Dear Colleagues,
NIFA's Smith-Lever Special Needs Competitive Grants Program (SLSNCGP) has announced $462,000 in available funding to decrease the impact of disasters through cooperative extension programming.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), “In 2017, there were 16 weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the United States. These events included 1 drought event, 2 flooding events, 1 freeze event, 8 severe storm events, 3 tropical cyclone events, and 1 wildfire event.” The aftermath is impact on food, agriculture, natural resources, and humans. The purpose of the SLSNCGP is to support innovative, education-based approaches to addressing emergency preparedness and specific responses related to natural and human-made disasters. The SLSNCGP supports quality of life in communities across the United States by addressing disaster preparedness, response, mitigation, and recovery in the context of food, agriculture, natural resources, and human sciences. The SLSNCGP provides information and tools to USDA, stakeholders, and collaborators to improve decision-making in handling disasters.
NIFA intends to fund SLSNCGP projects to implement applied programs that serve public needs in preparation for, during, and after disaster. Funds will support innovative extension education initiatives that address risks, hazards, and disasters. The SLSNCGP sponsors targeted projects that enable Cooperative Extension System (CES) to assist in preparing for, providing an educational response to, and recovering from disasters. Some types of hazards and disaster-related events funded in previous years include uncertainties caused by losses of economic infrastructure, severe weather or other natural disasters, security breaches, human disease, or high consequence animal diseases and plant pests. The SLSNCGP increases awareness and capacity building of urban/rural communities' response to disasters by increasing individuals, families, farms and small businesses disaster preparedness through education and collaborations with other agencies/volunteer organizations.
To be considered for funding, projects must support extension activities through at least one of the following strategies:
1. Enhance national, regional, multi-state or state networks that support official information by ensuring the content is:
• In a format appropriate to the situation and intended audience;
• Delivered in a timely fashion; and
• Science-based.
2. Provide national, regional, multi-state, or state education and communications leadership to develop or add value to current educational materials regarding disaster issues, utilizing distribution mix of the EDEN website, eXtension, related social media, and/or other outlets. This strategy could include materials targeted to underserved audiences (such as people who speak English as a second language, and individuals with low literacy).
3. Improve national, regional, multi-state, or state stakeholder partnerships (which might include the public, governments at all levels, non-profit and/or volunteer organizations, academia, and/or industry) to prepare for and respond to disasters through extension education.
4. Deliver extension education to affected citizens and communities, in one or more states, to address effects of a major declared disaster that occurred no more than 12 months prior to June 19, 2018.
Though national, regional, and/or multi-state efforts are a priority for strategies 1-3 given above, highly replicable single-state projects may be considered if they have a strong plan for transferring successful methods to other states. The SLSNCGP will also fund the development of educational programs and demonstration activities focusing on disaster preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery. The most competitive proposals will provide educational and communication leadership across an optimized mix of these and other resources. Only applications that address one or more of the following five key target areas will be considered for funding: Education and technical assistance; Collaboration; Long range family, farm, community and planning projects; Communication delivery; and/or Dissemination of credible, science-based information.
Project funding ranges from $15,000 to $180,000. Typical project periods range from one to three years.
For additional information, please review the full solicitation available on the program's website: https://nifa.usda.gov/sites/default/files/rfa/FY-18-SLSNCGP-RFA_0.pdf
The deadline for applications is June 19, 2018.
Please contact the Office of Contracts and Grants should you have questions regarding this funding opportunity.
Thank you.
Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)