New York City Shares Best Practices for Winning Federal Grants

When it comes to federal funding, New York City has been on a winning streak: Over the last two years, the city has won $2.4 billion in grants for infrastructure projects, from school bus electrification to a major restoration effort at the Brooklyn Marine Terminal. Securing these grants is something many other cities have struggled to do, particularly smaller places that often lack the staff or expertise to put together compelling applications.

NYC has inherent advantages as the largest US city, but officials say the feat was also made possible by rewiring their grant application process. The city is now sharing a set of best practices in a new report, Stephen Lee reports. One critical step NYC took was creating a task force of several agencies to think creatively on funding proposals and “break a few norms.” Today on CityLab: Inside NYC’s Playbook for Getting Federal Grant Funds