Southeast Crescent SEID FY2027: $17.5M, Pre-Applications Due December 14, and Florida Sits Out

The Southeast Crescent Regional Commission (SCRC) is one of the youngest federal grantmakers in the country. It also has some of the least-contested money available to local governments and nonprofits in the rural South. On November 9 the commission released its FY2027 State Economic and Infrastructure Development (SEID) Notice of Funding Availability, and it announced the round in a November 10 press release. The pool is $17.5 million. Awards run from $50,000 to $1,000,000. A pre-application is mandatory and is due December 14, 2026.

That pre-application is a gate, not a formality. Only applicants a state program manager invites can submit a full application. Full applications open on a rolling, state-by-state basis through January 25, 2027, and are due February 22, 2027. An organization that misses December 14 is out of the FY2027 cycle.

Two other changes stand out this year. Florida has opted out of the FY2027 cycle, so no project located in Florida is eligible. The pool has also shrunk to $17.5 million, roughly half the size of the round SCRC awarded last December.

What SCRC Is and Why Its Money Matters

Congress authorized the Southeast Crescent Regional Commission in the 2008 Farm Bill. It sat unfunded for more than a decade and, according to the NOFA, "officially began operations in January 2022." It is built like the Appalachian Regional Commission and the Delta Regional Authority. A Senate-confirmed Federal Co-Chair shares governance with the governors of the member states, and 54 to 55 Local Development Districts (LDDs) handle outreach and grant administration on the ground.

The commission's footprint covers 428 counties across parts of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, plus all of Florida. Because Florida is out this year, the FY2027 SEID list covers 361 counties and county equivalents:

SCRC's own strategic plan says that 166 of its 428 counties face economic distress.

SEID is the commission's flagship program, and the money has been real. In December 2025 SCRC selected 83 projects under the FY2025 SEID round. North Carolina's share alone was $7.2 million across 15 grants. One of them was $400,000 to Hertford County for a booster pump station. The first SEID cycle distributed about $19 million, $5 million of which came through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

The FY2027 money comes from P.L. 119-74, the FY2026 Commerce-Justice-Science / Energy-Water / Interior appropriations package. At $17.5 million split across six states, the average state pot is under $3 million. That buys perhaps three to eight funded projects per state at typical award sizes. Applicants should plan for a smaller round than FY2025.

How the Money Gets Divided

SCRC does not run one regional competition. Each state gets an allocation set by formula: equal distribution, total population, distressed population, and distressed land area. Each state then ranks its own applicants. The Commission (the Federal Co-Chair plus a majority of participating state members) votes on the combined list. Under 40 U.S.C. § 15503, only applications certified by the State member can be funded.

In practice, the most important person in an SCRC application is the State Program Manager for the state where the project will happen. The NOFA requires applicants to "be in contact with their SCRC State Program Managers" before submitting. That person reviews the pre-application, decides whether to invite a full application, and runs the final ranking. The SPM list is in Appendix I of the NOFA and on grants.scrc.gov.

Two statutory set-asides shape every state's portfolio:

• At least 50% of grant funds must go to distressed counties and isolated areas of distress.
• At least 40% must go to basic public infrastructure, telecommunications, or transportation.

A non-construction workforce project in a transitional county is therefore competing for the smallest slice of each state's allocation. A water or broadband project in a distressed county fills both set-asides at once.

The Match Math Decides Most Projects

County economic status determines what SCRC will pay. SCRC classifies counties on a composite index of three-year unemployment, per capita market income, and poverty rate:

Isolated areas of distress are the least-understood opening in the program. These are Census tracts inside otherwise prosperous attainment counties. A tract qualifies if it meets two of three tests: a poverty rate at or above 18.8%, median household income below $77,540, or designation as a historically distressed community. A project in an under-resourced neighborhood of Fulton County, Georgia, or Wake County, North Carolina, can qualify even though the county as a whole does not. The tract list is posted on scrc.gov.

Regional projects are the other lever. A project that spans three or more counties or two or more states can push the federal share as high as 90%. That is the cheapest match available anywhere in the program. LDDs and regional planning commissions are well placed to build these.

Two more rules matter:

• The 80% federal ceiling. If a project stacks SCRC money with other federal dollars (USDA, EDA, HUD CDBG), total federal funding cannot exceed 80% of project cost. The NOFA's own example: on a $200,000 project with $100,000 from USDA, SCRC can contribute at most $60,000.
• Match must be documented at application. Five of the 100 rubric points go to "Demonstration of Match Requirement." Full points require an attached grant agreement or commitment letter, not a promise.

Who Can Apply and What They Can Build

Eligible applicants are the six participating state governments, local governments, other political subdivisions (regional planning commissions, special-purpose districts), federally recognized tribes, and 501(c) nonprofits. For-profit entities and LLCs are ineligible. So is any arrangement where an eligible entity serves as a pass-through for a private business. Facilities owned by a for-profit are out even if a nonprofit applies.

Eligible activities fall into two buckets:

Infrastructure: water and wastewater systems, power generation and transmission, broadband and other telecommunications, and transportation (roads, rail, airports, ports, parking). Under "basic public infrastructure" the NOFA also lists childcare facilities, outdoor recreation infrastructure, and community centers. That is a broader definition than many infrastructure programs use.

Non-infrastructure: health access (telehealth, provider training, mental health and substance-use treatment, but not facility operating costs), workforce training tied to documented employer demand, business incubators and industrial park expansion, conservation and nature-based tourism, and a notable housing lane. The housing lane funds heirs' property and title resolution, eviction legal assistance, homebuyer program access, community land trusts, and shared-equity homeownership. Construction, rehabilitation, or acquisition of housing units is not eligible.

Heirs' property is a large and under-funded problem across the Black Belt and Lowcountry. The SEID program is one of the few federal sources that explicitly pays for title-clearing legal services. Legal aid organizations and community land trusts in the eligible counties should look closely.

Workforce projects have a catch. Training must be delivered "using existing public educational facilities located in the region" unless the applicant documents why those facilities can't meet the need. A community college partnership is close to mandatory.

Reading the Rubric

States score full applications on a 100-point rubric:

Several details are worth noting:

• Ten points for showing work happens in a distressed or transitional county or isolated area of distress. That is nearly free credit for applicants who map their service area precisely, and a loss for those who don't.
• Eight points for "evidence-based success." SCRC wants case studies, evaluation reports, benchmark data, or a Preliminary Engineering Report showing the model has worked somewhere with similar demographics.
• "Generic letters of support will not receive points." Letters of engagement must describe each partner's specific role and resources. HBCUs, MSIs, and tribes are named as example partners.
• Sustainability that relies on SCRC or other federal money scores zero on the 7-point sustainability item.
• Three mandatory impact targets in the reporting workbook: households and businesses with new or improved access to services, jobs created or retained, and communities with enhanced capacity. Use realistic numbers. SCRC tracks them quarterly.

Watch the Dates in the NOFA Body

The NOFA contradicts itself on dates. The Key Dates table on pages 1 and 4 gives December 14, 2026 for pre-applications and February 22, 2027 for full applications. Section IV.F says the pre-application is due "October 15, 2026, at 5 p.m. EST," and Section IV.G says the full application is due "February 14, 2027." These look like leftovers from an earlier draft. The NOFA states that "all dates referenced throughout this NOFA are governed by the Key Dates above," so December 14 and February 22 control. The Key Dates table gives no submission time for either deadline. Confirm the cutoff time with your State Program Manager, and plan around a 5 p.m. Eastern close as the conservative assumption.

Individual states can also accelerate the full-application phase. An invitation in late December could come with a state deadline well before February 22.

Strategy: What to Do Before December 14

1. Get SAM.gov registration done now. You need an active SAM registration and a UEI before you submit, and SCRC warns a UEI can take up to 14 days. Lapsed registrations are the most common avoidable failure.
2. Check your county designation and tract status. Look up whether the project sits in a distressed, transitional, or attainment county, and if attainment, whether it is in an isolated area of distress. The match rate and 10 rubric points depend on it.
3. Call the State Program Manager and your LDD before you write. The pre-application asks for alignment with the state's Economic and Infrastructure Development Plan, and SPMs give feedback at that stage. LDDs can also administer the award, and administration is reimbursable at up to 4% of the grant.
4. Lock down match sources. Even at the pre-application stage you must report matching funds and total project cost. For construction projects, line up engineering early. Full applications require a Preliminary Engineering Report, a NEPA intake form, and Build America, Buy America acknowledgment.
5. Think regionally. If neighboring counties or a cross-state partner share the problem, a multi-county or multi-state application lowers the match and can bring attainment-county assets into scope. Each state reviews its own portion separately, so a regional project can be funded in one state and not the other.
6. Size the request to the pool. With $17.5 million across six states, a $1 million ask uses a large share of a small state's allocation. Requests in the $150,000 to $500,000 range with strong match are likely to compete better than maximum asks, especially in Alabama and Mississippi, which have few eligible counties.

The Florida Question and Funding Outlook

The NOFA says only that Florida "has opted out of the FY 2027 SEID grant cycle." It gives no reason. For Florida counties and nonprofits this is a lost year. Florida's share of the formula goes to the six participating states, which partly offsets the smaller appropriation for everyone else. If Florida rejoins for FY2028, applicants in its rural Panhandle and interior counties will be starting from scratch.

The broader outlook depends on appropriations. Regional commissions have generally had bipartisan support in Congress because they send money to rural districts. The drop from the FY2025 round to $17.5 million still shows how exposed young commissions are to appropriations swings. The NOFA notes SCRC may fund more of the eligible applicant pool if supplemental or recaptured funds become available. In that case unfunded applicants would be reconsidered without reapplying, which is a reason to submit a complete application even in a tight year.

For organizations in the 361 eligible counties, SEID is close to the only federal economic development program where the person ranking your proposal is reachable by phone and has invited you to call. Use that before December 14.