How to Write an RFP for a Resilience Funding Strategy

Annapolis is building its City Dock flood protection with four federal grants: two from the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, tied to disaster declarations for a 2016 snowstorm and the COVID-19 pandemic, and two congressionally directed awards (FEMA public notice). The city first applied for the $33 million HMGP grant in 2023 (Senator Van Hollen’s office).

A resilience funding strategy ranks a jurisdiction’s resilience projects and matches each to the grants, loans, bonds and local revenue it can realistically win, with a calendar for the design and match each source demands. You need one when projects outgrow the capital budget. The RFP succeeds when it buys fundable readiness instead of a longer program list.

The programs keep moving. FEMA announced BRIC’s end in April 2025, a court ordered it restored, and the $1 billion round that followed closed July 23, 2026 (Congressional Research Service; FEMA).

What this work should deliver

Buy a ranked, costed portfolio in which every priority project carries a named primary funding source, a named match, the design level that source requires and a date to reach it. New York’s 2026 county strategy grants describe the same product: a needs assessment, profiles of at least ten priority projects with costs, eligible funding sources and match requirements, and implementation-ready products for at least two (New York Department of State).

Who this is for: counties, cities, port and water utilities, and regional agencies holding more projects than money. In Maryland it includes the resilience authorities local governments may create under Title 22 of the Local Government Article, which can charge fees and, with local approval, back bonds with them (§ 22-105). Our resilience funding hub collects related guides.

It is the wrong purchase if you have no project list yet; start with a hazard mitigation plan update or a climate risk assessment. It is also the wrong purchase for one shovel-ready project, which needs grant application support. Keep final design, bond issuance and most grant writing out of this contract, or price them as options.

Expect the ranking to be argued over. Our Maryland county profiles set FEMA’s expected losses beside the mitigation grants each county received, from OpenFEMA project data; use them to test whether a ranking tracks risk or habit.

Rules and standards to cite

Cite the rules that decide eligibility, cost-effectiveness and match, with dates; several changed in 2025 and 2026.

• Plan first. A local government must revise and resubmit its hazard mitigation plan within five years to stay eligible for FEMA mitigation project grants (44 CFR 201.6). HMGP projects must conform to that plan, and projects that only identify or analyze hazards are ineligible (44 CFR 206.434).
• Post-disaster money is statewide and unpredictable. Maryland’s COVID-19 and 2016 snowstorm declarations made HMGP available for mitigation statewide (FEMA), which is how a pandemic declaration came to fund flood barriers. HMGP needs a major disaster declaration, and Maryland’s request after the May 2025 Western Maryland flooding was denied, then denied twice on appeal (Department of Legislative Services).
• Cost-effectiveness. FEMA treats a project as cost-effective at a benefit-cost ratio of 1.0 or higher and accepts a narrative method for projects under $1 million (FEMA). Projects not awarded by April 8, 2025 must use a 7% discount rate, up from 3.1% (FEMA BCA notes).
• Readiness. The 2024-25 BRIC notice accepted infrastructure projects only with at least a conceptual design, barred phased projects, capped national competition requests at $20 million federal share and set a 75% federal share, or 90% for small impoverished communities (BRIC NOFO).
• Match. BRIC funds can’t match another federal award, and other federal money can’t match BRIC unless its own statute allows it. The amended FY2024 FMA notice also bars loans from FEMA’s Safeguarding Tomorrow revolving loan program as FMA match (FMA NOFO). Maryland’s Resilient Maryland Revolving Loan Fund lends up to $5 million per project, holds Safeguarding Tomorrow money, and lent $5 million each to two Howard County projects in fiscal 2025 (Department of Legislative Services).
• Maryland money with strings. MDE’s Comprehensive Flood Management Grant Program splits the 25% nonfederal share evenly with the local government when federal funds participate. Phase I stormwater permit holders must keep a watershed protection and restoration fund for stormwater practices and stream and wetland restoration (Environment § 4-202.1), so a floodwall with no water quality function is a poor fit for that fund. Resilience authority bonds are limited obligations that don’t pledge the county’s taxing power (§ 22-106).
• Coast Smart. State capital money brings state siting and design criteria. Since 2018 the Coast Smart program has covered local projects funded by the state, and it requires structures in the special flood hazard area to sit at least 2 feet above base flood elevation (Coast Smart Council).

The discount rate deserves a line in your RFP. By our arithmetic, moving from 3.1% to 7% cuts the present value of an even 50-year stream of avoided losses by about 45%, so a long-lived project that cleared a benefit-cost analysis in 2024 may not clear one now. Projects whose benefits build over decades, as many nature-based ones do, feel it most; see our comparison with grey infrastructure.

Sample scope of work

Adapt the bracketed items. Tasks 2 and 5 carry the value; the rest makes them defensible.

1. Project inventory. Most jurisdictions already hold a project list, scattered across plans such as a nuisance flood plan.

The Consultant shall compile every resilience project and action in the [County’s] hazard mitigation plan, capital improvement program, nuisance flood plan, watershed implementation plans and community-identified sites into one inventory. For each, the Consultant shall record the owner, location, hazard addressed, design stage, latest cost estimate and its date, and any prior grant application with reviewer feedback.

2. Prioritization framework. Adopt criteria and weights before scoring anything, and keep funding eligibility out of the score. If grant competitiveness is a criterion, the ranking rewards what is easy to fund over what is needed.

The Consultant shall propose prioritization criteria and weights for adoption by [the governing body] before any project is scored, score every project, test how the ranking changes under at least two alternative weightings, and publish the scores with the reasons behind them. Funding eligibility shall be applied as a separate screen after scoring.

3. Readiness and cost. Grant programs price design maturity. BRIC’s 2024-25 competition gave 5 points for at least 30% design, 15 points above 30% and 30 points at 90% or more.

For the top [15] projects, the Consultant shall document the design level, required permits and environmental reviews, and a planning-level cost estimate with its basis and date, and shall estimate the cost and time to reach [30%] and [90%] design.

4. Funding source matrix. Require status as of a date and a refresh schedule; program terms changed repeatedly in 2025 and 2026.

The Consultant shall prepare a matrix of federal, state, local and philanthropic sources stating, for each, its status as of [date], eligible applicants and activities, federal share, match rules (including whether loans or other federal funds may count as match), typical award size, application cycle, and the design level and cost-effectiveness test it requires. The Consultant shall update the matrix [quarterly] during the contract.

5. Funding stacks. This is the product. A list of programs beside a list of projects is only a directory.

For each priority project, the Consultant shall recommend a primary source, a match source and a fallback, show cash-flow timing including reimbursement lag, and prepare a screening benefit-cost analysis at FEMA’s current discount rate for any project proposed for FEMA funding.

6. Local revenue and financing. Match has to come from money you may legally spend on the project; our primers on climate finance and green bonds cover the instruments.

The Consultant shall assess the capacity, legal authority and use restrictions of [stormwater remediation fees, general obligation bonds, resilience authority bonds, state revolving loans and special taxing districts] to cover local match and projects without grant support, citing the approval each requires.

7. Calendar and proof products. Copy New York’s requirement for implementation-ready products on at least two projects, so the strategy meets a real deadline.

The Consultant shall deliver a 24-month calendar of design, match and application milestones keyed to published program deadlines, and shall prepare [two] implementation products for top-ranked projects, such as a grant subapplication, a benefit-cost analysis or a conceptual design.

8. Handoff. A strategy nobody can update is stale within a year.

The Consultant shall deliver the inventory, scores, funding matrix and funding stacks in an editable database the [County] can maintain, train [two] staff members to update it, and brief [the governing body] on the results.

Deliverables to require

• Project inventory in an editable database, with the source document for each entry.
• Adopted criteria and weights, full scores and the sensitivity test results.
• A readiness sheet for each priority project: design level, permits, cost estimate with basis and date, and the cost to reach the next design milestone.
• A dated funding source matrix with match and loan rules for each source.
• A funding stack for each priority project: primary source, match, fallback and cash-flow timing.
• Screening benefit-cost analyses at FEMA’s current discount rate.
• A local revenue and financing memo citing the legal authority for each option.
• A 24-month calendar of design, match and application deadlines.
• Two implementation products, such as a subapplication or a conceptual design.
• A board briefing, a plain-language public summary and staff training.

How to evaluate proposals

Seattle’s 2022 financing RFP weighted experience 30%, the proposal 40%, budget allocation 10% and references 20% (City of Seattle). Weight current program knowledge above firm size, since a team that knew BRIC in 2023 may not know it now.

With federal money, the procurement standards at 2 CFR 200.317 through 200.327 apply. 2 CFR 200.320 requires the RFP to name every evaluation factor and its relative importance, and reserves price-free qualifications-based selection for architectural and engineering services. A funding strategy is planning work, so score price, and prepare your own cost estimate before proposals arrive, as 2 CFR 200.324 requires.

Settle the conflict question in the RFP. 2 CFR 200.319 excludes contractors that develop or draft specifications, requirements or statements of work from competing on those procurements, and a firm that ranks projects and scopes them may want the design work. Require bidders to disclose that interest, and state whether the strategy firm may compete to design projects it scoped.

In interviews, ask each team to walk through a funding stack it built that won and one that didn’t.

Timeline

Work backward from the windows you care about. Maryland’s Grants Gateway applications for fiscal 2028 are due December 11, 2026 (DNR), and MDE’s flood grant solicitation typically runs December 1 through January 31. A strategy that lands in February has missed both.

Budget and cost drivers

Three published figures bracket the work. Seattle budgeted $75,000 in 2022 for a land value capture and municipal financing strategy, one piece of a larger sea level rise effort. New York’s grants pay up to $250,000 per county, with a 10% local match, for a needs assessment, at least ten costed project profiles and two implementation products. Philadelphia’s Eastwick flood resilience strategy cost $500,000: a $450,000 FEMA Flood Mitigation Assistance grant plus a $50,000 in-kind city match (City of Philadelphia).

Price proof products separately. In a January 2025 award, Stowe, Vermont priced a benefit-cost analysis at $20,064 and a Hazard Mitigation Grant Program application at $16,059 (Town of Stowe).

Paying for the strategy itself has gotten harder. The 2024-25 BRIC round excluded project scoping not tied to a specific infrastructure project, while Maryland’s Community Flood Planning grants typically run $40,000 to $100,000 for one-year projects in the coastal zone (DNR). The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s 2026 coastal resilience fund expects planning and design awards of $100,000 to $1.5 million.

What moves the price:

• Projects profiled in depth. New York’s floor is ten; each profile needs cost, eligibility and readiness work.
• Stale estimates. Missing designs and old cost estimates add engineering hours before any matching can start.
• Benefit-cost screening. Each project screened for FEMA funding needs hazard, damage and cost data.
• Engagement on weights. Workshops take calendar time and facilitation; see our stakeholder engagement guide.
• Revenue analysis. Fee capacity and bond sizing need a financial advisor, and sometimes counsel.
• Owners. Every added owner, such as a port, utility or town, adds data requests and approvals.

Red flags in proposals

• An undated funding matrix, or one that still lists BRIC planning grants or a 3.1% discount rate.
• A scoring model that includes grant competitiveness as a criterion, which counts eligibility twice.
• Fees set as a percentage of grants won, which gives the writer a stake in project size.
• Match assumptions that count federal loans or other federal grants without checking each program’s rules.
• No cash-flow analysis, even though many awards pay on reimbursement; DNR’s Roots for Resilience grants, for example, pay monthly on a reimbursable basis.
• A team with no one who has worked a state match program, a fee study or a bond measure.
• A firm that proposes to rank projects it plans to design, without saying so.

How we’d approach it

We would set the ranking with the people who live with the risk before matching anything to money. In the Annapolis Maritime Resilience Initiative, where we were project manager and engagement partner for Phase I, residents named 38 sites of concern; the team scored them on 20 criteria and advanced 10 to preliminary concept design, weighing funding eligibility outside the score (Phase I report). Through Council Fire Labs we also built Resilient & Ready with the Resilience Authority to rank projects and match them to funding. For the Huron River Watershed Council, we did the other half of a strategy: the economic case for a dedicated watershed fund.