Getting Started Preparing Your ARC Proposal Early - "Step 1: Review"

Every year, the Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization (OBLR) receives numerous inquiries regarding preparation of proposals for the Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, and Cleanup (ARC) grant competitions. Many potential applicants find that it is difficult to prepare their proposals in only 60 days, the typical amount of time the Request for Proposals (RFP) allows from publication until the proposals are due. While the RFP is on schedule to be available in early fall, there are still many activities that applicants can perform in advance of the RFP (commonly referred to as the ARC Guidelines) being made publically available. We have listed many of these activities below. We hope that using this list to get started preparing your ARC proposal early will facilitate your efforts in the preparation of a thorough, thoughtful, timely, and most importantly, successful proposal.

Review last year’s ARC Guidelines - While there will be some changes between the FY13 and FY14 Guidelines, the Guidelines remain the same from year to year as many of the criteria and requirements come directly from the Brownfields statute. Reading the Guidelines, thinking through and gathering the information required, and even putting together the plan for your brownfields program and brownfields project will give you a step up when it comes to preparing your proposal.

NOTE: We currently anticipate only one major eligibility change for assessment grants in FY14. The change in eligibility relates to whether or not you received an assessment grant, of any kind, in the FY13 grant competition. If you did, then you will not be eligible to apply for an assessment grant in the FY14 competition. While there may be other minor changes in the wording of the RFP, for the most part they will remain unchanged. For example, we clarified the ranking criteria to make them more understandable and regrouped and divided the information requested into 5 criteria rather than 4.