A Non-profit to bring Expert Solutions for your Community to Build and Maintain Natural Hazard Resilience

Watershed Resilience Grants Group (WRGG) is one of the first non-profits providing professional services support for the development, funding, and management of natural hazard mitigation projects for state and local jurisdiction, tribes, and other non-profits, regardless of ability to pay. At WRGG, we are a collective of professionals dedicated to building resiliency to natural hazards in EVERY community, including those that are most economic and socially vulnerable. We bring decades of knowledge and experience in project development and management. Our extensive backgrounds allow us to work efficiently and effectively with your community to build sustainable and cost-effective natural hazard resilience projects for potential funding.

Our Mission:

WRGG’s mission is to provide professional guidance and support to jurisdictions, organizations, and tribes to identify, develop, acquire funding, and manage natural hazard mitigation projects to build and support sustainable community resilience, regardless of ability to pay.

Our Services

Project and Application Development

We will provide your community with our expert analysis and strategic guidance in order to develop cost effective natural hazard mitigation projects. With the right projects in place, we will build your funding application to include all criteria outlined in the funding notice. We will then support the submission of the application using the system of record.

Project types include:

  • Flood Mitigation

    • Structural Elevation

    • Property Acquisition

  • Wildfire Defensible Space

  • Infrastructure Retrofits (Bridges, Buildings, Roads, Electrical Grid)

  • Riverine Bank Stabilization

Grant and Project Management

Our professionals will work with your community and all associated stakeholders from project implementation to the start of closeout to manage all funding requirements. As well as meeting all of the funding requirements, given that we have had decades of experience managing these projects, we will support the community with any or all project management needs so that each project is completed within budget and on time.

General Requirements and Services:

  • Completing all award document requirements

  • Software support (Geographic Information Systems)

  • Site Visits

  • Project and Financial Reporting

  • Environmental and Historical Preservation (EHP) Requirements

  • Required property documentation

Closeout

The staff at WRGG will provide your community with expert guidance to finalize the completion of the awarded project. We have decades of closeout experience that will allow its completion without unnecessary efforts and in a timely manner.

Closeout Services Include:

  • Site Visits/Final Inspections

  • Scope Completion Documentation

  • Financial Reconciliation including submittion of the final performance report (quarterly report) and final Federal Financial Report (FFR)

  • Environmental and Historical Preservation (EHP) requirements/documentation

  • Documentation that required certifications from engineers, architects, local officials, or others

About
our President

Let me introduce myself, I am Fred Kunchick, but I go by “Sonny”. I have almost two decades of experience, from being a Hazard Mitigation Specialist at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to a Senior Executive at a large Grants Management Firm managing Mitigation Teams. I have spent my career working at the local, state, and federal government levels to ensure that communities understand and address their vulnerabilities to natural hazards and the associated risks to the communities’ physical, social, and economic well-being before, during, and after a disaster and finding solutions to mitigate those hazards and risks.

My experience includes managing smaller mitigation projects as well as multi-million dollar large infrastructure projects to states, tribes, and non-profits. My expertise is working on or supporting staff that are working on Mitigation Grant Projects through their whole lifecycle from project development, application submissions, successfully acquiring funding, project implementation and management, and lastly closeout (Financial/Programmatic) of the projects. Additionally, I leverage my extensive understanding of Hazard Mitigation policies, Code of Federal Regulations, procedures, and guidance as well as project management expertise to support my clients’ in reaching the final goal, reducing future natural hazard impacts.

Before working in the Private Sector, I worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) serving as the Point of Contact for Non-Disaster and Disaster Funded Hazard Mitigation Assistance (HMA) Grant Programs (HMGP, BRIC, PDM, and FMA) to the State’s of Washington and Alaska, as well as multiple Tribal Nations. With almost two decades of experience working within the FEMA Mitigation Grant programs, I have developed, applied for, and managed 100s of mitigation projects that total over half a billion dollars, as well as deployed to over 50 Federally Declared Disasters around the country in different capacities.

Since leaving Private Sector Executive positions at larger firms, I have been contracting with organizations to support the development of actionable mitigation projects. It is my goal that ALL communities have the resources to compete for mitigation grant funds, that means that every component of a project application is thoroughly documented, and the mitigation project is submitted to grant funding opportunities with the highest likelihood of being selected for award. Over 90% of the mitigation projects that I have been a part of developing and submitting have been Selected for Further Review or for funding.

It would be my privilege to offer our services to support you in building continued resilience in your community.