With the passage of H.R. 1 and the Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act looming, the federal funding landscape that supports the development of local communities is expected to see major changes. With these new changes, city leaders have the opportunity to both begin and strengthen their scenario planning strategies. Scenario planning involves preparing for a range of future outcomes by assessing plausible scenarios and identifying a plan of action for each.
As city leaders prepare for and begin to address these new changes, they should consider the following tips and strategies to ensure financial stewardship, agility, and credibility in their governments.
Strategies and tips highlighted by Witt O’Brien’s Managing Director of Grants and Policy, Matt Hanson.
Use this quick check-list to identify which actions your city needs to take to ensure your grants strategy is ready for what’s next. Recommended actions include:
- Take inventory of your grant portfolio to understand what’s active, what’s at risk, and where gaps exist.
- Conduct a lost funding analysis to assess what’s slipping through the cracks and where resources are falling short.
- Analyze federal funding exposure to identify which programs or services could be disrupted by federal policy shifts.
- Model potential impacts to plan for policy shifts resulting from major federal legislative proposals.
- Establish grant governance & planning teams to ensure cross-departmental readiness for rapid policy pivots.
Take a deeper dive into how scenario planning can help address and meet growing community needs despite the “shrinking certainty around the resources available to meet them”. In this post, Matt outlines how scenario planning can act as financial stewardship for cities, allowing them to test their resilience against multiple outcomes as well as prepare contingency plans that safeguard services, staff and infrastructure. This resource should help your city develop scenario planning activities that need to be taken to prevent situational risks that could impact your community.
Tune into Matt Hanson’s conversation with Sam Caplan, the Vice President of Social Impact at Submittable, to hear how recent federal changes will impact the future of the public sector grants, and how these changes are creating opportunities for grantmakers to shape what is being called “the new normal for the sector”. In this conversation, Matt breaks down the challenges and opportunities for:
- The expanded role states will likely play in delivering funds,
- How grantmakers can break down silos between departments, and
- Where grant management tech fits into the new landscape of public sector funding.
Based on Matt’s insights, the chart below provides brief assessment examples that can help your city begin its scenario planning activities.
| Risk Scenario | Example Assessment Question | Preventative Action(s) |
| Launching multi-year programs that may lose funding mid-stream | Can your local agencies pivot if a capital grant is rescinded mid-build? |
Articulate how your city has prepared for fiscal uncertainty Model impact and re-prioritize projects |
| Over-relying on flexible interpretations of obligation and expenditure | Can your city absorb the loss if matching fund requirements increase? | Articulate how your city has prepared for fiscal uncertainty |
| Misaligning projects with evolving federal priorities | Can your city afford to miss out on infrastructure funding due to applying to the wrong grant program(s)? |
Build cross-functional grant governance teams Analyze federal assistance exposure |
| Failing to meet accelerated compliance timelines | Can your city or county transition a social service initiative if reimbursement timelines shift? |
Build cross-functional grant governance teams Analyze federal assistance exposure |
Other key strategies and tips for city leaders
Accelerator for America (AFA) has also developed a step-by-step guide for local leaders on conducting stress testing to assess how federal funding factors into local budgets, while also addressing the programmatic-level impact. City leaders can use this guide to develop a stress test plan for their communities.
The Local Infrastructure Hub, in partnership with AFA, also highlighted how cities are developing coordinated project plans that can span administrations and insulate individual projects from sudden federal priority changes using long range planning tactics in a recent case study. The study breaks down the strategies that cities like Dubuque, Iowa and Tulsa, Oklahoma have taken to build a clear community vision that serves as guidance for long-term investment decisions and local policymaking.
Ultimately, city leaders should be thinking about how they are preparing for shifting federal funding priorities and opportunities, identifying what next steps they need to take to ensure that community goals are continuing to be met, projects and priorities are aligned across all offices, and that staff are staying abreast of evolving federal priorities.