U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development is seeking applications to help rural communities expand their capacity to access financial resources to help build or upgrade essential community facilities.

The funding is being made available under the Community Facilities Technical Assistance and Training Grant program. The grants allow eligible public bodies as well as private and nonprofit organizations to provide technical assistance and training to help grantees identify and plan for community facility needs in their area. Once these needs are pinpointed, the grantee can seek additional public and private financial resources.

USDA is particularly interested in applications that will advance Biden-Harris Administration priorities to:

• Reduce climate pollution and increase resilience to the impacts of climate change through economic support to rural communities.
• Ensure all rural residents have equitable access to Rural Development (RD) programs and benefits from RD-funded projects; and
• Help rural communities recover economically through more and better market opportunities and through improved infrastructure.

Additional information on these key priorities is available at https://www.rd.usda.gov/priority-points.

Electronic applications will be accepted via Grants.gov until 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on June 15, 2023.

Any paper applications must be received by 4:00 p.m. local time on June 20, 2023.

For additional information, see page 24544 of the April 21, 2023, Federal Register