In September 2023, the White House released an updated technical assistance guide that outlines federal and state technical assistance programs aimed at accessing and deploying Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding. The guide covers more than 150 technical assistance and capacity building programs, encompassing well over $1 billion in federal support.

While many infrastructure projects funded by BIL and IRA are in development, there are programs with more money to distribute from now until spending deadlines at the end of FY2026. The Biden Administration has stated its intent to ease the application burden, facilitate implementing strong eligible projects, and rebuild our nation’s infrastructure.

What is Technical Assistance?

The White House defines technical assistance as programs, processes, and resources that provide targeted support to a community, region, organization, or other beneficiary to help them access and deploy federal funding to deliver results.

What does Technical Assistance Do?

Technical assistance serves to help communities navigate and access funding programs. Potential eligible applicants, including communities, are missing opportunities because they do not understand the mechanics of funding programs. The Biden Administration wants to provide additional help to access these federal dollars.

While some of these programs offer hands-on planning and delivery support for communities, others provide more self-directed resources, such as webinars. This includes distinct federal agency web resources and state agency web resources. Funding to support technical assistance efforts like project planning are also available.

The intention [of technical assistance programs] is to avoid past mistakes where eligible recipients haven't pursued funding because they didn't have access or know how to use the resources." Caroline Whitehead and Lauren Miles

Successful BIL and IRA Funded Programs

Since the BIL passed in November 2021 and the IRA in August 2022, there have been many successfully funded capacity building programs and projects, including:
• Colorado created 14 regional grant navigator (RGN) positions at each of the councils of government across the state to provide capacity support to local governments, special districts, and federally recognized tribes seeking BIL and IRA funding opportunities through grant navigation, writing and review, technical support, resource sharing, and regional collaboration support.
• Delaware’s grant assistance program at the University of Delaware is providing free technical grant assistance to local governments funded by the state budget for BIL programs and other competitive and formula grant opportunities through project development, grant writing assistance, and project delivery assistance, including project implementation support, grant management, and reporting assistance.
• The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity’s Federal Grant Support Program is making up to $15 million available to Illinois-based businesses and organizations seeking competitive federal grants.
• Louisiana’s Governor’s Office is partnering with the Louisiana Municipal Association and Police Jury Association to deliver technical assistance and non-federal match support to local governments via a newly created joint non-profit, the Louisiana Infrastructure Technical Assistance Corporation, funded with $25 million in state funds.
• Massachusetts is distributing direct local technical assistance funding to each of the Commonwealth’s 13 regional planning agencies to enable municipalities to take on federal funding applications and other projects they may not have the staff capacity to address on their own.
• Michigan’s new infrastructure office established a technical assistance center to allow eligible recipients to receive support for BIL funding applications through project planning, application writing, and compliance support. Through the Make it in Michigan Competitiveness Fund, technical assistance is also available for IRA and Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) Act funding applications.

What Else Should You Know?

Over 90% of the BIL’s historic funding will be deployed by non-federal partners, e.g. state, local, tribal, territorial, and non-governmental partners, who might not have an understanding or resources to distribute these funds. The intention is to avoid past mistakes where eligible recipients haven't pursued funding because they didn't have access or know how to use the resources.

Many grant programs require an applicant to provide a 20% or less non-federal match of the project costs which is often a major obstacle. To counter this, 15 states are providing over $2 billion in non-federal match funding to help eligible recipients access funding. Those states include Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

The technical assistance guide builds on the BIL’s Guidebook, Rural Playbook, and Tribal Playbook, and the IRA’s Guidebook and Tribal Playbook.

For further guidance to the technical assistance program, we encourage you to reach out to our team for help in securing BIL funding that works best for your project. Our firm has helped numerous clients secure BIL funding for projects and has developed applications on behalf of clients for new BIL-funded programs, such as the Department of Transportation’s PROTECT program and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grant Program. We have a national team dedicated to understanding funding sources and how to leverage that funding for our clients. We closely follow developments across federal, state, and local funding programs and have 30 grant writers on staff. We have secured over $1 billion in project funding for clients over the last 10 years.