To Prospective FY 2024 Nonprofit Security Grant Program National Security Supplemental (NSGP-NSS) Applicants 

On October 28, 2024, FEMA released the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the FY2024 Nonprofit Security Grant Program National Security Supplemental (NSGP-NSS).  This grant provides $210,000,000 in funding support for target hardening and other physical security enhancements and activities to eligible nonprofit organizations that are at risk of terrorist or other extremist attack.

The 2024 NSGP-NSS has two components:  1) $105 Million for eligible nonprofit entities that are within designated major urban areas (NSGP-NSS-UA); 2) $105 Million for eligible nonprofit entities that are not within those designated major urban areas, through a state-level application (NSGP-NSS-S).  

The District of Columbia and the surrounding National Capital Region urban area is only eligible to apply for the urban area NSGP-NSS program (NSGP-NSS-UA). 

The following information and instructions are for nonprofit applicants that are within the National Capital Region urban area (NCR), which includes the District of Columbia, Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties in Maryland, and Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William Counties and the City of Alexandria in Virginia. Any nonprofit applicants in Maryland and Virginia that are not within the boundaries of the NCR must submit their applications to the Maryland Department of Emergency Management or Virginia Department of Emergency Management, respectively.  

Below are instructions for applications for FY2024 NSGP-NSS for the National Capital Region urban area: 

• Applicants must be 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations to be eligible.
   
• Applicants must be located within the National Capital Region.
   
• The maximum amount for an individual application is $200,000. An applicant with multiple facility locations may submit up to three (3) separate applications for different locations in total, for a maximum of $600,000 per organization.
   
• NEW for this grant is the ability for multiple organizations to collectively submit a “Consortium” application in which one lead applicant submits a combined application representing up to five 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations.  Each member of the consortium including the lead applicant must each be an eligible 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and the application may only request up to $200,000 for each consortium member site, so the maximum amount for a Consortium application including 5 members is $1,000,000.  Consortium applicants should carefully review the additional guidance on Consortium applicants in the NOFO. 
   
• Applicants must only request funding for equipment/activities that are consistent with the allowable costs guidance listed on pp. 30-40 of the NSGP-NSS NOFO.
   
• The period of performance for this grant is May 01, 2025 to April 28, 2028.
   
• Applicants must submit their applications no later than Friday, January 03, 2025 at 11:59.59 PM EDT to the District of Columbia Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency (DC HSEMA), which is the State Administrative Agent (SAA) for this grant.  
   
• Applicants must submit the following three (3) documents to the SAA for a complete application (see pg. 26-29 of the NOFO) 

1. A completed FY2024 NSGP-NSS Investment Justification template 
2. A “mission statement” which explains the nature of the applicant organization’s purpose and mission.  This will primarily be used to validate the organization’s type identified in the IJ as either: 1) Ideology-based/spiritual/religious; 2) Educational; 3) Medical; or 4) Other. 
3. A copy of the vulnerability/risk assessment on which the request in the application is based. 

*Consortium applications must also submit a Consortium Workbook, individual or shared vulnerability assessment(s), and mission statements for every member of the consortium.

Unique Entity Identifier (UEI)

As of April 4, 2022, the federal government requires all recipients and subrecipients of federal funding to use a Unique Federal Identifier (UEI) to identify their organization.  The UEI must be acquired through the SAM.gov website and is free of charge.  For FY2024 NSGP-NSS applicants, if you have a UEI, enter it in the application template where it is indicated.  If you do not yet have a UEI you may leave that field in the application template blank, and your application will be accepted.  However, continue your efforts to get a UEI, as DC HSEMA must have a UEI for all successful applicants in order to issue sub-grants in the coming months.  Please refer to the UEI instructions in the Preparedness Grants Manual and the FY2024 NSGP-NSS NOFO. 

Here is a link to a helpful guide from SAM.gov explaining how to acquire a UEI.  NSGP-NSS applicants do not need to register their UEI’s (that is a much more complicated process). This video explains the difference and shows the simplified process for simply getting a UEI issued: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RSHjczdxq8

Nonprofit applicants must use the following naming convention for the files submitted to the SAA: 

• The Investment Justification file name for individual applicants should follow this format: “NSGP-NSS_UA_DC_NCR_<Nonprofit Name>”;  As an example, an application from an organization named ABC School would name their Investment Justification file “NSGP-NSS_UA_DC_NCR_ABC School”. 
• The Investment Justification file name for Consortium applicants should follow this format: “NSGP-NSS_UA_C_DC_NCR_<Lead Nonprofit Name>”;  As an example, an application from an consortium of several organizations led by ABC School would name their Consortium Investment Justification file “NSGP-NSS_UA_C_DC_NCR_ABC School”. 
• Consortium applicants must also submit a Consortium Workbook.  Please name the file for the Consortium Workbook as follows: “NSGP-NSS_Consortium_Workbook_<Lead Nonprofit Name>”; as an example, a Consortium Workbook from a Consortium led by ABC School would name their Consortium Workbook “NSGP-NSS_Consortium_Workbook_ABC School”
  • The Mission Statement file name should be:  “<nonprofit name> Mission Statement” 
  • The Vulnerability Assessment file name should be: “<nonprofit name> Vulnerability Assessment”                   
• Submit applications by email to [email protected] and [email protected].      
  • Do not submit anything to FEMA or grants.gov—DC HSEMA will do that on behalf of the region. 

The scoring criteria for the applications is included in the NOFO on pages 58-65 - applicants should review the scoring criteria to understand how your applications will be reviewed and scored.

DC HSEMA will conduct an initial review and scoring of the applications received and will submit a combined application to FEMA on behalf of the National Capital Region urban area that includes all eligible applications. FEMA will make the final selection of award recipients, announce the result later in the winter of 2025 and issue the grant award to DC HSEMA no later than May 10, 2025.  Once DC HSEMA has received the federal grant award and the list of selected recipients, DC HSEMA will issue subawards to those selected recipients in the spring of 2025. 

Note: To access the NSGP-NSS_Investment Justification document attached below, you must have Adobe Reader 8 or higher. You may not have the Adobe Reader installed or your viewing environment may not be properly configured to use Adobe Reader. For information on how to install Adobe Reader and configure your viewing environment please see http://www.adobe.com/go/pdf_forms_configure.