This is your weekly grant opportunities update from The National Special Districts Association. Special districts are either eligible to apply directly, or able to partner with a qualifying entity to apply for any of the grants listed. 

New Grant Opportunities

Department of Energy

FY 2026 Energy Storage Innovations Prize Round 2 (Reopened)

• WHAT DOES IT FUND? The purpose of this competition is to gain insights into innovative, emerging, and next-generation energy storage solutions that address niche markets and inform the funding agency’s strategy on transformative storage technologies to accelerate grid modernization for all consumers, while achieving needed reliability, affordability, resilience, and energy security. This competition focuses only on innovative energy storage solutions for less conventional use cases. Click here for more information.
• WHO'S ELIGIBLE? Eligible applicants are individuals, academia, non-federal government entities, small businesses, start-ups, entrepreneurs, and other inventors.
• TOTAL FUNDING AMOUNT? $300,000
• WHEN IS IT DUE? March 13, 2026

Department of Transportation

FY 2026 Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) Program

• WHAT DOES IT FUND? The purpose of this program is to provide low-interest, flexible credit assistance to support large-scale surface transportation improvements for highway, transit, railroad, intermodal freight, and port access projects of regional and national significance. Click here for more information.
• WHO'S ELIGIBLE? Eligible applicants are public and private entities seeking to finance, design, construct, own, or operate an eligible project, including local governments, units of local government, special districts, state governments, consortia, or the private sector.
• TOTAL FUNDING AMOUNT? Unspecified
• WHEN IS IT DUE? Rolling

Department of Veterans Affairs

FY 2027 Homeless Providers Grant and Per Diem (GPD): Per Diem Only (PDO) and Service Centers (SC)

• WHAT DOES IT FUND? The purpose of this program is to respond to the mounting need in communities to end homelessness in unique and targeted ways, tailored to the needs of diverse populations of veterans and to the unique skills and resources in different communities. Click here for more information.
• WHO'S ELIGIBLE? Eligible applicants are city or township governments, special district governments, Public and Indian housing authorities, county governments, state governments, federally recognized Native American tribal governments, and nonprofit non-higher education organizations with 501(c)(3) status.
• TOTAL FUNDING AMOUNT? Unspecified
• WHEN IS IT DUE? February 18, 2026

Department of Veterans Affairs

FY 2027 Homeless Providers Grant and Per Diem (GPD) Program: Transition in Place (TIP)

• WHAT DOES IT FUND? The purpose of this program is to provide transition in place (TIP) supportive housing services to facilitate veteran engagement in permanent housing. This program offers an innovative transitional housing model under which applicants identify or convert existing suitable, apartment-style housing where veteran participants receive intensive, time-limited, supportive services optimally for a period of 6–12 months. The veteran will receive supportive services until the veteran is able to assume the lease. Click here for more information.
• WHO'S ELIGIBLE? Eligible applicants are 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(19) nonprofit organizations; state and local government agencies; federally recognized Indian tribal governments; and religious and faith-based organizations. 
• TOTAL FUNDING AMOUNT? Unspecified
• WHEN IS IT DUE? February 17, 2026

Environmental Protection Agency

FY 2026 Water Technical Assistance (WaterTA)

• WHAT DOES IT FUND? The purpose of this program is to connect communities to experts who help assess and implement solutions for their drinking water, sewage, and stormwater needs. Click here for more information.
• WHO'S ELIGIBLE? Eligible applicants are local governments and communities; drinking water, wastewater and stormwater utilities and systems; states and territories; tribes; and non-governmental organizations.
• TOTAL FUNDING AMOUNT? Rather than providing monetary awards, this program will provide free technical assistance (TA) to communities to identify water challenges, develop plans, build technical, managerial, and financial capacity, and develop application materials to access water infrastructure funding.
• WHEN IS IT DUE? Rolling

National Endowment for the Arts

FY 2027 Grants for Arts Projects

• WHAT DOES IT FUND? This program provides project-based funding supporting public engagement with the arts and arts education; integration of the arts with strategies promoting the health and well-being of people and communities; and improvement of overall capacity and capabilities within the arts sector. Click here for more information.
• WHO'S ELIGIBLE? Eligible applicants include nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3), U.S. organizations; units of state or local government; and federally recognized tribal communities or tribes.
• TOTAL FUNDING AMOUNT? $65 million
• WHEN IS IT DUE? Round 1: February 12, 2026 (Grants.gov) and February 25, 2026 (NEA portal). Round 2: July 9, 2026 (Grants.gov) and July 21, 2026 (NEA portal)

National Endowment for the Humanities

FY 2026 Endowments for Advancing the Humanities

• WHAT DOES IT FUND? The purpose of this program is to fund 20-year term endowments that advance the humanities on college and university campuses and at independent educational institutions, specifically by building the organization’s capacity in research and teaching of Western civilization, American history and government, and civics. Click here for more information.
• WHO'S ELIGIBLE? Eligible applicants are nonprofit organizations, accredited institutions of higher education, state and local governments and their agencies, and federally recognized Native American Tribal governments.
• TOTAL FUNDING AMOUNT? $10 million
• WHEN IS IT DUE? February 10, 2026 

National Science Foundation

FY 2026 Energy, Power, Control, and Networks (EPCN) 

• WHAT DOES IT FUND? The purpose of this program is to support innovative research in modeling, optimization, learning, adaptation, and control of networked multi-agent systems, higher-level decision making, and dynamic resource allocation, as well as risk management in the presence of uncertainty, sub-system failures, and stochastic disturbances. Areas of interest under this program include control systems, energy and power systems, power electronics systems, and learning and adaptive systems. Click here for more information.
• WHO'S ELIGIBLE? Applicant eligibility is not defined under the current year’s solicitation. Past solicitations under of this program listed eligible applicants as institutions of higher education, nonprofits, non-academic organizations, tribal governments, state and local governments, and for-profit organizations under special circumstances.  
• TOTAL FUNDING AMOUNT? Unspecified
• WHEN IS IT DUE? Rolling

Latest Grant News

USDA Taking Applications to Improve Water and Waste Infrastructure in Rural Communities Across the Nation

Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy Announces $1.5 Billion in Infrastructure Funding to Get America Building Again

NEA FY 2027 Grants for Arts Projects Guidelines Now Available