Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 Emergency Management Baseline Assessment Grant (EMBAG) | DHS 21 NPD 131 00 01

Opportunity Information: Apply for DHS 21 NPD 131 00 01

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 Emergency Management Baseline Assessment Grant (EMBAG) is a discretionary FEMA grant program under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security focused on strengthening emergency management nationwide by improving the standards and assessment systems that jurisdictions rely on before disasters happen. Its central aim is to help ensure that state, tribal, territorial, and local governments have strong, accredited emergency management programs and that emergency management professionals can demonstrate competency through recognized certification. Rather than funding direct response operations, EMBAG concentrates on the underlying infrastructure of preparedness: the shared national standards, accreditation approaches, and peer-based evaluation methods that let organizations measure where they stand and what they need to improve.

At its core, EMBAG supports the development, upkeep, testing, and continuous refinement of voluntary national-level emergency management standards. These are meant to be consensus-driven standards, meaning they are established, validated, and revised through broad agreement among relevant stakeholders instead of being imposed unilaterally. Alongside the standards themselves, the program funds peer review assessment processes that jurisdictions can use to evaluate their programs and professional capabilities, identify gaps or shortfalls, and map out a practical pathway toward compliance and improvement. The overall concept is to create and sustain a credible, repeatable way for emergency management organizations to benchmark performance and build toward recognized accreditation and professional certification in advance of incidents.

The grant explicitly supports three major categories of work. First, it funds the development, maintenance, revision, and enhancement of voluntary national standards and the peer assessment processes tied to them, with an emphasis on consensus-based governance and continuous improvement. Second, it supports related efforts to develop or update national-level accreditation connected to those standards, helping ensure there is a recognized mechanism for verifying that programs meet established benchmarks. Third, it supports the assessment of selected state, local, tribal, and territorial emergency management programs and professionals against these national standards, which helps translate standards into real-world evaluations and improvement planning.

Legally and programmatically, EMBAG is framed as "other assistance" referenced under Section 503(b)(2)(G) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, intended to build capabilities necessary to respond to natural disasters, terrorism, and other man-made incidents. In practice, this positions EMBAG as a capability-building investment that strengthens preparedness and readiness across multiple levels of government by improving the quality and consistency of emergency management programs and the professional workforce supporting them.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity was issued by FEMA (DHS) with the funding opportunity number DHS 21 NPD 131 00 01. It falls under the broad activity categories of Disaster Prevention and Relief and Information and Statistics, and it is associated with CFDA number 97.131. Eligible applicants include public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, private institutions of higher education, nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) status, and nonprofits without 501(c)(3) status (in both nonprofit cases, other than institutions of higher education). The opportunity was created on April 20, 2021, with an original application closing date of June 4, 2021. FEMA anticipated making about four awards, and the maximum award amount (award ceiling) was $695,000.

Overall, EMBAG is best understood as a national preparedness capacity grant aimed at improving the emergency management ecosystem through better standards, stronger accreditation pathways, and credible peer-based assessments. By funding the systems that define and measure quality in emergency management programs and professional practice, it seeks to raise consistency and readiness across jurisdictions well before a crisis occurs.

• The Department of Homeland Security, Department of Homeland Security - FEMA in the disaster prevention and relief, information and statistics sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 Emergency Management Baseline Assessment Grant (EMBAG)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 97.131.
• This funding opportunity was created on Apr 20, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 04, 2021. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $695,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 4 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

Apply for DHS 21 NPD 131 00 01

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