$1.45 Billion in EDA Disaster Recovery Grants Is Still on the Table — and Most Eligible Communities Have Never Applied

Nearly half the counties in the United States qualify for a federal grant program that most of them have never heard of.

The Economic Development Administration's FY2025 Disaster Supplemental Grant Program — $1.45 billion appropriated through the Consolidated Appropriations Act — is accepting rolling applications right now for communities hit by federally declared disasters in 2023 and 2024. That covers hurricanes Helene, Milton, and Beryl. It covers the Maui wildfires. It covers the derecho that tore through the Ohio Valley, the tornado outbreaks across the Southeast, and the flooding that swamped communities from Vermont to West Virginia. In total, approximately 1,402 counties — 45 percent of all U.S. counties — fall within eligible disaster declaration areas.

On May 6, 2026, EDA announced its latest round of awards: $10 million in disaster supplemental funding to projects in Georgia and Kentucky, including a $6.8 million workforce training facility at Augusta Technical College and infrastructure improvements in Lebanon and Columbia, Kentucky. These awards illustrate what this program actually funds — not emergency response, but the long-term economic rebuilding that FEMA was never designed to handle.

The Gap Between Emergency Response and Economic Recovery

Most communities understand FEMA. When a disaster strikes, FEMA's Public Assistance program reimburses debris removal and infrastructure repair. Its Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funds flood walls and storm shelters. These programs address the immediate physical damage — the fallen bridges, the flooded substations, the collapsed roofs.

What FEMA does not fund is the economic aftermath. When a regional employer's facility is destroyed and the company relocates rather than rebuilds, FEMA has no mechanism to respond. When a tourism-dependent coastal town loses two seasons of revenue and businesses close permanently, that economic damage falls outside FEMA's mandate. When a workforce with specialized skills disperses to other regions because local employers can no longer operate, the human capital loss compounds for years.

This is where EDA's Disaster Supplemental program operates. It funds the economic recovery layer that sits between emergency response and long-term community development — workforce training facilities, industrial infrastructure, broadband expansion to support new business models, and strategic planning to reimagine local economies that disasters have fundamentally altered.

The distinction matters because communities that only pursue FEMA funding are leaving billions in economic recovery support unclaimed. EDA's $1.45 billion allocation is separate from and additional to any FEMA assistance. Receiving FEMA grants does not reduce eligibility for EDA funding, and EDA's cost-share terms are substantially more favorable than most federal construction programs.

Three Pathways, Three Different Levels of Ambition

EDA structured the program around three distinct application pathways, each calibrated to a different stage of recovery readiness.

Readiness grants ($250,000–$500,000) fund the planning and capacity-building work that many small communities need before they can compete for larger implementation awards. This includes hiring disaster recovery coordinators, developing comprehensive economic recovery strategies, conducting feasibility studies for infrastructure projects, and covering pre-development costs like engineering assessments and environmental reviews. For communities that have never applied for EDA funding — and Brookings research found that 855 of the 1,402 eligible counties (61 percent) have never received any place-based federal funding — the Readiness pathway is the on-ramp.

Implementation grants fund the actual construction and programmatic work. Non-construction projects range from $100,000 to $5 million, covering workforce development programs, business incubators, technical assistance centers, and economic diversification initiatives. Construction projects range from $2 million to $20 million, funding water and sewer infrastructure, industrial park development, transportation improvements, broadband deployment, and facility construction for workforce training or innovation hubs.

The May 6 awards illustrate typical Implementation projects. Augusta Technical College's $6.8 million automotive workforce training facility replaces capacity lost to storm damage while simultaneously positioning the region for growth in electric vehicle manufacturing and maintenance — a forward-looking investment that pure disaster recovery funding would never cover. The Lebanon, Kentucky water infrastructure project and Columbia, Kentucky natural gas improvements both target the utility systems that businesses need before they can expand or relocate into disaster-affected areas.

Industry Transformation grants ($20 million–$50 million) were the program's most ambitious pathway, funding coalition-led portfolios designed to reshape entire regional economies. These required at least one private-sector partner, a consortium governance structure, and a strategic vision for how disaster recovery could become an opportunity for economic reinvention — scaling semiconductor corridors, building maritime clusters, or modernizing food processing capacity. The Industry Transformation pathway closed on March 3, 2026, but understanding its structure is valuable because EDA has indicated that future supplemental appropriations may reopen similar large-scale pathways.

Both Readiness and Implementation applications are accepted on a rolling basis until funds are exhausted. There is no fixed deadline — but $1.45 billion distributed across a program that has been accepting applications since mid-2025 means the available funding is declining. Communities that wait risk competing for a shrinking pool.

Who Can Apply — and the CEDS Requirement That Trips Up First-Timers

Eligible applicants include state governments, counties, cities, towns, tribal governments, nonprofit organizations, institutions of higher education, and public-private partnerships. The breadth of eligibility is one of the program's underappreciated strengths. A county government, a community college, a regional economic development nonprofit, and a tribal nation can each submit independent applications for projects within the same disaster-declared region.

The eligibility requirement that most frequently derails first-time applicants is the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy, or CEDS. Every EDA-funded project must be consistent with a regional CEDS — a planning document that most Economic Development Districts maintain and update on five-year cycles. If your region has an active CEDS, your project needs to align with its priorities. If your region does not have a CEDS, EDA will accept an equivalent regional economic development strategy, but determining what qualifies as "equivalent" requires coordination with your EDA Regional Office before you submit.

For communities that have never engaged with EDA, the practical first step is contacting your state's EDA Economic Development Representative. Every state has one. These representatives can confirm your disaster declaration eligibility, identify whether your region has an active CEDS, and advise on which pathway matches your project's readiness level. Applications are submitted through EDA's EDGE portal at sfgrants.eda.gov.

The Cost-Share Advantage

EDA generally funds up to 80 percent of total project costs — a substantially more favorable ratio than many federal infrastructure programs, which often require 50/50 matches. For tribal governments and communities classified as severely economically distressed, EDA can cover up to 100 percent of project costs, eliminating the cost-share barrier entirely.

The 20 percent match can come from state or local government funds, in-kind contributions (such as donated land or existing infrastructure), or other non-federal sources. This flexibility matters enormously for disaster-affected communities where local government revenue has been depressed by property damage, business closures, and population displacement.

For comparison, FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program typically requires a 25 percent non-federal cost share with narrower eligible match sources. The USDA's Community Facilities program requires anywhere from 15 to 45 percent matching depending on community population and income levels. EDA's 80/20 structure, with the possibility of 100 percent federal funding for the most distressed communities, is among the most favorable cost-share arrangements in the federal grant landscape.

What Makes Applications Competitive

EDA's evaluation framework for disaster supplemental awards consistently favors several characteristics that distinguish funded projects from rejected ones.

Construction readiness. Projects that have completed environmental reviews, secured necessary permits, finalized engineering designs, and identified construction contractors score significantly higher than conceptual proposals. If your project is at 90 percent design completion, say so. If it is at 30 percent, apply for a Readiness grant to fund the pre-development work, then come back for Implementation funding.

Quantified economic impact. EDA wants to see specific numbers: jobs created, jobs retained, private investment leveraged, businesses served, workers trained. Vague claims about "economic revitalization" lose to applications that project 150 new manufacturing jobs, $12 million in private co-investment, and 400 workers retrained for advanced manufacturing over three years.

Connection to the disaster. The nexus between your project and the qualifying disaster declaration must be explicit and documented. EDA is not looking for generic economic development proposals relabeled as disaster recovery. The strongest applications demonstrate specifically how the 2023 or 2024 disaster damaged or disrupted the economic activity that the proposed project addresses.

Regional strategy alignment. Projects that advance priorities identified in the regional CEDS — particularly priorities that were validated or updated in response to the disaster — demonstrate strategic coherence that standalone proposals lack.

Why This Program Matters More Than Most Communities Realize

The EDA Disaster Supplemental program occupies a funding niche that no other federal program fills. FEMA handles emergency response and hazard mitigation. HUD's CDBG-DR program funds housing recovery. SBA provides disaster loans to businesses and homeowners. But long-term economic development in disaster-affected regions — the workforce training, the infrastructure modernization, the strategic planning that determines whether a community rebounds stronger or enters a slow decline — falls to EDA.

The 855 eligible counties that have never received any place-based federal funding represent a massive gap between available resources and community awareness. Many of these counties lack the staff capacity to identify federal grant opportunities, the institutional knowledge to navigate application requirements, or the planning documents that EDA requires. The Readiness pathway was designed specifically for these communities — small enough awards to be manageable, focused on building the capacity needed to compete for larger funding later.

The rolling application window means there is no single deadline to miss, but it also means there is no external urgency forcing action. Communities that move now — contacting their EDA representative, confirming CEDS alignment, scoping projects, and submitting applications — will access funding before the pool diminishes. Those that wait may find that the money went to communities that were simply better prepared to ask for it.

For communities navigating the intersection of disaster recovery and economic development planning, tools like Granted can help identify how EDA funding fits within a broader portfolio of federal, state, and foundation opportunities — turning a single application into a coordinated recovery strategy.