Recompete Pilot Program Grants: How Distressed Communities Can Win Up to $50 Million for Jobs, Workforce, and Infrastructure

If you work in a place where “good jobs” feels more like a slogan than a reality, the Distressed Area Recompete Pilot Program should be on your radar in flashing neon.

This is not a $25,000 planning grant that funds one consultant report and a stakeholder meeting with stale coffee. Recompete is throwing around serious money: strategy grants up to $500,000 to plan, and implementation grants up to $50 million to actually do the work—build training pipelines, upgrade infrastructure, support small businesses, and connect people who’ve been sidelined back into the labor market.

The program is run by the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) and is laser-focused on communities where prime-age adults (25–54) aren’t working at the same rate as the rest of the country. If your town, Tribal nation, city neighborhood, or region has been bleeding jobs and people for years, this is designed for you.

The catch? It’s highly competitive, technical, and demands serious coordination. In the first round, more than 565 communities raised their hand; only 6 implementation awardees emerged with about $20–40 million each, and 24 communities received strategy grants.

Hard to win? Yes.
Worth chasing? Absolutely—if you’re ready to treat this as a big, collaborative, multi-year campaign, not a quick grant application.

Below is a plain-English guide to what Recompete is, who should be paying attention, and how to position your community for the next round of Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs) anticipated in late 2025.

Recompete at a Glance

What This Opportunity Actually Offers

Recompete is built around a simple question: What would it take to meaningfully move the needle on employment in communities that have been stuck for decades?

Instead of sprinkling small grants across lots of places, EDA is backing bold, locally-driven strategies with enough money to matter.

There are two main flavors of funding:

1. Strategy Development Grants (up to $500,000)

Think of these as serious planning grants.

They’re designed to help communities that have the will but not yet the full plan or capacity. Past strategy grants have supported things like:

• Data analysis to understand who’s not working and why
• Detailed planning for workforce pipelines tied to local industries
• Designing “wraparound” systems: childcare, transportation, reentry supports, mental health, etc.
• Convening employers, training providers, Tribal or local governments, and nonprofits into a real coalition rather than a loose network of logos

This is capacity-building money. It buys you time, expertise, and coordination so that when implementation dollars are on the table, you’re not scrambling to make up a strategy in two weeks.

2. Implementation Grants (up to $50 million)

This is where things get big.

In Phase 2 of the inaugural round, six communities were awarded a total of $184 million, with each winner getting roughly $20–40 million to support 5–8 interconnected projects.

Implementation funding can support initiatives such as:

• Workforce training aligned with actual local job demand (not generic courses that lead nowhere)
• Infrastructure upgrades needed to connect residents to jobs—think industrial site prep, broadband access, transit links, or training facilities
• Entrepreneurship and small business support, including technical assistance, access to capital, and incubators in distressed neighborhoods
• Wraparound services, like childcare, transportation, case management, and reentry programs to help people stay attached to work
• Regional coordination and governance, paying for backbone staff to keep the coalition functioning, measuring progress, and adjusting course

The key word here is integrated. EDA is not funding one-off projects in isolation. They want to see a Recompete Plan—a coherent, evidence-based strategy that connects these elements into a clear path toward higher employment.

Who Should Apply (and Who Should Be at the Table)

This is not a grant for a lone nonprofit to run a single program on its own. Recompete is built around coalitions.

Here’s who typically belongs in the mix:

• Local or Tribal governments that can officially apply, coordinate across departments (workforce, planning, transportation, economic development), and manage federal grants.
• Economic development districts and regional planning agencies that understand the regional economy, have data capacity, and can act as neutral conveners.
• Workforce development boards and training providers—community colleges, union training centers, apprenticeship programs, adult ed providers—who can actually run training aligned with employers’ needs.
• Nonprofits and community-based organizations that have trust with residents, especially those who’ve been shut out of traditional systems (justice-involved individuals, long-term unemployed, residents without formal credentials).
• Employers who are ready to commit to hiring, providing input on curriculum, or offering paid work-based learning.
• Tribal nations, either as primary applicants or key partners, particularly where Tribal citizens make up a substantial share of the local population.

Eligibility in Plain English

To be competitive, your community needs to check several boxes:

1. You’re in an eligible “distressed” area.
   The program uses prime-age employment rates (25–54) to define distress. EDA provides a Recompete Eligibility Mapping Tool so communities can see if they qualify. If you’ve watched factories close, mines shut down, or downtowns hollow out, you might be in the right ballpark.

2. You can produce a serious Recompete Plan.
   This isn’t just a glossy PDF with nice photos. Your plan must lay out:

   • The current employment gap (with data)
   • The specific populations and neighborhoods experiencing it
   • A set of mutually reinforcing projects designed to close that gap
   • How you’ll measure progress and adjust over time

3. For implementation funds, you have real commitments.
   Implementation applicants must show:

   • Matching funds (exact percentages depend on NOFO conditions and your level of distress)
   • Signed partnership agreements or MOUs
   • Governance structures: who’s in charge, who’s accountable, and how decisions get made

If your community has never managed a major federal grant and doesn’t yet have a functioning coalition, you’re probably in Strategy Development Grant territory for now—and that’s perfectly fine. Many of the initial Strategy Development awardees used those funds to build exactly the capacity they’d been missing for years.

What Makes This Program So Valuable

EDA already runs several economic development programs. Recompete is different in a few important ways:

• Place-based and people-focused: It cares not just about projects, but about people in a specific geography who are currently out of work or detached from the labor market.
• Flexible funding: Unlike very narrow programs, Recompete lets communities braid workforce, infrastructure, and business supports together into one coherent strategy.
• Meaningful scale: A $20–50 million award over several years can actually shift economic trajectories, not just paper over symptoms.
• Longer time horizon: You’re not expected to magically overhaul a struggling local economy in 12 months. The program is designed around long-term, comprehensive change.

If you’ve ever complained that federal grants are too fragmented and short-term to really help your community, this is your chance to prove what you could do with substantial, coordinated funding.

Insider Tips for a Winning Recompete Application

Past rounds have made one thing very clear: this is not a “submit a PDF the night before” program. Here’s how serious contenders distinguish themselves.

1. Start with the employment problem, not your favorite project

Many communities walk in with a pet project—“We want a new training center” or “We want to rehab this building.” Recompete reviewers, however, start with one core question:

“Will this plan actually reduce the prime-age employment gap in this place?”

Everything else is secondary. Begin with data:

• Where is employment low? By neighborhood, ZIP code, or Tribal area.
• Who is out of work? By age, gender, race, education level, and prior industry.
• Why? Transportation issues, childcare, skills mismatch, hiring discrimination, health, criminal records, or simply lack of nearby jobs.

Then build projects to address those specific barriers. Not the other way around.

2. Build a real coalition, not a collage of logos

Reviewers can tell the difference between:

• A coalition that meets every two weeks, argues, compromises, and actually coordinates; and
• A set of organizations that exchanged PDF letters the day before the deadline.

Start now:

• Set up regular meetings with employers, workforce boards, governments, and nonprofits.
• Decide who’s the backbone—the entity responsible for project management, communications, and data.
• Talk through thorny questions early: Who handles funds? How are decisions made? What happens if a partner underperforms?

3. Treat your Recompete Plan like a strategic document, not a compliance exercise

Yes, you have to meet EDA’s requirements. But your plan should be something local leaders would use even if you never got the money.

Make it:

• Evidence-based: Cite real data. Don’t lean on vibes and anecdotes alone.
• Targeted: You don’t need to fix everything everywhere. Focus on specific neighborhoods and populations.
• Measurable: Define what success looks like by year 3, year 5, and beyond (employment rates, earnings, participation in training, business starts, etc.).

4. Get your match and braided funding strategy in order

For large implementation awards, EDA expects you to have skin in the game:

• Local or state funding
• Philanthropic contributions
• Private employer investments
• Other federal or state programs that align with your Recompete work

Start assembling a financing strategy now. It’s much easier to convince a state agency or foundation to co-fund when you can say, “We’re positioning ourselves for a shot at up to $50 million in federal investment.”

5. Build in wraparound services from day one

Employment gaps in distressed places rarely exist because people don’t “want to work.” They exist because:

• Childcare is unaffordable or nonexistent
• Buses don’t run when shifts start
• Employers won’t consider applicants with records
• People with chronic health issues can’t stay stable in work without support

The best Recompete strategies bake in wraparound services: childcare, legal aid, housing navigation, transportation, reentry support, mental health services. Don’t treat these as side projects; they’re central infrastructure for workforce success.

6. Borrow ideas—and lessons—from the first round

EDA has published:

• Phase 1 applicant lists
• Finalists’ service areas
• Blog posts on rural communities and Tribal insights

Use those as a curriculum. Study what kinds of projects finalists proposed and how they framed their vision. You’re not copying; you’re learning what reviewers clearly responded to.

Application Timeline: Working Backward from Late 2025

We don’t have an exact NOFO date yet, but we know the next competition is expected in late 2025. Here’s a realistic prep timeline, assuming a NOFO drops around October–November 2025 and proposals are due 60–90 days later.

Early 2025 (January–April): Reality check and coalition-building

• Use the Recompete Eligibility Mapping Tool to confirm you’re in the zone.
• Convene a core planning team: local/Tribal government, regional planning, workforce board, major nonprofits, at least 3–5 anchor employers.
• Agree on your target geography and populations.
• Inventory ongoing efforts you can build on (not everything must be new).

Mid 2025 (May–August): Strategy design and data work

• Commission or conduct a local labor market and barriers analysis.
• Draft the backbone of your Recompete Plan: goals, target groups, proposed projects, partnership roles, metrics.
• Start serious conversations about match funding with state agencies, philanthropy, and employers.
• Identify gaps in capacity where a Strategy Development Grant might be the right first step.

Fall 2025 (September–NOFO release): Pre-writing and commitments

• Prepare standard pieces you know you’ll need: community description, data on employment, coalition governance description.
• Draft template letters of commitment and refine them so they’re specific and credible, not generic cheerleading.
• Nail down which entity will serve as the lead applicant.

Once NOFO is Released (likely late 2025): 8–12 week sprint

• Hold weekly working sessions to write, revise, and assemble attachments.
• Finalize budgets and match commitments.
• Get experienced reviewers—ideally someone who’s worked on EDA or similar large federal grants—to read your complete package at least two weeks before the deadline.

Required Materials (What You’ll Almost Certainly Need)

Each NOFO will spell out the exact requirements, but based on prior rounds and standard EDA practice, you should be ready to produce:

• Recompete Plan / Project Narrative
  This is the spine of your application. Expect 10–20+ pages describing the problem, strategy, projects, governance, and expected outcomes. Treat this as a living strategy document for your region, not just a one-off grant narrative.

• Budget and Budget Narrative
  You’ll need a detailed multi-year budget that clearly maps dollars to specific projects and partners. The narrative should explain the logic: why each line item is necessary, how it supports the employment goals, and how other funding sources fit in.

• Letters of Commitment / MOUs
  For implementation grants especially, reviewers want to see firm commitments—not vague “we support this” language. Employers should reference hiring, interview guarantees, or work-based learning. Governments and funders should specify dollar amounts or in-kind support.

• Organizational Capacity Documents
  Resumes or bios of key staff, descriptions of prior federal grant management, and any relevant audits or financial statements that show you can handle multi-million dollar awards.

• Data and Evaluation Plan
  How will you track employment outcomes, wages, completion of training, and other goals? Who’s responsible for data collection and reporting? This doesn’t have to be overly academic, but it must be credible.

• Maps and Demographic Data
  Show your target area, its employment gap, and key assets (training centers, employers, transit, etc.). Visuals help reviewers grasp your context quickly.

The communities that were ready in Round 1 didn’t start building these materials after the NOFO came out. They’d been assembling data, coalitions, and draft plans for months.

What Makes a Recompete Application Stand Out

Based on EDA’s publicly available materials and patterns across similar programs, reviewers are likely weighing several big buckets:

1. Clarity and Strength of the Employment Problem
   Is the prime-age employment gap clearly documented? Do you convincingly show that this community has been persistently distressed—not just hit by a one-year downturn?

2. Coherence of the Strategy
   Do the proposed projects actually fit together? A strong plan reads more like a symphony than a playlist of unrelated tracks. Workforce, infrastructure, small business support, and services should reinforce one another.

3. Depth of Community and Employer Engagement
   Is this a plan “for” residents and employers, or “with” them? Reviewers will look for real consultation, input, and power-sharing—especially with communities of color, Tribal communities, and groups that have been historically sidelined.

4. Feasibility and Capacity
   Can this coalition realistically manage tens of millions of dollars and complex, multi-partner projects? A smaller, well-executed plan is more convincing than an overstuffed fantasy proposal.

5. Equity and Inclusion
   Do you directly address barriers facing people who’ve been excluded from good jobs—people with records, people without credentials, caregivers, immigrants, residents in isolated rural areas? Are services and supports designed with them in mind?

6. Sustainability Beyond the Grant Period
   Reviewers know the money doesn’t last forever. How will training programs, employer partnerships, and governance structures continue when federal funding winds down?

Common Mistakes to Avoid (and How to Fix Them)

Mistake 1: Chasing every idea at once

Trying to cram in every project anyone suggests is a great way to end up with a bloated, incoherent plan. Instead, pick fewer, stronger projects that clearly advance your employment goals.

Mistake 2: Ignoring the data when it’s inconvenient

If your data shows that the biggest employment gaps are among women with young children in one particular neighborhood, but your proposal focuses mainly on high-tech training for young men, reviewers will notice. Let the data shape your strategy, even when it challenges comfortable narratives.

Mistake 3: Weak or vague letters of support

“We are excited about this proposal and stand ready to collaborate” means almost nothing. Ask partners to specify:

• Dollar amounts or in-kind contributions
• Numbers of people they expect to hire, train, or serve
• Space, staff, or tech they’ll dedicate

If they won’t commit in writing, treat that as a red flag.

Mistake 4: Treating wraparound services as optional

If your region has serious barriers—like no childcare, limited transit, or high rates of justice involvement—and your plan doesn’t address them, your credibility drops fast. You don’t need to solve every social problem, but you must address the ones that are clearly blocking employment.

Mistake 5: Waiting for the NOFO to start

By the time the NOFO appears, the most prepared communities are already 70% done. If you wait until official guidance lands to start organizing and planning, you’ll be in constant catch-up mode.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is my community even eligible?

Eligibility hinges on prime-age employment rates. EDA hosts a Recompete Eligibility Mapping Tool on the program page. Start there. If your area isn’t clearly eligible on its own, consider whether a regional coalition might meet the criteria when defined at the right geographic scale.

Can a nonprofit be the lead applicant?

Yes, in many cases nonprofits can be key applicants or co-applicants, especially if they have strong grant management experience. That said, you’ll almost certainly need deep collaboration with local or Tribal governments and regional planning or economic development entities. EDA likes to see public-sector partners at the table.

Is this only for big cities?

Not at all. The first set of finalists and awardees included urban neighborhoods, rural regions, and Tribal areas across 20 states and territories. Your community doesn’t have to be large; it does have to show persistent distress and a compelling strategy.

Do we need matching funds?

For implementation awards, yes—matching funds and partnership commitments are required. The exact match percentage can vary based on your level of distress and the NOFO details, but you should assume you’ll need to bring other resources to the table. Strategy Development Grants may have more flexible requirements, but check the specific NOFO when it’s released.

Can we apply for both Strategy Development and Implementation?

In earlier rounds, Strategy Development Grants were often used by communities that weren’t yet ready to propose large-scale implementation plans. Whether you can apply for both in the next round will depend on NOFO rules. Strategically, you should be honest with yourselves: are you truly ready for implementation, or is a year of intense planning and coalition-building the smarter move?

What are our chances?

Phase 1 saw 565 applications with only 22 finalists and 6 implementation awardees. That’s tough odds—but not impossible. Communities that started early, had real coalitions, and could tell a clear story grounded in data had a real shot. Even if you’re not funded, the planning and coalition-building you do for Recompete can position you for other federal and philanthropic opportunities.

Will we get feedback if we’re not selected?

EDA typically provides some level of feedback or summary comments in its competitive programs. You should plan to treat an unfunded attempt as research: what did reviewers say, and how can that sharpen your strategy for the next round or for other programs?

How to Apply (and What to Do Right Now)

You can’t submit anything today—but you absolutely can get ready.

1. Visit the official Recompete page.
   Start by reading EDA’s current materials and exploring the eligibility tools and fact sheets.

   Ready to get serious? Visit the official opportunity page:
   https://www.eda.gov/funding/programs/recompete-pilot-program

2. Confirm your eligibility and understand your data.
   Use the mapping tool to see if your area qualifies, then pull local employment, earnings, and demographic data to deepen your understanding.

3. Convene your core coalition.
   Bring together your local/Tribal government, regional planners, workforce board, major nonprofits, and employers. Don’t wait for the NOFO to meet for the first time.

4. Decide your path: Strategy Development or Implementation (or both).
   Be honest about your starting point. If your community has never managed a multi-partner, multi-million-dollar initiative, a Strategy Development Grant may be a smart on-ramp.

5. Start drafting your Recompete Plan skeleton.
   Outline your problem statement, target populations, candidate projects, governance model, and early ideas for metrics. You can refine once NOFO details are out, but having a working draft puts you far ahead.

6. Line up match and co-funding conversations.
   Talk with your state, philanthropy, and employers about their appetite to join a serious, multi-year push to raise employment. Recompete can be the anchor that pulls a broader investment strategy together.

Recompete is not a quick fix. It’s more like being offered a shot at a decade-defining investment in your community’s economic future—with the expectation that you come prepared, unified, and ready to execute.

If your community has been “left behind” for as long as anyone can remember, this is one of the rare federal programs built explicitly with you in mind. The question isn’t just whether you can win it.

The real question is whether you’re willing to do the hard, unglamorous organizing and planning now so that when late 2025 arrives, you’re not just eligible—you’re compelling.