Rural Northern Border Region Network Planning Program
One-year planning grants to build or strengthen rural healthcare networks serving HRSA-designated rural communities in Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont.
⚑ Applicants must be located in the Northern Border Region and serve qualifying HRSA-designated rural areas in Maine, New Hampshire, New York, or Vermont. · Eligibility is limited to domestic entities; foreign entities are not eligible.
Unit fits — one characterization, each unit's own rules
| IPPRA | 40 partial | portfolio topic: public_health (primary); signature methods: community engaged, policy analysis; social/behavioral work is minor; funds technical assistance, not research (capped); capped at 40 (non-research funding) |
| Physical Sciences & Engineering (demo) | 25 weak | technical depth: minor; funds technical assistance (capped) |
| Tom Love Innovation Hub | 10 none | deep-tech content; no commercialization signal |
Description
The Rural Northern Border Region Network Planning (RNBR-NP) Program provides one-year funding to build new or strengthen existing healthcare networks in the Northern Border Region. RNBR-NP uses network development as a strategy for linking rural health care stakeholders together for greater collective capacity to overcome local challenges, expand access, and improve the quality of care in the rural communities these organizations serve.
Eligibility
Eligible applicants include domestic public or private, non-profit or for-profit entities including domestic faith-based and community-based organizations, tribes and tribal organizations located in the Northern Border Region and serving qualifying HRSA-designated rural areas within the four Northern Border Regional Commission member States: Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont. The applicant organization must have demonstrated experience serving, or capacity to serve, underserved populations in rural areas. Eligible applicants also include Federal Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and Community Health Centers, Rural Health Clinics (RHCs), Hospitals and Rural Emergency Hospitals.For the purposes of the notice,"Domestic" means the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau.
Apply
View on Grants.gov → CONTACT: Health Resources and Services Administration <cdarnell@hrsa.gov>
Proposal brief SEE AN EXAMPLE →
A one-page internal memo: fit assessment, submission requirements, document scaffold, and next steps dated back from the deadline — tailored to your project idea if you add one.
Proposal shell · HHS services agencies (SAMHSA / HRSA / CDC / ACF) conventions SEE AN HHS EXAMPLE →
Funder-faithful document skeletons — HHS services agencies (SAMHSA / HRSA / CDC / ACF)'s document set with section headings, page limits, reviewer guidance, and writing prompts; add a project idea to get [DRAFT] starter bullets. Download as .md for Word or Overleaf.
Legacy IPPRA LLM assessment (v2.0, for comparison)
25/100 · gpt-5.4-mini · 2026-07-06
This is a rural health network planning grant focused on expanding access to care and improving health system capacity, which is adjacent to IPPRA’s health-related work but is primarily service/network development rather than research. There is no clear survey, evaluation, or policy-research component named in the opportunity, so the fit is limited for a research institute. Public universities appear eligible as domestic nonprofit entities only if they can demonstrate the required rural/underserved health experience, but the program is not clearly designed for research leadership.
Legacy scoring history
| 2026-07-06 | 25 | gpt-5.4-mini | This is a rural health network planning grant focused on expanding access to care and improving health system capacity, which is adjacent to IPPRA’s health-related work but is primarily service/network development rather than research. There is no clear survey, evaluation, or policy-research component named in the opportunity, so the fit is limited for a research institute. Public universities appear eligible as domestic nonprofit entities only if they can demonstrate the required rural/underserved health experience, but the program is not clearly designed for research leadership. |
| 2026-07-06 | 25 | gpt-5.4-mini | This is a rural health network-planning grant focused on access to care, coordination among healthcare stakeholders, and improving service delivery. IPPRA’s strongest alignment would be indirect, through community health data, program evaluation, or health communication rather than a central research or policy role. Public universities appear eligible as domestic nonprofits if they can demonstrate relevant capacity, so eligibility does not cap the score below 19. |