Dear Nonprofit Security Friends,

As September draws near, the prospect of a government shut down is coming into focus. I will discuss more on this next potential funding and planning disaster, soon.

September is also when this year’s federal grants, such as NSGP, are supposed to be awarded, yet the application process for NSGP for the year (FY 2025) has barely (and feebly) begun and I expect we will blow past this codified deadline by months.

Until now, NSGP has garnered some of the strongest bipartisan support among the nation’s counterterrorism programs (and federal grant investments). It has grown into the largest FEMA counterterrorism program per capita. There have been several congressional expressions this session that underscore the bipartisan support the program still maintains in Congress, thankfully.

Yet, NSGP  is caught up in the greater recalibration underway at DHS/FEMA that is leading to great delays and uncertainties in program staffing, stakeholder outreach, SAA and Sub-recipient application, and with award and post award compliance.

Normally, while historically a strongly bipartisan committee, yesterday, House Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Democratic committee members sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson, setting forth concerns and recommended action steps surrounding FEMAs counterterrorism programs, including the Nonprofit Security Grant Program.

The letter captures several concerns and remedies I have identified and called for in recent posts. Most of the concerns and recommendations have been supported by both parties in the past. Nothing suggested is onerous per se, and everything suggested is intended to ensure that the programs, including NSGP, remain viable to the State Administrative Agencies and, in NSGP’s case, the sub-applicants and sub-recipients.

As with other advocacy suggestions I have made this summer, I further recommend your sharing this letter with your House delegations (and Senators), underscoring the bipartisan nature of the House Homeland Security Committee, the programs it authorizes and oversees, and the issues, concerns, and remedies set forth in the letter, which are intended to maintain the counterterrorism programs according to neutral criteria and tested, straightforward, and transparent guidance.

You may read and copy the letter at: https://democrats-homeland.house.gov/news/correspondence/ranking-members-thompson-kennedy-slam-trump-administration-for-their-mismanagement-of-homeland-security-grants-demand-immediate-changes.

Best,

Rob Goldberg
Principal
Goldberg & Associates, LLC
In partnership with Sphere State