Community Project Funding (CPF) allows for Members of Congress to incorporate projects from their districts and states directly into the federal budget. You will also see CPF referred to as House “member requests” and Senate “congressionally directed” spending. Each member gets to designate a handful of local, mostly capital projects that are vetted and selected by their offices. Eligible groups include: nonprofits, tribal authorities, governmental entities, from state or city agencies, such as school districts, to regional administrations, like soil and water conservation districts, and more. For example, the Annapolis Maritime Museum & Park was awarded CPF to design and build a brand-new, maritime-themed Nature Preschool on their campus! Not eligible are individuals and for-profit companies.

How to apply: Visit both your House member and Senators’ web pages and look under the “services” tab or “how we can help”. Whether or not you can find the current information there (many of the individual web pages are from last year), it’s really important to give the local district offices a call and engage a staff member in helping you along. Deadlines vary from office to office—some of them might not have a set one, they may have a flexible due date, or it might have even passed. When in doubt, ask. They could even accept late submissions. Sounds a bit loose—it is!

What are the Members funding? Things that are good for the community! Community and veterans centers, drinking water upgrades, playgrounds, nature walks, etc. 

Amounts range $50,000–$11 million (for a new fire station)!

Click here or contact Brock Adler, Chair of the NAAEE Advocacy Committee, to learn more.