In the small coastal town of Crisfield, Maryland, a $36 million flood mitigation project has been in limbo since April 2025, when the Trump Administration abruptly terminated its FEMA funding and attempted to claw back disaster‑mitigation funds nationwide.
Yet up the coast in South Baltimore, a similar project that won the same FEMA grant is moving ahead despite cuts to its federal funding. The reasons why say a lot about financing local, resilient green projects.
In HIP Investor’s guest post series for ImpactAlpha, Advancing Climate Action with a Resilient Capital Stack, we are exploring how communities and climate leaders are mobilizing diverse funding sources to deploy climate infrastructure despite federal uncertainty. The series uses real-world examples from innovative local governments, examining the strategic financing approaches that are proving essential to scale climate solutions at the local level.
Below, I compare Crisfield’s Southern Flood Mitigation Project to South Baltimore’s Middle Branch Resiliency Initiative wetland restoration project. The fate of these two initiatives offers a natural experiment on the value of diversified capital stacks.
A tale of two shorelines
Even though the Baltimore and Crisfield initiatives may look similar as “shoreline” projects, they differ sharply in how resilient their financial-capital stacks can be to shocks, delays and long-term climate risk.
One project leans heavily on a single, time-limited public grant, with minimal diversification across other funding sources, which leaves it exposed if costs rise, timelines slip or the next grant cycle shifts political priorities.
The other blends multiple sources — including local public dollars, regional or federal grants, philanthropic capital and some form of revenue or cost-recovery — so that if one source tightens, the project can still move forward and maintain operations over time.
Project 1: Crisfield, Maryland
Much of Crisfield sits at an elevation of three feet or less above sea level, making it susceptible to both tidal and rising water levels from the Chesapeake Bay. To address storm surges and chronic flooding, Crisfield submitted a coastal-resilience plan to FEMA combining constructed and reconstructed wetlands, tidal gates, berms, elevated roads and drainage upgrades.
The town won a $36 million grant from FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Program, or BRIC, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA supporting technical work and community engagement.
Crisfield’s capital stack included:
- Federal support (planning, technical assistance and proposed capital expenditures): FEMA BRIC grant, NOAA research, and community co-development
- State and academic partners: University of Maryland study integrating nature-based strategies into the project
- Local match and in-kind support: city planning, public meetings and local coordination
The FEMA BRIC grant was rescinded in April 2025 and Crisfield petitioned the federal government to reinstate their funding. A December 11, 2025, federal ruling by the US District Court of Massachusetts ordered the reinstatement of $200 million in already approved funding, including Crisfield’s award.
Through this ruling, 21 states, including Maryland, won a decisive judgment that FEMA’s termination of BRIC was unlawful and that the agency must restore the program and its grants to communities like Crisfield. Presuming the court order is honored, this decision will reopen the path for Crisfield’s mitigation project and similar efforts.
Despite this recent win, the Crisfield project’s reliance on FEMA funding has delayed the project significantly, and uncertainty remains. Other projects with more diversified funding were better positioned to navigate the disruption of federal funding cuts.
Project 2: South Baltimore, Maryland
South Baltimore’s Middle Branch Resiliency Initiative, or MBRI, is restoring more than 50 acres of tidal wetlands and 11 miles of degraded shoreline to reduce flooding, improve water quality and reconnect nearby neighborhoods with the waterfront.
The project layers federal, state, local and philanthropic funding with strong community engagement to create a resilient capital stack that spreads risk and builds long-term stewardship.
Importantly, its adaptive fallback strategy allows phases to be scaled back, slowed or rescoped as grants like FEMA’s BRIC funding pull back, ensuring progress can continue even amid funding uncertainty.
South Baltimore’s resilient capital stack included:
- Federal grants / appropriations: core funding from agencies such as FEMA and NOAA and federal resilience programs to cover large upfront capital costs
- State & trust fund grants: Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Trust Fund and Maryland state resilience grants as seed and matching capital
- Local contributions: Baltimore City providing funds, permitting and in-kind support, demonstrating local commitment
- Philanthropic & NGO support: foundations, South Baltimore Gateway Partnership, Parks and People, and others contributing funds, design, and community engagement
- Potential future revenue and co-benefit streams: opportunities for carbon credits, eco-tourism, habitat credits and recreation programming to sustain operations
- Community engagement: active stakeholder involvement ensures equity, political durability and long-term stewardship
This more robust capital stack has allowed MBRI to move forward, although at a reduced capacity, while the FEMA BRIC assistance has been in dispute.
Public vs. private capital
In the Crisfield project, public capital carries nearly all of the load. One major grant or one-off appropriation is expected to cover design, construction and early maintenance, with little plan for what happens when that money runs out. This approach can work for a pilot, but it creates long-term vulnerability because maintenance, monitoring and adaptive management lack a stable funding stream once the initial grant is spent.
The MBRI project uses public funds as a catalyst rather than the sole engine, pairing them with other forms of capital — such as low-cost loans, impact-driven investment, or dedicated local fees — to create a layered stack that can sustain the asset over its full lifecycle. Grants de-risk early stages, while repayable financing and modest revenue flows (for example, from stormwater fees, resilience districts or partner contributions) keep the shoreline functioning and adaptable for decades.
Grant dependence vs. diversified funding
A weaker capital stack concentrates most financial responsibility in a single pot of money and a single decision-maker. If that grant is delayed, reduced or clawed back, the project has no fallback. Contractors may pause work, community trust can erode, and design compromises may be made to fit shrinking budgets.
A stronger capital stack diversifies across several sources and institutions, so no single actor can derail the effort. Multiple funders also create more accountability and flexibility. For example, if construction costs rise, partners can adjust their contributions or sequence phases rather than cutting critical resilience features. This redundancy is core to funding resiliency.
Lifecycle resilience
Grant-heavy projects are optimized for getting built, not for staying effective under rising seas, more intense storms, or changing ecological conditions. Without earmarked resources for monitoring, adaptive management and reinvestment, the shoreline can degrade, losing protective value and ecological benefits while climate risks are increasing.
By contrast, a more resilient project plans for the full lifecycle of the asset, not just the ribbon-cutting. Its capital stack anticipates future upgrades and maintenance — often by tying a portion of local savings or avoided damages back into the project, or by embedding the shoreline in a broader resilience financing program that supports periodic reinvestment — so the shoreline is more likely to function as intended for decades.
Governance, partners and flexibility
In the Crisfield project, a single agency or department is responsible for securing funds and managing risk, with limited formal roles for community partners, philanthropy or private actors. That can streamline early decisions but often leaves the project politically exposed and short on champions when priorities shift or budgets tighten.
The stronger capital stack is built around a broader coalition, each bringing different resources and risk appetites. This shared ownership spreads financial and political risk: More actors are invested in keeping the project funded, maintained and aligned with evolving community needs, making it easier to pivot when climate conditions, regulations or funding cycles change.
Why funding resiliency matters for climate action
Ultimately, the difference between the two projects is not just how they are funded, but how well they are positioned to endure the volatility that defines the coastal future. A fragile capital stack may deliver a short-term win but leave communities exposed when the next storm or budget shortfall hits, while a resilient stack functions like an insurance policy, backstopping the asset with diversified, long-duration capital and a broader base of support.
For local governments and partners advancing climate action with limited resources, the lesson is clear. Designing for funding resiliency from the start — by blending grants, local revenues, philanthropy and impact capital — can be as important as engineering design in determining whether a living shoreline truly protects people and ecosystems over time.
Nick Gower is a senior vice president at HIP Investor.
Guest posts on ImpactAlpha represent the opinions of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of ImpactAlpha.
