Update January 15: Today, the House voted overwhelmingly, 359-67, to approve a $1.1 trillion spending bill for the current fiscal year. It is expected to move quickly through the Senate and be signed by the President. The bill appropriates $13 million for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, an increase of 30% over last year.
Update January 14: Congress filed the omnibus appropriations bill late yesterday, including funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program. The bill will be debated over the weekend.
Thanks to the incredible work of a coalition led by The Jewish Federations of North America/JFNA (with JCRC-NY and UJA-Federation playing active roles) there is likely to be another round of the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP). The JFNA Washington Office, directed by William Daroff, and its Senior Director, Legislative Affairs, Rob Goldberg deserve our most heartfelt gratitude.
For those who want the gory details: The House and Senate Appropriations Committees continue work to complete the FY14 Omnibus Appropriations bills before the current Continuing Resolution (CR) expires on January 15th. As has been the case over the past few years, it is doubtful that they will complete their work before the deadline, so there is likely to be another, short CR, giving Congress additional time to debate and vote (after all, the Omnibus bills cover virtually the entire federal budget). According to reports as of January 8th, the DHS budget was not yet approved, but is largely completed. Once the DHS budget is approved, our Washington champions will learn how much was allocated for the NSGP.
Appropriators on both sides of the aisle and chambers have pressed for a clean bill that does not include divisive partisan policy riders. However, once the bill is filed and details emerge there are likely to be calls for amendments to diminish or obstruct implementation of Obamacare, EPA rules, and Wall Street protections or support anti-abortion policies (more than 130 such policy riders that have been mentioned, including aid for houses of worship damaged by Superstorm Sandy). There also remain, especially in the House, a number of conservatives who would still prefer passing a year-long CR at the lower FY13 spending level.
Get Ready
We strongly urge organizations contemplating applying for a grant to immediately take steps to deal with some of the details of the application package:
- Pre-qualify with NY State. Applications from New York nonprofit organizations that have not “pre-qualified” will not be considered, so start this process immediately. There are five parts of this process so we strongly urge you to start now because it may take some time. We will schedule a webinar on pre-qualification in the near future.
Effective August 1, 2013, not-for-profit organizations must be prequalified in order to do business with New York State (i.e., to receive a grant). In order to prequalify, not-for-profit organizations must submit an online Prequalification Application through the Grants Gateway. The Prequalification Application is comprised of five components to gauge your organizational structure and the types of services you provide. The required forms and document uploads are all part of the Document Vault. Resources to complete the application and associated document vault can be found in the Quick Links Section of the Grants Gateway website: http://grantsreform.ny.gov/Grantees.
- Vulnerability assessment. We expect that the “Investment Justification” will again be based on a “previously conducted vulnerability assessment.” See Getting a vulnerability assessment for more details and suggestions.
- Read and understand the Investment Justification. Download the Investment Justification from last year here. There will be some changes, but they are usually minor. You can find JCRC-NY’s guidance on each section on the “Security Grants” webpage (and below). Note: many applicants lost points last year because they did not properly respond to the questions.
Thanks
New York institutions continue to be successful. We thank all of those at NY DHSES who worked so hard to make this happen: Commissioner Jerome Hauer, Shelley Wahrlich, Valerie Bloomer and Dov Horwitz.