Technical Assistance (TA) can be broadly defined as the process of providing training, assistance, expert advice, or other support to supplement the capabilities of an organization, coalition, or municipality. TA allows organizations to do work beyond the services or skills they have available in-house.
Grant Ready Kentucky receives frequent inquiries about TA resources, and for good reason. While there are many resources available, they can be difficult to find, scattered across multiple agencies, buried in grant resource lists, or masked by industry jargon.
Technical Assistance Terminology
Technical Assistance (TA) resources generally fall into three broad categories: funding for TA, direct TA, and educational/information resources.
Funding for TA: Several federal grants are TA funding grants, in that they provide funding for the awardee to use toward hiring staff or procuring expert firms to assist with project planning or development. This could include hiring a consulting firm to conduct research or a technical team to carry out an assessment.
- Example: The Department of Transportation's Rural and Tribal Assistance Pilot Program provides grants to fund the financial, technical, or legal assistance needed to develop and advance transportation infrastructure projects.
Direct TA: These include services, advice, or expertise delivered directly to an organization. This can be anything from experts completing a feasibility study to training on community outreach.
- Example: Grant Ready Kentucky’s 1-on-1 coaching service provides direct TA by connecting Kentucky organizations to grant expertise for free.
Informational/Educational: Often, we find these in the form of free online resource hubs with articles, webinars, or how-to guides.
Under the category of direct TA, resources often break down into several other categories, which can be helpful to understand as you search:
Planning and Development Technical Assistance
This category can include any type of TA an organization may need to kick off a project. Organizations looking for any of the following types of assistance can search for "planning TA" or "Development TA":
Grant Application Assistance: Government agencies issuing grant notices often provide free technical support for applicants, especially when the funding targets under-resourced or historically marginalized groups. This support mainly focuses on the technical aspects of submitting a federal grant, rather than helping with the proposal itself. Assistance might include guidance on using the application portal or a grant manager reviewing an application to confirm it includes all necessary components.
Proposal Development: This type of TA addresses the project proposal itself. This may be an expert helping an organization think through its budget, model for change, program evaluation, or other key proposal elements. This category of TA may also include direct grant writing support.
Planning Consultants: We often see this when large projects like transportation or other infrastructure projects are undertaken. This type of TA enlists experts to conduct the planning phases of those projects.
Assessments/Studies: This type of TA is offered for specific, necessary assessments or studies, such as feasibility or environmental impact studies, which may be required before work can begin on a complex project. This type of TA is often offered for free when it is required for large, federally funded grants. For example, many brownfields projects require a specific assessment to be eligible for federal funding, which the EPA's Brownfields TA Center offers. Similarly, the U.S. Economic Development Administration's Local Technical Assistance (eda.gov/funding/programs/local-technical-assistance) helps fill the knowledge and information gaps that may prevent leaders in the public and nonprofit sectors in distressed areas from making optimal decisions on local economic development issues.
Project Implementation/Project Delivery
This category covers TA necessary for project implementation and can include ongoing TA that runs for the life of the project. Here are a few of the sub-categories we see frequently:
Training: Typically, when we see a training resource listed under project implementation, we think of specific staff training or executive training to carry out that project. For example, the Department of Transportation may train public bus drivers on new energy-efficient vehicles.
Compliance: This type of TA is usually specific to a particular regulation(s) that impacts a project or to maintaining compliance with grant funding requirements, such as the “Uniform Guidance” requirements (2 CFR 200) for federal awards. It can also pertain to maintaining compliance with 501c(3) tax-exempt status.
Ongoing, Direct TA: This is any assistance that will continue throughout the life of a project. The category is broad. For example, a clean water project might hire a research consultancy for the life of the project to take and analyze water samples and provide guidance. USDA Rural Development offers this kind of support directly through its Water and Waste Disposal Technical Assistance and Training Grants, which fund qualified nonprofits to help small communities identify solutions to water and wastewater problems and improve system management. USDA also offers a parallel Community Facilities Technical Assistance and Training Grant to help rural communities and nonprofits plan for essential community facility needs.
Grant Management and Evaluation: This can be TA provided by the government grant manager on maintaining the project requirements, or it can come from an outside consultant. Often, it can be helpful to hire an outside evaluator to assess the project on an ongoing basis as well.
Major Technical Assistance Resources
Now that we've covered some terminology, let's look at some of the major TA resources for Kentucky and many of the questions we've received!
Appalachian Regional Commission – READY Appalachia
READY Appalachia is ARC's community capacity-building initiative for nonprofits, community foundations, local governments, and Area Development Districts across the Appalachian Region, which includes much of Eastern Kentucky. Participants access no-cost training, cohort-based learning, and funding, with no match required, to build organizational and community capacity.
Just Transition Fund's Federal Access Center
In 2026, Just Transition Fund launched its Local Economy Lab to continue helping coal communities access public investment, this time through flexible one-year grants covering workforce development, entrepreneurship and small business support, and place-based infrastructure. Current grantees in the Lab receive tailored technical assistance, including help accessing federal funding. Organizations interested in future opportunities can sign up for updates through the Just Transition Fund website.
Kentucky's Area Development Districts
Area Development Districts (ADDs) in Kentucky are regional planning and development organizations that foster economic growth and improve quality of life in their communities. They coordinate various programs and services across local government boundaries, including economic development, workforce training, eldercare, community services, infrastructure planning, GIS data mapping, and more. ADDs serve as a bridge between local needs and state and federal resources, ensuring that communities have access to necessary funding and support for projects. With experienced grant professionals on staff, ADDs can help communities identify available grant opportunities or prepare applications for the GRANT Program, which has been extended through December 31, 2028.
All 120 counties in Kentucky are served by one of fifteen local ADDs working across the Commonwealth. Find your local ADD here: grantreadyky.org/learn/resources/kentuckys-area-development-districts. The Kentucky Department for Local Government, the state agency that coordinates with the ADDs, also provides direct grant and compliance assistance to local governments and the special-purpose governmental entities that often partner with nonprofits on projects.
Kentucky Nonprofit Network
The Kentucky Nonprofit Network offers TA tools, informational resources, and expert consultants. Their “Events & Resources” page offers a variety of training and tools on forming a nonprofit, board governance, strategic planning, and more. Some of these tools are free for nonmembers, while others require membership. A few that we find helpful are:
- Starting a Nonprofit in Kentucky
- Ongoing Nonprofit Compliance
- Principles & Practices for Nonprofit Excellence in Kentucky Guide & Workbook (2nd Edition) Free to KNN members
- Variety of Webinar Recordings, many free to nonmembers
Check out the recording of “Are You Grant Ready?”, a collaboration between Grant Ready Kentucky and KNN, to learn how to get ready to apply for and manage a grant-funded project.
Finally, KNN keeps a directory of professional consultants and service providers for nonprofit organizations here.
Stay Exempt: Small to Mid-Size Tax Exempt Organization Workshop
For those starting or who have recently started a nonprofit, this is a free, self-paced virtual workshop offered by the IRS, made up of nine courses. It covers the benefits, limitations, and expectations for exempt organizations. It is offered in both video and PDF formats.
Kentucky Center for Statistics (KYSTATS)
The Kentucky Center for Statistics (KYSTATS) collects and integrates education and workforce data so policymakers, practitioners, and the public can make the best-informed decisions possible. It is an invaluable resource for Kentucky-specific data to support grant applications or project planning. If the specific data needed isn't available in their report library (kystats.ky.gov/Reports/Reports), summary-level data can be requested here, typically for free.