Who Is Eligible to Apply for Discretionary Grants?

There are many types of organizations eligible to apply for the discretionary grant opportunities outlined in the Rural Grant Applicant Toolkit for Competitive Federal Transportation Funding. Not all applicants will be eligible for each grant program.

A Note on Partnerships

Partnerships are expected and encouraged in order to leverage the skills and abilities of multiple sectors at once, especially in rural areas with scarce organizational resources.

But grants awarded to partnerships may have requirements that must “flow down” to subrecipients as they “pass through” one organization to get to another, similar to the relationship between prime and subcontractors.

Examples of partnerships that may be eligible to apply for grants include the following:

Consortia, defined as associations of two or more public, private, or nonprofit organizations in any combination with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal
Multistate groups (more than one state applying together)
Interstate compacts (contractual arrangements made between two or more states in which the parties agree on a specific issue or task)
Multijurisdictional groups (more than one governed area, such as a city and a county, applying together)
Multistate or multijurisdictional groups of entities that are separately eligible.
Transportation focus coalitions

Eligible entities may request guidance from federal program administrators or an agency in their state with jurisdiction over the grant program’s focus, also known as a subject matter expert (SME). Working alongside their interagency cohort, the U.S. Department of Transportation will provide program support to rural grant applicants and their communities.

There is not a single official standard for classifying categories of eligible applicants to a grant, and grants differ in how broadly or narrowly they define their requirements for eligible applicants. Therefore, to help readers more easily identify grants that their organization may be eligible for, this Toolkit groups different types of applicants into a few larger categories.

Much like how grants differ in who they define as eligible applicants, they may also differ in how they define rural applicants. All discretionary grants included in this Toolkit were selected for their relevance to rural projects. However, if a grant opportunity is targeted at rural projects, applicants should verify that their project meets the specific definition of rural used by the grant program to which they are applying.

The applicant categories below are not exhaustive, nor do they contain explicit detail. Nor are the applicant categories mutually exclusive; the same applicant may fall under more than one category. Underserved communities, small or disadvantaged businesses, women, and minorities are also encouraged to apply. Please consult the program descriptions or contact the agency providing the grant to confirm eligibility.

State Governments

State governments as a category encompasses a broad array of transportation-related departments, agencies, and divisions under the authority of U.S. states.

The relevant entities may differ depending on state laws, but eligible entities may include the following:

All 50 states (including Washington, D.C.) and state governments, including:
- State departments of transportation (DOTs), state highway agencies, or equivalent
- State agencies that are authorized to conduct pipeline safety inspections
- State authorities responsible for protecting underground pipeline facilities from excavation damage
- States that operate fixed route bus services
- States in which a ferry service operated
- State governments sponsored by an eligible federal land management agency or Tribe
- State government subdivisions
- States in areas with highways designated as National Scenic Byways, All-American Roads, America’s Byways®, state scenic byways, or Indian Tribe scenic byways
- Publicly chartered authorities established by one or more states
- Commuter authorities
In some cases, Puerto Rico is considered a state for the purposes of eligibility
(FAA grants only) The Secretary of the Interior for Midway Island Airport; and the Freely Associated States including the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of Palau
Federal land management agencies, alone or applying jointly with a state(s)

Local Governments

Local governments encompass far more than city and county administrations. Federal granting agencies consider applicants in any of the following categories to be under the umbrella of “local governments”: any unit of government within a state, including a county, borough, municipality, city, town, township, parish, local public authority (e.g., a public housing agency), special district, school district, intrastate district, councils of governments, and any other agency or instrumentality of a multi-, regional, or intra-state or local government.

Specific local entities may include the following:

Local governments that operate public transportation services
Local governments when applying through a state DOT as subrecipients
Local government subdivisions (e.g., towns, villages, counties, parishes, townships)
Local authorities responsible for protecting underground pipeline facilities from excavation damage (including municipalities)
Local governments sponsored by an eligible federal land management agency or Tribe
Municipality- or community-owned utilities (not including for-profit entities)
Political subdivisions of a state (i.e., cities, towns, counties, special districts, and similar units of local government under state law)

U.S. Territories

U.S. territories as a category encompasses transportation-related departments, agencies, and divisions under the authority of U.S. territories. Eligible entities may include the following:

The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
American Samoa
Guam
The U.S. Virgin Islands

Some, but not all, grants will identify whether U.S. territories are a unique eligible applicant separate from U.S. states. This applicant category will be used whenever a grant program specifically identifies U.S. territories as eligible; however, the absence of this category does not guarantee that U.S. territories are ineligible.

Refer to the details of the specific funding opportunity to determine whether U.S. territories are considered separate from U.S. states for the purposes of eligibility. Puerto Rico, in particular, may sometimes be considered a state for eligibility purposes.

Federally Recognized Tribes and Affiliated Groups

The federally funded discretionary grant opportunities provided in the Grant Applicant Toolkit are predominately available to federally recognized Tribes. Therefore, opportunities in the Toolkit should be interpreted as limited to only federally recognized Tribes unless otherwise specified.

Program eligibility was recently expanded to include opportunities specifically available to Alaska Native communities and Pueblo-owned airport facilities.