Celebrating Our Grants Team: A Record-Setting Year for CFA Submissions

MRB Group is proud to recognize the outstanding efforts of our Grants Team in completing a remarkable 37 Consolidated Funding Applications (CFAs) for 2025 — the most diverse and wide-ranging round of applications in our firm’s history.

With total project costs exceeding $122 million and a cumulative grant request of $67.5 million, this year’s CFA effort reflects not only the scale of our clients’ visions, but also the strength, dedication, and coordination of our team.

A Closer Look at the Submissions:

• 2 MS4 Planning Grants
• 8 NPS Planning (Stormwater/Culverts)
• 3 WQIP NPS Construction (Culverts)
• 3 WQIP Salt Storage
• 6 WQIP WWTP
• 2 Smart Growth Comprehensive Plans
• 1 Market NY
• 3 Pro Housing
• 1 CDBG
• 1 Park Implementation
• 7 Park Planning

These 37 submissions contribute to an impressive year-to-date total of $262 million in project costs and $134 million in grant requests across all funding programs.

Making a Difference for Our Clients

For our municipal and community clients, the CFA process can be complex, time-consuming, and highly competitive. MRB Group’s grants team is proud to shoulder that burden — navigating the details, developing strong applications, and aligning each project with funding goals.

By helping clients access critical funding for infrastructure, housing, environmental improvements, parks, and downtown revitalization, we’re supporting transformational projects that might not otherwise be possible. Ultimately, our team’s work means less financial strain on local budgets and faster progress toward long-term community goals.

Team Highlights:

This achievement would not have been possible without the incredible collaboration and effort of our team:

Laurie Fox, our Grant Administrator, coordinated closely with clients, guided the team’s efforts, and contributed to writing and reviewing submissions—ensuring each application was strategic, complete, and on time.

Sofia Schuller led the charge with 18 submissions, primarily focusing on engineering-related grants.

Emily Honen and Abby Ritz took the lead on Parks, CDBG, Market NY, and Pro Housing grants, ensuring each application was thoughtful, thorough, and aligned with program goals.

A huge shoutout also goes to:

Leah Mestayer and Kayla Davis, who were instrumental in preparing project location maps, park concept plans, and helping coordinate visuals that brought applications to life.

Ben Cutter, who finalized countless engineering reports and braved the notoriously difficult CDBG forms — we know you won’t miss them!

Lance Brabant, Angelina White and the planning team who completed state and federal environmental review for many of the projects in a short period of time.

And of course, to our engineers, who partnered with the grants team throughout the process. Your technical insight and support are essential to these successes.

Thank You

We’re incredibly proud of the professionalism, commitment, and collaboration shown by our team throughout this process. Every map, form, concept, report, and submission was a piece of a larger puzzle — one that reflects our shared mission to secure meaningful funding and support transformational projects for our communities.

Congratulations to everyone involved — your hard work makes a difference!