million in FEMA funding for the Tottenville Shoreline Protection Project. It’s a storm recovery and resilience initiative for the Staten Island neighborhood of Tottenville in New York City.
The project is building a series of measures for flood mitigation. These include:
- Wetland enhancement
- Hardened dune systems
- Shoreline plantings
- Maritime forest restoration
- Earthen berms
It’s a naturalized barrier to protect the region from storm damage due to wave action and shoreline erosion. And it enhances ecosystems.
Create an effective funding application
Funding is complex, we get that. It’s easy to feel lost and overwhelmed. But that’s exactly why using a resource like our NAFP can help you answer these difficult questions. And get funding directly to your community.
To sum up, local funding matters. The federal government won’t pay for everything. It’s important to take a life-cycle approach, as that can help make the planning, design, and construction process more efficient. And get help with finding and submitting your funding applications because only about 10 percent of applications get funded.
