Tribes and other Indigenous communities are disproportionately exposed to hazards, such as hurricanes, wildfires, and flooding. These events can result in deaths, damage property, disrupt essential services, and affect natural resources and sacred spaces.
These communities have adopted a range of strategies to mitigate disaster impacts, but funding availability remains a barrier to recovery and resilience efforts.
The US Economic Development Administration (EDA) offers multiple funding programs that can help federally recognized tribes, Alaska Native Villages, and other Indigenous communities prepare for, mitigate, and recover from disasters. Programs include Public Works and Economic Adjustment Assistance, Planning, and Disaster Recovery. While program-specific criteria vary, eligible projects can include hazard mitigation planning, construction and repair of public infrastructure systems, capacity building, site planning, and workforce training programs.
An Indigenous community’s history of presidentially declared disasters is one important factor in how EDA and other federal agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the US Small Business Administration (SBA), award disaster resilience funding. Presidentially declared disasters can unlock access to funding and qualify applicants for additional points in competitive grant scoring processes. Descriptions of the effects of recent disasters can also help tribes justify the need for federal funding assistance in their grant narratives.
Using the tool below, economic development practitioners can explore their communities’ histories of major disasters. We also include strategies for pursuing disaster resilience funding from EDA.
Strategies for a Successful Application to EDA’s Grant Programs
The following strategies can help economic development practitioners pursue funding from EDA for disaster resilience efforts.
Contact your economic development representative (EDR). EDRs are EDA staff embedded in the agency’s six regional offices. One of their primary goals is to support applicants with the EDA grants process. EDRs can help identify the EDA grant program that best fits your project.
Contact your EDR before beginning your application to learn more about funding priorities and considerations.
Coordinate with nearby governments. Collaboration can strengthen a project’s outcomes and often makes funding applications more competitive.
For example, a community may want to elevate a critical road above the base flood elevation, but the county government owns the road. Coordination between the community and the county will be critical to developing a feasible, fundable project strategy because the county would need to be a co-applicant.
For tribes with service areas, working with local and state governments may be the only route to pursue infrastructure projects, since they may own the land and associated infrastructure. Even when a co-applicant is not required, including a letter of support or memorandum of understanding from a local or state government with your funding application could improve its competitiveness and ultimately lead to a more effective proposal.
Use data to make your case. A data-driven description of your community’s pre- and post-disaster economic conditions and how the project will benefit the community or the defined project area provides the foundation for a compelling application. EDA has created a helpful template and tips for using data (PDF) in applications to their FY 2025 Disaster Supplemental that may be useful for disaster-focused applications to other funding programs.
The National Economic Resilience Data Explorer data tool can be a good place to start for economic indicators, though you may have to approximate your community’s characteristics using census tract- or county-level data. If available, use tribally collected data to strengthen your case.
Develop a compelling narrative. The narrative portion of an application is where you put your data into context and respond to scoring criteria and investment priorities.
Specific criteria will vary depending on the funding program; common considerations include the following:
- Why does your community need this grant? Demonstrate that the proposed project will address the causes and levels of distress in your community.
- How feasible is your project? Demonstrate that you can complete the proposed activities.
- What is the project’s return on investment? Demonstrate that the proposed activities will save jobs that would be lost, create new jobs, or catalyze private investment.
- How will this grant support recovery and resilience for businesses in your community and its overall economy?
- How will this grant unlock additional investment and economic growth?
- How does your proposal align with your community’s comprehensive economic development strategy or alternate regional plan, if applicable?
Your community’s EDR may be able to help you strategize about how to address these considerations in your application.
For more strategies, see our brief, Developing Successful Grant Applications: Best Practices and Lessons from a Tribal Grantee.
Beyond EDA, many other federal agencies offer funding for projects related to disaster resilience, including FEMA, SBA, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Department of Agriculture. Funding may also be available through your state government or philanthropies.
ABOUT THE DATA
Data on presidential disaster declarations are from OpenFEMA. Indigenous communities are identified from the Bureau of Indian Affairs’s listing of federally recognized entities, the Census Bureau’s registry of Hawaiian Homelands, and each of the county equivalents comprising Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The 12 Alaska Native Regional Corporations are also included. These communities were then linked to spatial boundaries from the corresponding US Census Bureau’s TIGER/Line data files.
While some declarations are specific to Indigenous communities, many declarations only name underlying counties. In these latter cases, we spatially referenced counties with disaster declarations with tribal and Indigenous community boundaries. We then categorized overlapping tribal and Indigenous communities as having received a disaster declaration.
PROJECT CREDITS
This data tool was funded by the Economic Development Administration, US Department of Commerce, under award ED22HDQ3079185. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Economic Development Administration or the US Department of Commerce.
We are grateful to them and to all our funders, who make it possible for Urban to advance its mission. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Funders do not determine research findings or the insights and recommendations of our experts. More information on our funding principles is available here. Read our terms of service here.
RESEARCH Will Curran-Groome, Nancy Pindus, Diane K. Levy, Kevin Klingbeil (Big Water Consulting), Ilina Mitra, Harrison Fitch (Big Water Consulting)
DATA VISUALIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT Rachel Marconi and Gabe Morrison
DESIGN Brittney Spinner
EDITING Dana Ferrante and Lauren Lastowka
PRODUCTION Lydia Nguyen
