OARS funding Small Business

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Administration for Native Americans (ANA) announces the availability of Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 funds for the Social and Economic Development Strategies (SEDS) program. This program is focused on community-driven projects designed to grow local economies, strengthen Native American families, including the preservation of Native American cultures, and decrease the high rate of current challenges caused by the lack of community-based businesses, and social and economic infrastructure in Native American communities. Native American communities include American Indian tribes (federally-recognized and non-federally recognized), Native Hawaiians, Alaskan Natives, and Native American Pacific Islanders.

Proposed Phase I projects should prove the scientific or technical feasibility of the approach or concept. Projects dealing with agriculturally related manufacturing and alternative and renewable energy technologies are encouraged across all SBIR topic areas. USDA SBIR's flexible research areas ensure innovative projects consistent with USDA's vision of a healthy and productive nation in harmony with the land, air, and water. USDA SBIR Program has awarded over 2000 research and development projects since 1983, allowing hundreds of small businesses to explore their technological potential, and providing an incentive to profit from the commercialization of innovative ideas.

The National Center will assist BJA to coordinate and build upon existing assets and resources to serve police agencies and their mental health and social service partners. Many of the resources that BJA offers, can be adapted and maximized with specific training and technical assistance for implementation. Without TTA, agencies must implement resources in the community without specific guidance, planning, assessment, contextualization and knowledge and guidance about best practices in implementation. To support police and law enforcement agencies and their MHD and IDD service delivery partners to build capacity to improve their collaborative responses, BJA will support a National Training and Technical Assistance Center to Improve Police-Based Response to People with MHD and IDD (National Center).

This notice announces the availability of funds and solicits proposals from eligible entities that can provide planning, hosting and training conference facilitation support for the nation-wide State Small Business Ombudsman (SBO)/Small Business Environmental Assistance Providers' (SBEAP) 507 Program, a regulatory compliance assistance program created under section 507 of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. The state compliance assistance 507 Programs, which are dispersed throughout the U.S. states and trust territories, often partner together to share ideas, resources and support small business assistance on a national level. Typically, their partnership efforts include communication, distributing and exchanging of information on compliance assistance and program activities, as well as locating environmental compliance and sustainability information focused on small business. In order to sustain the states' partnership and sharing of resources, the state 507 Program staff members meet in person on an annual basis. Funding under this announcement will be used for planning, hosting and facilitation activities that support this nation-wide 507 Program Training Conference on a biannual basis only. The goal of this co-sponsorship agreement is to provide state and trust territory SBO and SBEAP staff, as well as the small business community that are required to comply with environmental regulations, with support in regulatory compliance training and resource development through a biannual event, where each can access environmental regulatory/technical training and information, resources, small business content or activities; all which help this nation-wide program stay connected and provide well rounded environmental compliance assistance to the small business community and public overall.

US Department of Transportation Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization will enter into Cooperative Agreements with these organizations to provide outreach to the small business community in their designated region and provide financial and technical assistance, business training programs, business assessment, management training, counseling, marketing and outreach, and the dissemination of information, to encourage and assist small businesses to become better prepared to compete for, obtain, and manage DOT funded transportation-related contracts and subcontracts at the federal, state and local levels. Throughout this notice, the term "small business" will refer to: 8(a), small disadvantaged businesses (SDB), disadvantaged business enterprises (DBE), women owned small businesses (WOSB), HubZone, service disabled veteran owned businesses (SDVOB), and veteran owned small businesses (VOSB). Throughout this notice, "transportation-related" is defined as the maintenance, rehabilitation, restructuring, improvement, or revitalization of any of the nation's modes of transportation.

The Intermediary must provide a program of financial and technical assistance to recipients to develop their capacity and ability to undertake projects related to housing, community facilities, or community and economic development that will support the community.

A microenterprise development organization or program (or group or Collaborative thereof) such as a non-profit Community Development Financial Institution or similar entity, that has a demonstrated record of delivering microenterprise services to disadvantaged entrepreneurs or An Intermediary (as defined in Section 8.1) which has experience in delivering technical assistance to disadvantaged entrepreneurs; or A microenterprise development organization or program (as defined in Section 8.1)that is accountable to a local community, working in conjunction with a State or local government or Indian Tribe; or An Indian tribe acting on its own, if it can certify that no private organization or program referred to in paragraph in paragraphs (1) exists within its jurisdiction. Cost Sharing or Matching Requirement: Yes, 50%. Expected Number of Awards: SBA anticipates issuing approximately 35 awards under this Announcement.

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement is to invite proposals for funding from eligible state entities interested in and capable of providing assistance and guidance to eligible small business concerns to increase the number of such firms that export and the value of small business exports

Different from fundamental research, the NSF SBIR program focuses on transforming scientific discovery into products and services with commercial potential and/or societal benefit.  NSF SBIR supports startups to develop innovative, disruptive technologies, getting discoveries out of the lab and into the market.

Proposed Phase I projects should prove the scientific or technical feasibility of the approach or concept. Projects dealing with agriculturally related manufacturing and alternative and renewable energy technologies are encouraged across all SBIR topic areas. USDA SBIR's flexible research areas ensure innovative projects consistent with USDA's vision of a healthy and productive nation in harmony with the land, air, and water. USDA SBIR Program has awarded over 2000 research and development projects since 1983, allowing hundreds of small businesses to explore their technological potential, and providing an incentive to profit from the commercialization of innovative ideas.

The Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program, although modeled substantially on the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program, is a separate program and is separately financed. Subject to availability of funds, DoD Components invite small business firms and research institutions to jointly submit proposals that will support high quality cooperative research and development of innovative concepts to solve the listed defense-related scientific or engineering problems, especially those concepts that also have high potential for commercialization in the private sector. Partnerships between small businesses and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) or Minority Institutions (MIs) are encouraged, although no special preference will be given to STTR proposals from such offerors.

The Thriving Cultures Program supports efforts that provide artists with business training and financial resources that enable them to be, and create, valuable economic assets for their communities. We seek to fund projects that: - Operate business and entrepreneurship training programs for artists and cultural organizations; - Provide financing to artists and artist-centered enterprises (such as financial institutions and resource providers); - Support arts and culture-based programs and services that directly engage and support the people who live and work in the area as a strategy for equitable economic development. These activities may include: 1) Cultural programming; 2) Business incentives that help build the local creative economy; 3) Cross-sector collaborations that yield opportunities for all residents to reap the cultural and economic benefits from neighborhood growth. - Document (both qualitatively and quantitatively) the growth of arts-based, creative industries in neighborhoods; - Identify and share best practices in order to strengthen the field of arts and economic development.

The Information Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL/RI), Rome Research Site, is soliciting white papers under this announcement for innovative technologies to enable the effective management of information for military operations. Focus: The objective of this BAA is to develop and demonstrate middleware to bridge the tactical and enterprise domains, realizing decentralized IM services built upon client-based protocols for use at the tactical edge that can coexist and interoperate securely with the server-based IM services that are well-suited for deployment in enterprise-scale environments. To improve the exchange of information between enterprise and the tactical edge networks and applications, these services need to be capable of operating in contested/congested environments and be built upon disruption and fault tolerant techniques and technologies. The research and development to be conducted under this BAA is focused on the following: 1) Interoperable hybrid centralized & decentralized IM services designed for mobile operations. 2) Gateways for the exchange of heterogeneous information across disparate networks. 3) Disruption tolerant information preservation, optimized delivery, and synchronization. 4) Demonstration of the utility of these capabilities in operationally relevant environments.

The objective of this announcement is to (1) develop baseline FXR system concept(s); (2) estimate and substantiate SWAP-C and effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) under a flyaway cost constraint; (3) assess current technology and propose new technology development required to achieve capability; (4) assess performance; (5) conduct trade studies; and (6) optionally perform additional trade studies. The results of these activities with industry will help the Government inform potential FXR technology investments and assess risk of draft FXR requirements in particular with respect to the combination of SWAP-C, EIRP and acquisition cost.

The Institute for Research on Innovation and Science is accepting applications for its 2018 IRIS Awards, an annual program that supports researchers who use IRIS data to address questions about the social and economic returns of investments in research. Through the program, IRIS seeks to enable fundamental research on the results of public and private investments that support discovery, innovation, and education on the campuses of U.S. universities. Up to $15,000 for dissertations awards and up to $30,000 for early career and established researcher awards will be awarded to the recipient's institution. Funds can be used for personnel (e.g., research assistance, salaries, or stipend if recipient is a student), equipment, supplies, travel (may include travel mandated by the award), and other expenses (e.g., professional development and training). Awards may include 15 percent overhead or indirect costs to be paid as a part of the award total. Proposals must emphasize the use of IRIS data in projects that address open issues in the study of science and technology and science policy. Topics of particular interest include but are not limited to new methods to estimate social and economic return on investment for funding from various sources (federal, philanthropic, industrial, and institutional); the relationship between research training, career outcomes, and the downstream productivity of employers; the relationship between different funding sources and mechanisms and the structure and outcomes of collaboration within and across campuses; the distinctive contribution university research makes to regional economic development and resilience; and the effects different funding sources and mechanisms have on research teams and the productivity and efficiency of the academic research enterprise as a whole

The Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act ("Brownfields Law", P.L. 107-118) requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to publish guidance for grants to assess and clean up brownfield sites. EPA's Brownfields Program provides funds to empower states, communities, tribes, and nonprofits to prevent, inventory, assess, clean up, and reuse brownfield sites. Under these guidelines, EPA is seeking proposals for Revolving Loan Fund Grants only. If you are interested in requesting funding for Assessment Grants and/or Cleanup Grants, please refer to announcement EPA-OLEM-OBLR-17-07 (Assessment Grant Guidelines) or EPA-OLEM-OBLR-17-09 (Cleanup Grant Guidelines) posted separately on www.grants.gov and www.epa.gov/brownfields/apply-brownfields-grant-funding. Also listed under assessment grants.

The SBIR program is Congressionally mandated and intended to support scientific excellence and technological innovation through the investment of federal research funds to build a strong national economy by stimulating technological innovation in the private sector; strengthening the role of small business in meeting federal research and development needs; increasing the commercial application of federally supported research results; and fostering and encouraging participation by socially and economically disadvantaged and women-owned small businesses. The SBIR program at NSF solicits proposals from the small business sector consistent with NSF's mission to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense. A main purpose of the legislation is to stimulate technological innovation and increase private sector commercialization. The NSF SBIR/STTR program is therefore in a unique position to meet both the goals of NSF and the purpose of the SBIR/STTR legislation by transforming scientific discovery and innovation into both social and economic benefit, and by emphasizing private sector commercialization.

The STTR program is Congressionally mandated and intended to support scientific excellence and technological innovation through the investment of federal research funds to build a strong national economy by stimulating technological innovation in the private sector; strengthening the role of small business in meeting federal research and development needs; increasing the commercial application of federally supported research results; and fostering and encouraging participation by socially and economically disadvantaged and women-owned small businesses. The STTR program at NSF solicits proposals from the small business sector consistent with NSF's mission to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense. The program is governed by Public Law 112-81 (SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011)and reauthorized by Public Law 114-328. STTR policy is provided by the Small Business Administration (SBA) through the STTR Policy Directive. A main purpose of the legislation is to stimulate technological innovation and increase private sector commercialization. The NSF SBIR/STTR program is therefore in a unique position to meet both the goals of NSF and the purpose of the SBIR/STTR legislation by transforming scientific discovery and innovation into both social and economic benefit, and by emphasizing private sector commercialization.

I2O seeks unconventional approaches that are outside the mainstream, challenge accepted assumptions, and have the potential to radically change established practice. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems.

Aligned with U.S. government's Economic Reform objective, this funding opportunity seeks to advance U.S. economic interests in the MENA region while improving MENA media and entertainment industry capacity to conclude business deals with the U.S. and other regions, produce innovative and creative content, build the capacity of MENA-based practitioners, and advance positive messaging of the U.S. It will also advance core NEA/AC focus areas by addressing some issues including but not limited to economic growth, participatory governance, entrepreneurship, women's empowerment and gender issues, open governance, anti-corruption, urban/rural divide, youth apathy, and civic engagement.- Countering Violent Extremism as a theme/focus is explicitly excluded from the objectives of this project.- Recognizing different levels of opportunity for advancement across the region, this project will prioritize enhancing the capacity of youth, women, and underserved communities as well as advancing the aspiring next generation of MENA media and entertainment practitioners.