Grants and beyond: How to fund resilience, energy, and infrastructure projects
Gain greater local control over your projects
State and local government leaders face mounting pressures: the need to modernize infrastructure, improve energy affordability and efficiency, strengthen resilience against extreme weather, and much more. At the same time, many agencies struggle to find stable, predictable resources to address these pressures.
But there’s good news: there are more funding and financing options available to state and local leaders today than ever before. This guide presents a menu of funding and financing tools available for public agencies to advance their resilience, energy, and infrastructure projects.
Ratepayer and utility programs
Public-private partnerships and performance contracts
Insurance
Debt finance
Policy-based tools
Grants
Seeds early-stage projects, builds internal capacity, and attracts private or philanthropic investment.
Download our guide to learn about funding opportunities available to public agencies. Discover how each funding mechanism works, when agencies typically use them, what project types they’re best suited for, and examples of agencies currently doing this well.
How to fund your projects to stand the test of time
Communities that rely exclusively on grants or another single funding source are vulnerable to policy changes, budget uncertainty, and shifting priorities. Communities with diversified funding strategies are better positioned to advance projects regardless of external pressures or changes.
This guide is intended to give state and local leaders the tools they need to build diversified funding strategies and gain greater local control to advance projects that address their community’s needs. It also provides insights into how to build a “capital stack”—a way to layer these tools together to build a comprehensive funding strategy that isn’t dependent on one grant program or financing source.
The role of grants
Grants remain key funding tools for state and local agencies. But grants are often time-limited, competitive, narrowly scoped, and do not cover ongoing operations and maintenance. Grants are best seen as one layer in a capital stack—a way to seed new programs, scope vulnerability assessments, or close gaps in an otherwise-financed project.
In our guide, discover how to braid grant programs with other funding and financing mechanisms to build funding strategies that are durable, diversified, and stand the test of time.
“Grants play an important role, but they should be used as one part of a capital stack. Relying on grants alone can leave programs susceptible to competition and external pressures. That's why we built this guide: to show public leaders all the tools available to fund their programs."
Download the guide
Learn how your agency can build funding strategies that last. Our team of subject matter experts across resilience, energy, environment, disaster preparedness, disaster response and recovery, infrastructure, and grant management have compiled this comprehensive resource to help public agencies advance their programs—to move from planning to impact and help build a healthier, safer, and more resilient world.