Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Emergency Management Baseline Assessment Grant (EMBAG) | DHS 20 NPD 131 00 01

Opportunity Information: Apply for DHS 20 NPD 131 00 01

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Emergency Management Baseline Assessment Grant (EMBAG) is a discretionary grant program offered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through FEMA. Its core aim is to strengthen readiness before disasters happen by helping jurisdictions across the country (including state, tribal, territorial, and local communities) ensure they have high-quality, accredited emergency management programs and certified emergency management professionals in place ahead of an incident. The central idea is that strong emergency management capability should be built and verified in advance, not improvised during a crisis, and that jurisdictions benefit from having a clear, nationally recognized baseline for what "good" looks like.

To accomplish that goal, EMBAG focuses on supporting voluntary national-level standards and peer review assessment processes. In practice, this means funding work that helps create and sustain shared benchmarks for emergency preparedness and response, along with structured ways to evaluate programs and professional competencies against those benchmarks. The program is designed around continuous improvement: jurisdictions can use these standards and assessment tools to identify both their current capacity and their shortfalls, then map out a path to compliance or improvement over time. Importantly, the standards and assessment methods are intended to be consensus-based, meaning they are developed, validated, and revised through broad agreement rather than imposed unilaterally.

EMBAG funding supports three main types of activities. First, it supports the development, maintenance, updating, revision, and enhancement of voluntary national standards and peer review processes related to emergency preparedness and response. This includes keeping standards current as threats, best practices, and the emergency management field evolve. Second, it supports related efforts to develop or update national-level accreditation connected to those standards, reinforcing a formal mechanism for recognizing programs that meet the benchmarks. Third, it supports assessments of selected state, local, tribal, and territorial emergency management programs and professionals against the national-level standards, helping translate the standards into real-world evaluations and actionable findings.

The opportunity is cataloged under Assistance Listing (CFDA) number 97.131 and falls under the activity areas of Disaster Prevention and Relief as well as Information and Statistics. Eligible applicants include nonprofit organizations (both those with 501(c)(3) status and those without, as long as they are not institutions of higher education) and private institutions of higher education. The funding opportunity number is DHS 20 NPD 131 00 01, and the program was posted on March 20, 2020, with an original application closing date of May 4, 2020. FEMA anticipated making about four awards, and the listed award ceiling was $695,000.

Overall, EMBAG is best understood as an investment in the infrastructure of emergency management quality: the shared standards, accreditation systems, peer review methods, and direct assessments that help jurisdictions measure where they are, document how they perform against recognized benchmarks, and improve in a structured and defensible way. For the full set of requirements, allowable costs, application instructions, and selection criteria, applicants were directed to consult the official notice of funding opportunity posted on Grants.gov.

• The Department of Homeland Security, Department of Homeland Security - FEMA in the disaster prevention and relief, information and statistics sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Emergency Management Baseline Assessment Grant (EMBAG)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 97.131.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 20, 2020.
• Applicants must submit their applications by May 04, 2020. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $695,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 4 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

Apply for DHS 20 NPD 131 00 01

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