Rural Investment Project Grant

Rural Investment Project Grant

Application Form
Notice to applicants: Once started, applications may be saved and edited until submitted. The grant deadline is June 30, 2026 at 5:00 PM (EDT).

Contents
1. Grant Overview
2. Reminders: Eligibility, Use of Funds, and Awardee Requirements
3. Application Form

Overview

Rural communities across New England and New York are rich in assets, ideas, and opportunities—yet many struggle to attract the investment necessary to meet local needs and priorities. At the same time, investors often overlook viable rural projects due to perceived risks, limited scale, or misalignment with traditional funding models.

The Rural Investment Project (tRIP) believes in the power and promise of rural areas, and seeks to ensure these communities attract the investments and capacity they deserve. To that end, tRIP aims to better understand why some rural communities face barriers to attracting investment, why good investment opportunities to improve rural communities are often overlooked by funders, and to share strategies that can help address these challenges. The initiative is guided by a national Steering Committee of rural investment practitioners and project managed in partnership by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston (FRBB) and Northern Border Regional Commission (NBRC).

As part of the initiative, the Rural Investment Project is releasing a Project Grant Opportunity (3-5 awards up to $40,000 each) to support and learn from multi-town partnerships, collaboratives, and development hubs that are advancing projects that lead to economic transformation in a rural place. Applications should indicate that the projects are either seeking diverse types of capital (e.g., debt, grant, public finance) or are currently utilizing different types of capital to implement their project(s). Grant awardees are able to choose where to apply their grant awards in service of advancing their project or pipeline of projects.

An independent jury that is made up of the Steering Committee, and does not include FRBB or NBRC staff, will select the grantee awards. Funding for this one-time grant offering comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to support research and learning, not from the FRBB or NBRC. Grants will be made by a fiscal agent for the project.

In addition to the grant, awardees will have the opportunity to learn from other rural places about their successful projects, showcase their projects to other rural partners, and shape the learning that comes out of the project. Awardees also will be invited to a capstone event with peers and funding partners across New England and New York to share what is working and how the field of community finance can build on the strengths of rural communities.

Reminders
Eligibility

Before beginning the application form, please check that your proposed project meets the following eligibility requirements:
1. Applicants must be multi-town partnerships, collaboratives or development hubs. A municipality may also be an eligible applicant if it is acting as fiscal agent for a multi-town or regional partnership, collaborative or development hub.
2. The lead applicant for the project must be a core project partner and a nonprofit organization or entity, able to provide required financial documentation if selected for the award. (See Awardee Requirements)
3. The project must be located in a designated NBRC or FRBB area of Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, or Vermont. Applicants with projects in the following counties are eligible to apply:
  - Maine: Androscoggin, Aroostook, Franklin, Hancock, Kennebec, Knox, Lincoln, Oxford, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Somerset, Waldo, and Washington
  - Massachusetts: Berkshire and Franklin
  - New Hampshire: Belknap, Carroll, Cheshire, Coӧs, Grafton, Merrimack, and Sullivan
  - New York: Cayuga, Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Genesee, Greene, Hamilton, Herkimer, Jefferson, Lewis, Livingston, Madison, Montgomery, Niagara, Oneida, Orleans, Oswego, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady, Schoharie, Seneca, St. Lawrence, Sullivan, Washington, Warren, Wayne, Wyoming, and Yates
  - Vermont (all of the state): Addison, Bennington, Caledonia, Chittenden, Essex, Franklin, Grand Isle, Lamoille, Orange, Orleans, Rutland, Washington, Windham, and Windsor
4. The project must benefit ”a region”, defined as a group of interconnected communities that share a common vision, aligned goals, and a natural interdependence—where progress in one area generates benefits across the broader region. Regions may be linked by shared infrastructure such as schools, public safety services, or utilities.
5. Applicants must demonstrate a commitment to collaboration across partners and a community-based inclusive engagement or decision-making process. The project should be able to demonstrate how it will improve economic conditions for people who live in the region.
6. Applications should represent a project or pipeline of projects with a finalized project plan, project goals and outcomes, budgets, implementation activities, defined partner/stakeholder roles and responsibilities, timelines, milestones etc. It is important that the project(s) use or intend to use diverse types of capital (e.g., debt, grant, public finance). We are not looking for projects in the planning phase.
7. In keeping with NBRC’s mission focused on the most distressed counties in its region and the FRBB’s overarching mission to support a vibrant economy for all, not just some, the projects should advance economic prosperity for places facing long term economic hardship and/or people experiencing long term financial insecurity.
Use of Funds

Grant funds may be used for the following allowable expenditures:
- Internal organizational capacity (e.g., staffing, operating support, learning opportunities)
- External capacity or expertise (e.g., engineering, contracting, consulting)
- Time and expenses to plan for and host tRIP project team (NBRC, FRBB) for a learning visit
Funds may not be used to:
- Carry on propaganda or otherwise attempt to influence legislation
- Attempt to influence the outcome of any specific election
- Lobby for any political activity or legislative outcome
- Purchase major capital expenditures (e.g., property or building acquisition, renovations)
Ideally, funds will be expended within six-months of receiving them.

Awardee Requirements

Upon award, grantees will be asked to supply the following additional information:
- IRS certification letter of tax exempt status
- Most recent year of audited financial statement with management letter, if applicable
- Certification of organization's authorized official
- Signed grant agreement
- Bank and wiring information for payments
Awardees may be asked to host members of the project team (1-4 representatives of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Northern Border Regional Commission) for a site visit in the coming months. Separately, awardees may be asked to host a small group of peer rural development hubs and investors for a half day learning lab. Awarded funds may go to support hosting these visits.

1. Applicant and Lead Entity

Please share who the primary point of contact will be if awarded a grant.
Lead organization name
Primary contact

First NameLast Name
Title
Email
Phone
Format: (000) 000-0000.
Role in this project
Describe why your organization is the appropriate lead or backbone entity for this effort. (Limit: 250 words)

2. Project Overview

Please share what the project is about and where it is happening.
Project title
Project summary
Describe the project, who benefits, and what this funding will make possible. (Limit: 500 words)
Project location
Which counties, towns, tribal lands, or general region will be served by this project?

4. Regional Collaboration

A focus of the Rural Investment Project is learning how a regional approach to project development helps communities to pool assets, share risk, attract investment, and sustain capacity.
List key project partners and their roles.
Include municipal staff, peer municipalities, nonprofits, lenders, employers, institutions, utilities, tribal entities, or other collaborators.
What does this set of collaborators make possible that no one organization could achieve alone?
Consider capacity and resource constraints of single organizations versus the project team as a whole. (Limit: 250 words)
Please describe any specific skillset or expertise this project may require now or in the future.
Consider professional capacity (financial expert), human capacity (staffing for community engagement), technical capacity (environmental specialists), and other capacity not currently represented in the project team. (Limit: 250 words)

5. Project Timeline and Investment Readiness

This section seeks to understand the overall timeline of projects and what capacity or investment is helpful at each phase.
Timeline
Provide a high-level timeline of your project with major milestones.
Where are you on the project to completion timeline?
Select the project phase this funding will support.

Other
Describe your planning process and phased approach to project development. What steps were easiest to advance, and what phase seems most critical to ensure project success? If you selected 'Other', please define additional phases in your own words.
(Limit: 250 words)
How have planning and development efforts to date been helpful in obtaining funding for different phases of the project? We are looking to understand what activities help projects advance through each phase.
Examples: Feasibility study, site control, engineering, business plan, partnership agreements, community engagement, permitting, procurement. (Limit: 250 words)
Do you feel like you understand how investment will be structured for each future phase of your project?

6. Funding Structure

For this section, we do not require a detailed budget or exhaustive list of sources. We are interested in the major components (e.g., grants, loans, capital campaign) by funding category (e.g., federal, state, local, philanthropic, private, in-kind) being used to fund the project.
Total project budget (including in-kind): $
Other committed funding
List source, amount ($), and status
Other pending or anticipated funding
List source, amount ($), and status
Amount requested from this grant: $
May not exceed $40,000 USD
What additional financing or other support would be helpful to support this project?
Please include both the type of financing as well as why you believe it to be helpful.

7. Transformational Potential

Please tell us how the region will be changed by this project.
Once completed, how is the project anticipated to strengthen conditions for economic prosperity in the region? How will it alleviate the economic distress of place and/or benefit all residents, not just some?
Should be Empty:

Rural Investment Project Grant

Overview

Reminders

1. Applicant and Lead Entity

2. Project Overview

3. Regional Context and Need

4. Regional Collaboration

5. Project Timeline and Investment Readiness

6. Funding Structure

7. Transformational Potential