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About BRIC: Reducing Risk through Hazard Mitigation

The Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program aims to categorically shift the federal focus away from reactive disaster spending and toward research-supported, proactive investment in community resilience. Examples of BRIC projects are ones that demonstrate innovative approaches to partnerships, such as shared funding mechanisms, and/or project design.

For example, an innovative project may bring multiple funding sources or in-kind resources from a range of private and public sector partners. Or an innovative project may offer multiple benefits to a community in addition to the benefit of risk reduction.

Through BRIC, FEMA continues to invest in a variety of mitigation activities with an added focus on infrastructure projects benefitting disadvantaged communities, nature-based solutions, climate resilience and adaption and adopting hazard resistant building codes.

BRIC Program Annual Cycle Timeline

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Fiscal Year 2023 BRIC Program Annual Cycle Timeline
This graphic illustrates the process and timing of the BRIC program.

Once the  funding opportunity is published, the application period for the BRIC funding cycle will open in the fall and close in early winter. From there, subapplications are reviewed for eligibility and completeness.

Subapplications submitted to the National Competition undergo a qualitative review process by a panel. Results are validated, and the selection process begins for the State or Territory Allocation, Tribal Set-Aside, Building Code Plus-Up and National Competition. Fiscal Year 2023 selections, including those from the non-financial BRIC Direct Technical Assistance initiative, will be announced in the summer.

Program Resources

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Program Support Materials

Visit the Resource List for BRIC to download the Program Support Materials (PSMs). The PSMs are updated annually to support topics and themes in the current BRIC Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO).

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Learn more by reading the entire FY 2023 funding opportunities on grants.gov or this fact sheet.

Mitigation Action Portfolio is updated annually and provides detailed documentation on hazard mitigation activities that are eligible for funding. Download the template to submit your own project to the portfolio.

Nature-Based Solutions: A Guide for Local Communities (2021) presents the business case and practical advice for planning and implementation on nature-based solutions.

Building Community Resilience with Nature-Based Solutions, Strategies for Success (Nature Based Solutions Guidebook 2023) builds upon the guide for local communities and highlights five key strategies for implementing successful nature-based solution projects to advance natural hazard mitigation and climate adaptation. 

FY22 Subapplication Selections gives an overview of the applicants' application submissions.

Stakeholder feedback efforts that will help support continuous improvement of the BRIC program.

This infographic explains the mission and goals of BRIC. This gives an overview of BRIC's guiding principles and who is eligible for funding.

FEMA GO is the grants management system used to apply for BRIC program grants.

BRIC Direct Technical Assistance (BRIC DTA) gives full support to communities that may not have the resources to begin climate resilience planning and project solution design on their own.  Through process-oriented, hands-on support, BRIC DTA will work to enhance a community’s capacity to design holistic, equitable climate adaptation solutions that advance numerous community-driven objectives. 

Summary of Stakeholder Feedback

To support the development of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, FEMA engaged in a comprehensive stakeholder engagement process in 2019 that leveraged an online crowd-sourcing platform, virtual and in-person listening sessions. FEMA heard from federal, state, tribal, and territorial stakeholders, as well as local partners, and members of the general public about the challenges they face in implementing mitigation projects and recommendations for how BRIC can be responsive to their mitigation needs at all levels of government. 

In total, FEMA received 75 formal letters and approximately 5,000 comments with feedback from engagements and emails. The stakeholder feedback was compiled into a 72-page summary that provides information about the concerns expressed by stakeholders and their recommendations to address those concerns.