Editor’s note: Emery Cowan is FAC Net’s Policy and Partnerships Manager. Over the past year, FAC Net staff developed a number of trainings to help community-based practitioners better understand how to navigate and manage federal funding sources. This blog summarizes some of the key points from those webinars, including best practices that apply to grant-seekers and grants managers more generally. Thanks to our partners at the USFS for support of this work.

The work of community wildfire adaptation requires many things: engagement with community members and partners, collaborative planning, practitioner skills and knowledge, and… funding. Federal grants in particular have long been a critical source of support for wildfire resilience work, and despite current uncertainties and funding changes, they will likely continue to be part of many organizations’ budgets. 

Federal grants also require sophisticated management systems and are often very competitive. To help build practitioners’ knowledge in this arena, FAC Net and our backbone organization, the Watershed Research and Training Center, developed several virtual trainings to familiarize practitioners with important federal funding tools like grants and agreements, as well as key aspects of grants compliance. Those webinar series were: 

While the sessions focused on federal funding, much of the content reflects general grants management best practices. Funding for these series came from our involvement with the Forest Service’s Community Navigator’s initiative and private donors. All session recordings, slides, and recap summaries are available on our trainings and resources website for this initiative.

The following are some of the most salient takeaways from those virtual trainings, along with references to the relevant session or related resources if you’d like to dig deeper. 

Grant Readiness Go-to’s

Our trainings provided many suggestions for best practices related to applying for and managing federal grants, many of which are wise to work on well before submitting an application. 

Familiarize yourself with funding opportunities and possible pathways: Funding can come through many different pathways – federal, state, local, and private grants; “pass through” dollars from one entity to another; or agency funding agreements, many of which are not competitively offered. Our USFS G&A series introduced focal areas, funding tools, and partnership examples from the U.S. Forest Service, providing a helpful illustration of the ways that funding may flow from a federal agency to partners.  

Get to know the Uniform Guidance: The Uniform Guidance is a set of regulations for all federal grants and cooperative agreements. These regulations are extensive and, frankly, a bit intimidating, and the onus for knowing and complying with them largely falls on the funding recipient. Our webinars highlighted several sections of these regulations that are especially important for federal awardees: 

• Procurement standards (2 CFR Part 200 Subpart D – Procurement Standards), 
• Direct and indirect costs (2 CFR Part 200 Subpart E – Direct and Indirect Costs) 
• Financial management (2 CFR 200 Financial Management)

Important to note is that in October 2024, the Office of Management and Budget updated the Uniform Guidance. The simple graphic below, available in full at myfedtrainer.com, summarizes important changes. 

Create internal policies: Develop policies that align with the Uniform Guidance, and then make sure your organization has processes and systems in place to comply with those policies. The fourth session in our Grants Management series includes helpful considerations for grants management policies and systems. A few policies to prioritize developing include procurement, conflict of interest, and travel policies.

To test your organization’s federal grants readiness, this checklist from the Nevada Grant Lab is a helpful self-assessment tool.  

Review your financial management systems: While grants management systems can involve different software and platforms, they need to serve a few key functions for federal grants, including identifying all federal awards received; demonstrating control over funds, property, and other assets relevant to the grant; and comparing budgeted to actual expenditures. Session 2 of our Grants Management series reviews expense tracking how-to’s and what types of documentation are critical for compliance. 

Specific Award Advice

Once you’ve homed in on a specific funding opportunity, the following tips will help in developing a solid application and then successfully managing your award. If you have questions about any of these items, reach out to the point of contact for the funding program for assistance. 

Be proactive about procurement: If you plan to work with partners or contractors to implement part of your project, think ahead about the details of that work. For example, if you already have a desired contractor for any parts of the project, you’ll need to get approval from your grants manager to go through noncompetitive procurement. Notes from our Audit Watchouts Q&A session cover this topic. This subrecipient vs contractor checklist can help you determine whether your procurement activities should go through a contract or a subaward. 

Clarify cost categories: Determine direct and indirect costs that will be charged to the grant. Federal grant applicants without a Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreement (NICRA) can charge up to a standard de minimis rate of 15% indirect on Modified Total Direct Costs, which means “all direct salaries and wages, applicable fringe benefits, materials and supplies, services, travel, and up to the first $50,000 of each subaward” (up to the first $25,000 of each subaward for grants pre-dating October 2024). Session 1 of our Grants Management series includes a helpful exercise in calculating direct and indirect costs. 

Calculate your match: Match or cost-sharing requirements vary by program. For many Forest Service grants, match is calculated as a portion of total project costs, not just the federal award amount. See the graphic below from Session 2 of our Grants Management series for how to calculate your match obligation. Learn more about meeting and tracking match in the Watershed Center’s Navigating Match primer.

Set up for successful award management: Post award, presenters on Session 1 of our Audit watchouts series suggest reviewing your award letter, noting important details, and creating a one-page cheat sheet of relevant information (see the slide below for suggested items to include). Make sure you are clear on all reporting requirements and forms. Many of these standard forms can be found on this grants.gov forms repository and instructions on how to fill them out can usually be found online. Look for explanatory documents from grants.gov and check the document expiration date at the bottom of the page.

Audit Watch Outs

Organizations expending over $1 million in federal funding over the course of a fiscal year are required to undergo a Single Audit, and annual audits are a best practice for all nonprofits receiving federal funding. Our two-part Audit Watchouts series highlighted common audit findings and ways to address or proactively prevent them. Here are few common problem areas:   

• Issue: Subaward agreement does not have required elements.
  • Resource: Our second Audit Watchouts webinar provided a checklist of items that must be included in a subaward agreement.

• Issue: Missing documentation of funding received through federal pass-through subawards in a Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards.
  • Resource: Our first Audit Watchouts webinar reviews a few indicators that a funding source originated as federal funding, including reference to assistance listing number or references to federal regulations like 2 CFR 200. 

• Issue: Equipment records do not contain the required Uniform Guidance information.
  • Resource: Exhibit D of this 2025 Forest Service Grants Proposal Guidance for Partners outlines specific requirements for equipment procured through a federal grant.

For additional resources related to accessing and managing grants, see our Funding FAC page on fireadapted.org. Please note that the content in this blog should not be construed as legal advice. As always, the best source of information for specific grant questions is your designated grant or program manager.   

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