By Diane H. Leonard, GPC
FEMA’s Assistance to Firefighter Grants (AFG grants) will be opening shortly. That isn’t news to most fire departments or emergency service providers. I’ve been writing about information and data you should gather in advance of the application and other big picture grant readiness related items to address. I’ve also written about the value of partnership within grant applications as a broad topic and best practice for grant applications.
With AFG about to open, is there get right or best answer to our Shakespeare inspired conundrum: “To partner or not to partner…that is the question?” This dilemma is facing many fire departments that are considering whether to apply for AFG grants as a single department or to partner with other regional organizations and apply for an AFG grant as a regional application.
They are asking themselves if it is best to apply for the SCBAs that their department desperately needs as they are past the NFPA compliance limit and therefore are considered a priority project, or if they should partner with multiple departments in their region to ensure full interoperability.
What factors should they take into consideration when making the choice to change from being a single department application to a regional application? Here are three questions to ask yourself as your department or agency works through the question of whether to partner or collaborate for an application such as the AFG grants funding.
Continue reading on GovGrantsHelp.com and learn the factors to consider.