American Rescue Plan Act Funding

ARPA funding must be obligated by December 31, 2024. 

States, municipalities, tribal governments, and other government entities were allocated a total of $350 billion. The money needed to be used to respond to the pandemic, support families and businesses, maintain public services, invest in infrastructure, and provide premium pay for essential workers. Most government entities spent the first year putting together a plan, another year soliciting sub-awardees to do the work, and are now in the project operations phase. 

Because these were huge sums of money with relatively relaxed parameters, government entities have been fairly creative with the money, working on projects that may be brand new. This means timelines aren’t always accurate or that sub-awardees are unable to fulfill their part of projects in the established timeline. 

To complicate matters, unlike most federal funding, extensions (sometimes referred to a “no cost” extensions) are not allowable. The money MUST be spent by December 31, 2026. 

This is creating a perfect storm for some government entities and there is discussion that many may be experiencing anxiety about how they will spend all the money. Neither the state/municipality, nor the feds want the money returned.

We are encouraging nonprofits to approach government entities – states, municipalities – to inquire about funding that may yet need to be obligated (or re-obligated) by December 2024. 

If you’ve had some success using this technique, we’d love to hear about it. 

Register to attend our April Meeting to learn from each other and collaborate on figuring out how to secure ARPA funds!