Place-Based Technical Assistance Task Force

The Place-Based Technical Assistance Task Force (PBTF) plays an active role in coordinating place-based technical assistance across the federal government.

By bringing together representatives from across federal agencies, the PBTF:

• Advances place-based approaches that ensure assistance provided is rooted in the unique needs of each community.
• Builds and leverages relationships across agencies to increase understanding of existing resources, goals, and legal authorities for supporting communities.
• Explores strategies to improve processes for communities at the state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) level to receive technical assistance.
  • This may include proactive coordination—working together before disaster strikes to support hazard mitigation—among federal partners. By working together in advance, agencies are better prepared to respond uniformly to requests.
  • This may include supporting SLTT partner efforts to assess their own needs and understand eligibility for resources based on those needs. Partners can then request support and federal agencies can respond with a collective offering of resources. 
  • This may include adopting a “whole community” strategy, or a community-centric approach that focuses on strengthening and leveraging what works well in communities on a daily basis to offer a more effective path to building societal security and resilience. Through implementing a community-centric approach, the people in that community are making decisions that impact them based on their local expertise.

Place-based technical assistance focuses on the unique needs of a community, or place, and provides assistance tailored to meet those needs. This form of technical assistance may be customized based on a community’s specific conditions to increase the effectiveness of the assistance.

Place-based technical assistance must be flexible because it is driven by community needs and seeks to empower the community to create solutions. Place-based technical assistance relies on enhanced federal coordination to match needs with resources. Due to its flexibility, place-based technical assistance may be a good fit for communities that are not eligible for other forms of technical assistance or have limited capacity to access and implement certain resources.

Place-based technical assistance is a strategy well-suited for implementation in historically disadvantaged, vulnerable, and under-resourced communities because it focuses on the unique needs of the communities served and ensures those communities have access to resources that meet their specific needs.

• Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) Direct Technical Assistance (DTA): BRIC DTA provides tailored support to communities and Tribal Nations that may not have the resources to begin climate resilience planning and project solution design on their own. Through process-oriented, hands-on support, BRIC DTA enhances communities’ capacity to design holistic, equitable climate adaptation solutions that advanced numerous community-driven objectives.
• Federal Interagency Fish Passage Task Force: This Task Force approaches interagency coordination through the lens of the communities they hope to serve. It is prioritizing identification of how different agencies can use funds in a complementary fashion within each agency’s funding objectives and limitations, focusing on reducing the burden on both the applicant and federal government. The Task Force also aims to reduce or eliminate barriers to participation that may otherwise plague an initiative trying to marry together multiple agency requirements.
• Rural Partners Network (RPN): The RPN is an all-of-government program that helps rural communities find resources and funding to create jobs, build infrastructure, and support long-term economic stability on their own terms. The RPN is working in selected RPN Community Networks to help navigate and access programs from across the federal government and other providers, secure technical assistance, and develop local capacity.
• Thriving Communities Network (TCN): The TCN is designed to help agencies coordinate strategy, collaborate across initiatives, and target deployment of a full range of federal place-based technical assistance and capacity-building resources to urban, rural, and tribal communities experiencing a history of economic distress and systemic disinvestment. The TCN recognizes the power of local communities to drive innovation if they have the tools to succeed. This includes planning support and access to diverse technical assistance providers available to work directly with communities as they build on local assets to co-design and advance infrastructure projects.

The Place-Based Technical Assistance Task Force (PBTF) was established in January 2023 with the intent to deliver place-based technical assistance directly to communities. In March 2023, the PBTF recognized an opportunity to use the Task Force as a space to provide guidance, resources, and tools to agencies and employees already delivering or considering place-based technical assistance and adjusted the Task Force’s scope to support this need.

• Place-based approaches recognize that no single agency has the capacity or expertise to provide for a community’s resilience needs alone. While interagency collaboration occurred prior to the Task Force, the PBTF intentionally fosters this type of coordination and shared learning.
• A place-based approach can leverage existing resources, reduce duplication efforts, and better serve communities by making it easier to match resources with options available to them.

In Summer 2023, the Task Force began researching existing place-based technical assistance programs and resources from across the federal government, including place-based technical assistance characteristics, delivery models, and interagency objectives. Research included interviews with 16 federal agencies and departments. Findings were published in the MitFLG PBTF Landscape Analysis Summary Report in November 2023 for federal government use.

• The Landscape Analysis Summary Report identifies areas in which federal agencies are already aligned and can be used to help agencies understand where coordination and collaboration can help them achieve more together than they can alone. Coordinated efforts and knowledge sharing benefit the public by increasing efficiency in service delivery, promoting innovative solutions, and reducing duplication of efforts.
• The Landscape Analysis Summary Report also recognizes that not all resources embodying the concept of “place-based delivery” use the term. This has contributed to some confusion among the interagency, SLTT partners, and the public. Shared language around place-based efforts can be used to communicate between agencies and with SLTT partners more effectively.

The PBTF used insights from the MitFLG PBTF Landscape Analysis Summary Report to develop the MitFLG PBTF Strategic Guidance and Recommendations for Place-Based Technical Assistance, which was published for internal federal distribution in June 2024. This document analyzed capability gaps and opportunities across the interagency, identifying specific actions that can be taken by federal agencies or departments, by interagency bodies such as the MitFLG, or by individual federal employees to increase the efficacy of place-based technical assistance.

• Defining "place-based" for the Task Force, advancing place-based approaches, and improving how communities are matched with federal resources are recognized as high-priority next steps for the Task Force.
• By selecting and communicating its priorities, the PBTF has increased transparency within the interagency about its goals and capacity while creating measurable outcomes.

At the end of Summer 2024, the PBTF began developing a work plan based on its priorities that details the actions needed to achieve success. Implementing the work plan includes communicating the intended outcome, engaging all stakeholders, and evaluating impact of each action. A few initial priorities for the Task Force in the second half of 2024 include:

• Development and adoption of a shared definition of “place-based” to support more effective communication and interagency alignment. This will help SLTT partners have increased clarity and expectations when they engage in place-based technical assistance initiatives. 
• SLTT partners have expressed challenges with accessing resources that they are eligible for and that meet their needs. A matching tool can reduce this burden by requiring the complex understanding and organization of resources to be the responsibility of the interagency rather than the applicant.