Key Considerations and Tips for Winning Brownfields Grants

With the anticipated release of the USEPA Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) Brownfields grant cycle, local governments, redevelopment agencies, non-profit organizations, and land banks have a critical opportunity to secure funding to transform and repurpose underutilized, contaminated or blighted properties into vibrant community assets. But to deliver success, preparation is everything.

Whether you’re aiming for an Assessment, Cleanup, or Revolving Loan Fund grant, the path to a successful application typically starts before the Federal Register announcement. From seasoned applicants to first time participants, here’s what communities need to know and do now to be competitive.

1. Get Your Credentials and System Access Information in Order

Before a single sentence of your grant narrative is prepared, make sure you can access the required application portals. It may seem basic, but it’s easy to miss critical deadlines if your application systems aren’t set up properly in advance. With the issuance of grant guidelines anticipated soon and a grant deadline at least 60 days after the notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) and grant guidelines are published, avoid delays and the frustration of working with a help desk by acting now to:

• Validate your SAM.gov registration is active
• Confirm your Grants.gov account is connected to your Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) number
• Make sure your Authorized Organizational Representative’s (AOR) registration is up to date

If you have a new AOR in place this year, they may not yet be authorized to access the systems yet. Without these credentials, applicants can’t even log in to submit the application. Prepare to address this now, not the week of the deadline.

2. Define Your Target Areas and Sites Early

Vague or overly broad projects often don’t receive grant funding. For a $500,000 Community-wide Assessment grant, applicants must clearly identify a defined geographic target area(s) (TA), and specific priority sites within that area with compelling cleanup and redevelopment potential.

In a federal Brownfields grant application, an applicant defines a TA using boundaries from Census tracts, block groups neighborhoods, redevelopment master plans, area-wide revitalization plans, and comprehensive land use plans.

A competitive grant application includes a TA that receives clear benefits from the planned actions. For example, an anticipated retail or commercial development would generate benefits primarily within the workforce region.

Geospatial mapping can be beneficial in this process. Applicants can leverage street-level data to estimate travel time to understand where the project’s benefits will be greatest. In other words, they provide a visual and logical limit to where a TA should begin and end.

3. Know Your Community: Define Demographics and Needs

The USEPA places emphasis on how Brownfields projects support local needs as well as disadvantaged and underserved communities. Winning grant applications go beyond describing a local vision and describe in detail how the project will address the needs and overcome the challenges your community faces. A strong narrative links the community’s unique characteristics, both quantitative and qualitative, with the need(s) the grant funding will address.

The Community Need and Engagement narrative may present the heightened environmental, public health and economic vulnerabilities that compound existing inequities found in the TA. Specific categories include presence of low-income households, minority individuals, older adults, children and residents with limited access to healthcare or transportation. Sometimes population size plays a role; micro communities – places with 10,000 people and less – often have exacerbated constraints due to lower tax revenues and limited staffing.

A strong application also reflects the broader lived experience of the community, which may include historic disinvestment, inequity concerns, reduced economic mobility, neighborhood stigma, weakened market confidence and the cumulative effects that blight and underutilized properties have on community well-being.

Taken together, these factors demonstrate challenges that hinder cleanup and revitalization efforts, as well as the deeper structural barriers affecting quality of life.

Economic impact modeling can be used to demonstrate the anticipated jobs and income that would arise from an anticipated redevelopment project. Such analysis is particularly important in areas suffering from high unemployment and a lack of opportunities.

4. Pay Attention to the Details When Budgeting

Be careful with your numbers. A budget that doesn’t add up can cost you critical points on your application. And if you’ve never managed a Brownfields grant before, show that you’ve overseen other federal funds, or that you’re partnering with experienced community organization and/or consultants to assist with oversight of the grant activities.

5. Collaborate With a Strong Brownfield Grant Writing Partner

Preparing a successful Brownfields grant isn’t just about planning early, it’s about knowing how to interpret complex USEPA guidance, structure a competitive narrative and align every answer with the prescriptive scoring criteria and funding priorities. This can be a difficult task if unfamiliar with environmental, USEPA-funded Brownfields grants, or redevelopment funding processes.

A competitive Brownfields Grant application always includes a compelling story. Each community has a unique narrative shaped by its people, places and challenges. A successful applicant must clearly communicate the project-specific outcomes that assessment, cleanup, and revitalization can deliver, such as addressing contamination, eliminating blight, improving neighborhood safety, and creating new jobs and tax revenue. Most importantly, these benefits can meet local needs and strengthen quality of life. A strong narrative does more than describe local conditions – it conveys the consequences of inaction, demonstrates the community’s immediate need for funding and lays the groundwork for a successful grant submission.

Securing Brownfields funding takes expertise, strategy and technical fluency. The difference between success and failure can come down to a single point. Look for a deeply qualified grant writing partner with relevant experience including:

• A successful track record securing USEPA Brownfields grants
• Hands-on success with federal grant applications
• Deep familiarity with USEPA priorities such as supporting underserved/disadvantage communities, resilience, Opportunity Zones and reuse planning
• Working knowledge of environmental terms and processes (Phase I/II, contaminants, cleanup planning, reuse planning)
• Ongoing projects that assess and describe brownfield risks and impacts
• Daily work integrating environmental data and health statistics into narratives
• A collaborative approach to working with public staff and local stakeholders
• Ability to help translate local plans, needs and vision into fundable language
• Expertise in shifting federal priorities
• Ability to support economic impact modeling
• Access to templates and tools for budgets, narratives and work plans
• Ability to help with long-term redevelopment strategy, not just the grant

If your municipality doesn’t have a dedicated grant writer or planner with USEPA Brownfields experience, consider partnering with a specialized consultant or environmental firm that knows how to navigate this complex process.