How to Write an RFP for a Heat Action Plan

Heat kills more Americans than any other weather hazard the National Weather Service tracks: an average of 279 deaths a year from 2016 to 2025, against 118 for floods, and the Weather Service warns that heat counts rise as late reports arrive. Many communities still plan for water first.

A heat action plan sets out how a community will warn, cool and care for people during extreme heat, and how it will lower heat exposure over time through shade, cooler surfaces and cooler housing. You need one before the next heat season if residents or workers are dying or landing in emergency rooms in hot weather. The RFP succeeds when it requires activation triggers and named roles that work in the first summer.

Funding is contested: California’s first heat grant round drew more than $300 million in requests for nearly $32 million, and Round 2 funds infrastructure only.

What this work should deliver

A heat plan has two halves, and many RFPs buy only one. The operational half is a seasonal playbook: triggers, cooling access, outreach, health system coordination and protection for outdoor workers. The structural half is a multi-year program to cut exposure through tree canopy, cool roofs and pavements, and cooler housing, the ground covered by our note on the urban heat island effect.

The outcome to buy is a playbook your emergency manager can run next summer and a funded list of cooling projects, each with an owner. WHO’s heat–health action plan guidance frames the same portfolio: early warning, public and medical advice, housing and urban planning, and health and social systems ready to act.

Who this is for: cities, counties, health departments, tribes and regional agencies, often working with community organizations. It is the wrong purchase if what you need is a single cooling project designed and built; buy design services instead. It also does not replace the heat section of your hazard mitigation plan, which is where long-term projects become eligible for FEMA money.

Measure the plan by health outcomes, not document quality. Ask the consultant to set up data sharing with your health department and hospitals on heat-related emergency visits and deaths, so each season can be judged against the last.

Rules and standards to cite

Cite the guidance, the warning system you will rely on, and the worker rules that already bind you.

• Guidance. Cite WHO’s 2008 guidance for plan structure. CDC keeps clinical and public guidance on heat that outreach materials can draw on.
• Warnings. Official National Weather Service watches, warnings and advisories are the anchor. NWS HeatRisk adds a seven-day rating from 0 (little to no risk) to 4 (extreme, with no overnight relief), presented as an NWS and CDC collaboration, but the Weather Service still labels it experimental and supplementary.
• Workers. Maryland’s heat stress standard applies to employers whose workers face a heat index of 80°F or more, indoors or out, and requires a written prevention and management plan. California’s indoor heat rule took effect July 23, 2024 and applies from 82°F. OSHA’s federal proposal, published August 30, 2024, went through hearings that ended July 2, 2025 and remains at the proposal stage on OSHA’s rulemaking page.
• Hazard mitigation. FEMA’s 2025 planning policy requires mitigation plans to describe all natural hazards that can affect a jurisdiction, and FEMA’s National Risk Index includes heat waves. In Maryland, our county profiles built on that index show heat waves as the second-largest expected loss statewide, about $140 million a year, weighing most on Baltimore City and Baltimore County.
• Vulnerability data. The Census Bureau’s Community Resilience Estimates give tract-level social vulnerability, a baseline to refine with local data on housing without air conditioning, outdoor workers and people without homes.

The worker rules deserve a line in your scope. A city’s parks, public works and sanitation crews are often among the most exposed people in town, and a plan that protects residents while the city’s own crews work without a compliant written plan will not survive its first incident review.

Sample scope of work

Adapt the bracketed items. Tasks 2 through 5 should be usable as an interim protocol before the full plan is adopted.

1. Heat exposure and vulnerability. Map who is exposed, not only where it is hot; our vulnerability assessment RFP guide covers the method.

The Consultant shall map heat exposure and vulnerability at census tract level or finer, combining surface temperature or heat index data with social vulnerability, housing without cooling, outdoor work, homelessness, age and health conditions, and shall identify priority neighborhoods and facilities with the [Health Department].

2. Triggers and activation. Tie every action to a signal.

The Consultant shall develop a tiered activation protocol that names, for each tier, the triggering signal (National Weather Service products, HeatRisk level or a local threshold), the actions, the responsible agency and the person authorized to activate, and shall test it in a tabletop exercise before [date].

3. Cooling access.

The Consultant shall assess cooling center and cool space locations, hours, transportation, accessibility, pet policies, overnight options and backup power against priority neighborhoods, and recommend changes with costs.

4. Communication and outreach. Trusted messengers reach people that alerts do not; see our stakeholder engagement plan guide and our note on health equity and climate.

The Consultant shall prepare a heat communication plan with [community partners], including message templates in [languages], channels for people without smartphones, and guidance for health care providers, landlords, schools and employers.

5. Workforce protection.

The Consultant shall review the [City’s] written heat-illness prevention plan and practices for employees and contractors against [COMAR 09.12.32 or the applicable state rule] and recommend changes to schedules, rest, water, shade and acclimatization.

6. Long-term cooling strategy. These measures often sit better in a broader climate adaptation plan; say which document owns them.

The Consultant shall identify, cost and prioritize structural measures, including tree canopy, cool roofs and pavements, shade at transit stops and schools, and home cooling programs, naming an owner, funding source by program name and schedule for each priority action, and shall identify which belong in the hazard mitigation plan.

7. Surveillance and evaluation.

The Consultant shall establish indicators and data-sharing arrangements for heat-related illness, emergency department visits and deaths, and shall design an after-action review to run at the end of each heat season.

Deliverables to require

• Heat exposure and vulnerability maps with the underlying data, at tract level or finer.
• Tiered activation protocol with triggers, actions, roles and contact lists, plus a tabletop exercise report.
• Cooling access assessment with recommended sites, hours, transportation and costs.
• Communication plan and message templates in each required language.
• Workforce heat-illness plan review with recommended changes.
• Prioritized long-term cooling actions with owners, costs, funding sources and schedule.
• Crosswalk of long-term actions to the hazard mitigation plan and capital plan.
• Indicator set, data-sharing agreements or drafts, and an after-action review template.
• Engagement record and plain-language summary.
• Editable files and data, with rights to reuse them.

How to evaluate proposals

Borrow from the funder. California scored its large heat planning grants out of 90 points and invited top applicants to an interview or site visit worth the last 10, according to its Round 1 notice. An interview in which the proposed team walks through your worst heat day from last summer shows more than any narrative.

Check for public health depth. A heat plan written only by land use planners tends to miss clinical guidance, medication risks and hospital coordination. If federal money pays for the work, 2 CFR 200.320 requires publishing every evaluation factor and its relative importance.

Timeline

Sequence the work around the calendar. A contract signed in autumn can deliver an exercised interim protocol by spring, then finish the long-term strategy in the following year.

Budget and cost drivers

California’s program gives the clearest public prices. Round 1 offered small planning grants of $100,000 to $250,000 and large ones of $300,000 to $750,000. Los Angeles received $750,000 for its first Heat Action and Resilience Plan, Ventura County $749,931 for a countywide plan, and Greenbelt Alliance $473,115.74 for a Southwest Santa Rosa plan with Latino Service Providers. At the small end, Kings County’s emergency services office received $249,999.69 for a heat and sheltering plan and the City of Colusa $113,150.

Round 2 has moved toward building things. Its $27.5 million pool funds early infrastructure awards of $750,000 to $1.2 million, which must pair a heat planning document with a demonstration project, and advanced awards of $3 million to $4.5 million. A local or regional public entity must apply with a community-based organization or a California Native American Tribe. Our resilience funding hub tracks other sources.

What moves the price:

• Geography. Countywide or multi-city plans need more mapping and more partners.
• Data. Commissioning surface temperature data, sensor networks or health data agreements adds cost and time.
• Engagement. Paid community partners, translation and outreach to outdoor workers and people without homes.
• Exercises. A tabletop exercise adds days but finds the gaps before a heat wave does.
• Demonstration projects. California’s Round 2 awards that pair a planning document with a demonstration project run $750,000 to $1.2 million, above Round 1’s $750,000 cap for large planning grants.
• Dashboards. Public tracking tools add build and hosting costs; ask who maintains them after the contract.

Red flags in proposals

• No activation protocol, or triggers that name no one with authority to act.
• Cooling centers counted without checking hours, transport or who actually uses them.
• Outreach limited to social media and a web page.
• No public health or emergency management staff on the team.
• Tree canopy targets with no planting, watering and maintenance budget.
• Silence on the jurisdiction’s own outdoor workers.
• No way to measure whether the plan reduced illness and deaths.

How we’d approach it

We would start from last summer’s worst days and the people they hit hardest, then build the protocol backward from those facts. Our engagement practice on the Annapolis Maritime Resilience Initiative relied on bilingual materials, culturally relevant outreach and local organizations over 18 months, and a heat plan needs that same reach into households that official alerts miss.