Security grants for private, parochial & religious schools

The federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program is available in every state through the state's homeland security agency (the SAA). It comes in two streams, and which one you use depends on whether your site sits inside a FEMA-designated high-risk urban area — each state page below lists the metros that count.

What the federal notice means for private and religious schools

• A private or religious school applies as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and should attach its IRS determination letter — the federal notice's no-letter exemption is written for houses of worship, and other nonprofits are told to attach theirs.
• You apply through your state's homeland security agency (the SAA), not directly to FEMA — so the SAA's own page, not FEMA's, is where the application actually happens.
• Target hardening — cameras, doors, fences, alarms and lighting — is the core allowable category, which is where a school's entrance-control and perimeter projects sit.
• Training for staff is allowable, but the grant covers attendance fees only.
• A school with more than one campus needs a separate vulnerability or risk assessment for each site — a single shared assessment can get the whole application rejected.
• Construction or renovation — a secure vestibule at the main entrance, for example — triggers FEMA's Environmental and Historic Preservation (EHP) review, and work cannot begin until FEMA approves it — so build in extra lead time.

Step by step: how to apply for the NSGP →

The NSGP-UA and NSGP-S allowable-cost list is the same in every state, with a note on how each line tends to apply to private and religious schools. Lines without a note are allowable too — they just have no audience-specific angle.

• Target hardening (cameras, doors, fences, alarms, lighting)Controlled entry, cameras and reinforced doors are the classic school project: one monitored entrance while classes are in session.
• Contracted security personnel (can be up to 100% of the award, but grant funds can't buy their equipment)Paid security staffing can cover arrival and dismissal, the busiest and most exposed times of a school day.
• Security planningA written security plan and a vulnerability assessment give a campus a documented starting point for every later request.
• Training (attendance fees only)Staff training and drills prepare teachers and front-office staff, who are the first to respond in a school.
• Exercises
• Cybersecurity measuresCybersecurity matters for a school that keeps student records and runs its own network.
• Construction and renovationConstruction or renovation can pay for a secure vestibule when the current layout lets visitors walk straight into the hallways.
• Management & administration (up to 5% of the award)

Each of the following has a program of its own with a rule that bears on private and religious schools — who qualifies, which documents to attach, what the money can buy or a carve-out to know about. Its page checks every program there, state and federal, with the documents to gather and a realistic next step.

Each label summarizes the program's own materials; the state page quotes the rule behind it and names the agency to confirm it with before you apply.

For each of the following, this catalog lists no security-grant program of its own, so for private and religious schools the federal NSGP through the homeland security agency (the SAA) is the route. Its page names that agency and the urban areas where the NSGP-UA stream applies.

Each of the following also has a program of its own, but nothing in this catalog's summary of it speaks to private and religious schools one way or the other — the program's general nonprofit rules apply as written, and its page lists the program alongside the federal NSGP.