Letters of Interest Now Being Accepted for This Year’s FEMA BRIC & FMA Grant Funding
A simple letter of interest is required in the NCEM Salesforce Portal for any potential BRIC or FMA subapplications. Schedule a meeting to discuss your ideas with development staff to ensure your project aligns with FEMA's funding priorities. We anticipate that more than $3B will be available for competitive funding this year for the three proposal types.
- Shovel-ready or Phased Infrastructure Projects Under BRIC - The Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program aims to categorically shift the federal focus away from reactive disaster spending and toward research-supported, proactive investment in community resilience.
- Capabilities & Capacity Building (C&CB) Proposals - C&CB activities must result in a resource, strategy, or tangible mitigation product that will reduce or eliminate risk and damage from future natural hazards, increase resiliency, and promote a culture of preparedness.
- Flood Mitigation Assistance Projects (FMA) - This program is tied to reducing or eliminating the risk of repetitive flood damage to buildings and structures insured under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). NCEM strongly encourages towns/counties with repetitive flood loss properties to develop flood mitigation projects for the $800 million available under the NCEM FMA NOFO.
NCDPS 2023 BRIC/FMA LOI Webinar
Building Resilient Infrastructure in Communities (BRIC)
North Carolina has been a leading state in BRIC awards in the first two years of the funding program through FEMA. That success can be attributed to the extensive review process and development support provided by NCEM’s Hazard Mitigation Division. The first step in receiving funding for your community’s infrastructure needs is submitting a letter of intent (LOI) in the Salesforce Portal by October 2, 2023 at 5:00 p.m. Take a look at the BRIC/FMA 2023 LOI Submission Guidelines.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| September 11 - 22 | Email campaign to cities/counties/COGs for BRIC/FMS LOI submissions |
| September 18 | First NCDPS development assistance webinar BRIC2023 |
| October 2 | Letters of interest due in Salesforce Portal |
| October 9 - 10 | Screening panel |
| October 13 | Invitation to apply with links to new NCDPS BRIC/FMA webinars |
| November 17 | Sub-application due in FEMA-Go |
| November 30 - December 1 | NCDPS prioritization panel |
| December 4 - 6 | Sub-applicant meetings |
| January 5, 2024 | Final draft application due |
| January 22, 2024 | State application submitted |
The Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) Program, is funded by FEMA and administered through a partnership with the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management (NCEM). NCEM has the authority and responsibility for developing and maintaining a State Standard Hazard Mitigation Plan, reviewing the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Program sub-applications, recommending technically feasible and cost-effective sub-applications to FEMA and providing pass-thru funding for FEMA-approved and awarded project grants to eligible sub-applicants.
Funding for this program doubled to $1B in 2021 and again to $2.3B for 2022. Of the 22 projects selected competitively, five were from North Carolina in the first year of BRIC. As you can see in the graphic at the top of this page, ten projects were selected for further review in the 2021 round totaling over $50M in funding. Seven other communities’ C&CB proposals were selected to be funded by the State’s $1M BRIC allocation, which doubles to $2M in this round.
Eligible Sub-applicants are:
- State Agencies
- Local Governments/Communities*
- Entities assisting Economically Disadvantaged Rural Communities (EDRC’s) under an authorization letter**
*may include any state-recognized Indian tribe or authorized tribal organization, or Alaska Native village or organization that is not federally recognized per 25 U.S.C. 479a et seq.
** Certain entities may also apply on behalf of EDRC’s with an authorization letter. See page 14 of the FEMA BRIC 2022 NOFO.
How to Submit an LOI
1. Read the NCEM BRIC2023 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO)
2. Register for an account or login at the NCEM Salesforce Portal. Watch 10-minute Salesforce set-up tutorial video (below).
3. Answer the 7 narrative questions on the LOI form
4. Upload your 3 PowerPoint slides using our LOI Slide Template as described in the LOI instructions.
5. Upload up to 5 (optional) attachments to support your proposal.
6. Submit your completed LOI by Monday, October 2, 2023 at 5:00 p.m.
Apply for Disaster LOI External Training Video
Eligible Project Activities:
FEMA anticipates BRIC funding projects that demonstrate innovative approaches to partnerships, such as shared funding mechanisms, and/or project design. For example, an innovative project may bring multiple funding sources or in-kind resources from a range of private and public sector stakeholders or offer multiple benefits to a community in addition to the benefit of risk reduction.
Through BRIC, FEMA will continue to invest in a variety of mitigation activities with an added focus on infrastructure projects and Community Lifelines.
BRIC 2022 - $141M Building Resilient Infrastructure in Communities Statewide Project Submissions
Selections determined by State Prioritization Panel review process.
Application Information
As appropriated by the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2019 (Pub. L. No. 116-6); Section 203(i) of the Stafford Act, as amended (Pub. L. No. 93-288) (42 U.S.C. § 5133), the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) Grant Program provides resources to assist states, tribal governments, territories and local communities in their efforts to implement a sustained pre-disaster natural hazard mitigation program, as authorized by the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, as amended (Pub. L. No. 93-288) (42 U.S.C. § 5133) as implemented by Hazard Mitigation Assistance: Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (FP:104-008-05).
NCDPS staff will verify eligibility. Sub-applicants must be named in a FEMA-approved local mitigation plan by the application deadline (January 2024) in order to apply for mitigation projects in accordance with Title 44 CFR Part 201. Most North Carolina communities are in compliance with this already.
- BRIC projects must be cost-effective, technically feasible, effective, and consistent with the goals of applicable FEMA-approved State and local multi-hazard mitigation plans.
- Eligible subapplications are awarded on a nationally competitive basis except for the C&CB proposals which are ranked and funded by the $2M State allocation.
- Federal funding is available for up to 75 percent of the eligible activity cost. NCEM recommends a 70/30 split to capture the available overmatch points. (70% fed, 30% non-fed)
- Economically Disadvantaged Rural Communities (EDRC) may be eligible for up to a 90% federal cost share. To qualify as an EDRC, the community must have a population of under 3,000 and residents having an average per capita annual income not exceeding 80% of the national per capita income, based on best available data. Also, communities with a CDC Social Vulnerability Index rating > .80 also qualify for additional points and review advantages. See a list of North Carolina counties > .80 or use the interactive map for census tracts using the 2018 SVI data.
- BRIC Funding will align with the administration's JUSTICE40 Initiative - to deliver at least 40 percent of the overall benefits from federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities.
The BCA is the most critical piece of the application. Of the 53 projects the State submitted in 2021, 31 of them were disqualified due to BCA methodologies that were not compliant with HMA guidance or properly supported by data in the application. In 2022, 36 were submitted, 22 were selected and 14 were flagged for BCA issues.
It is the State’s recommendation that sub-applicants retain a firm or individual who is experienced with infrastructure BCA’s as it relates to HMA guidance and the BCA Toolkit v.6.0. During the grant development process, our team will share a link to successful BCA’s from the first three years of the program and notes from FEMA pointing out the critical mistakes of the failing BCA’s.
Sub-applicants must use a FEMA-credible methodology to perform a BCA. Only project sub-applications that demonstrate cost-effectiveness through a benefit cost ratio of 1.0 or greater will be considered. The BCA must be attached to the sub-applicant's application. The FEMA-approved BCA Toolkit, which includes the Flood Modules, may be downloaded at no cost at https://www.fema.gov/benefit-cost-analysis. The BCA Helpline may be contacted by telephone at (866) 222-3580 or via e-mail at bchelpline@dhs.gov.
Resources for BRIC
FEMA has developed resources to assist sub-applicants with project and planning sub-applications. Tools for the BRIC program can be found in the links below:
Capabilities & Capacity Building (C&CB)
The October 2, 2023 letter of intent (LOI) deadline also applies for potential sub-applicants for the $2M available for pre-construction projects and plans under the NCEM BRIC NOFO. C&CB activities must result in a resource, strategy, or tangible mitigation product that will reduce or eliminate risk and damage from future natural hazards, increase resiliency, and promote a culture of preparedness. Read the brief C&CB support material for a list of eligible project scoping activities. The map below shows last year’s C&CB selections. They are also included in the interactive county map above. In an effort to develop as many future BRIC construction projects as possible with this State allocation, NCEM may cap the total fed share for a single C&CB activity at $200k.
Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) 2023 Funding
NCEM strongly encourages towns/counties with repetitive flood loss properties to develop flood mitigation projects for the $800 million available under the NCEM FMA NOFO. This program is tied to reducing or eliminating the risk of repetitive flood damage to buildings and structures insured under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Unlike BRIC, this program can include individual property elevations and acquisitions as long as they are NFIP-insured at the time of the application and at the time of the award announcement.
Competitive funding is available for three different types of proposals:
- Capability and Capacity Building Activities $60 million
- Localized Flood Risk Reduction Projects $340 million
- Individual Flood Mitigation Projects $400 million
Information obtained by submitting the required Request for NFIP Policy Holder PII form will help you to determine if your project will compete better in BRIC or FMA. Data is usually provided within 15 days. After obtaining your current NFIP data and determining approximately how much of your project’s benefitting area includes NFIP-insured properties (and particularly repetitive loss and severe repetitive loss properties), please schedule a meeting with our development team to discuss a strategy.
Resources for FMA
Contact
Kaine Riggan
Grant Development Specialist
BRIC/FMA Lead
North Carolina Department of Public Safety; Division of Emergency Management, Hazard Mitigation
Office: 919-873-5854
Kaine.Riggan@ncdps.gov
Mailing Address: 4238 Mail Service Center, Raleigh NC 27699-4238
Physical Address: 200 Park Offices Drive, Suite 100, Durham, NC 27713