Specifications on the SAFER grant

I have a few questions about the SAFER grant. What is covered by this grant that can be used for recruitment by a volunteer fire co.? Is there a funding limit? What would you say is the average amount of money dispersed for this grant?


First I’d like to thank you for your e-mail and questions. To directly address what can be covered by recruitment and retention grants, through the SAFER program, I offer the following:
- Insurance packages such as accidental death and dismemberment, disability, health, etc
- Reimbursement to the member for attending required basic training
- Marketing costs to recruit new volunteer members
- Explorer, cadet, and/or mentoring programs
- Tuition assistance for higher education (including college tuition) and professional certifications (funds cannot be used for standard training courses related to the fire service)
- Length of service awards and other retirement benefits
- Other items (as long as you can demonstrate it will help recruit or retain members

From a funding viewpoint:
- Fifteen (15) percent is set aside for the hiring of new firefighters.
- Ten (10) percent is set aside for the recruitment and retention of volunteer firefighters.
- Ten (10) percent is set aside for grants awarded to volunteer or mostly volunteer departments for hiring of firefighters. For the purpose of fulfilling this statutory requirement, DHS considers a department to be “mostly volunteer” if more than 50 percent of its membership is made up of personnel who do not receive financial compensation for their services, other than life, health, and worker’s compensation insurance, or a stipend payment such as paid-on-call. (To satisfy this statutory requirement, it may be necessary to go out of rank order to select a sufficient number of applications in order to meet the 10 percent requirement.)
- If less than ten (10) percent of the funds available for the hiring of firefighters are awarded to volunteer and mostly volunteer fire departments, the remaining funds must be transferred to the component of SAFER providing grants for the recruitment and retention of volunteer firefighters.

There is no limit to funding requests for R&R grants.

As far as the average award for R&R, in 2009 there were 52 total awards and the average was $ 418,743 (this number is skewed as it reflects several statewide recruitment efforts with price tags in the 500,000-1,000,000 range)

Hope this helps!

FireGrantsHelp Team