NFPA Project Grant Application

The National Fluid Power Association (NFPA) is a trade association focused on strengthening the hydraulics and pneumatics industry. With more than 300 fluid power manufacturers, distributors, and suppliers in its membership, the NFPA works to advance fluid power education, technology and the industry as a whole.

In a biennial survey, members of NFPA consistently rank the recruitment of a skilled workforce as one of the most challenging issues their companies face. This is likely because not enough schools are teaching hydraulics and pneumatics, nor preparing their students for careers in the fluid power industry. As a result, NFPA seeks to increase the number of students educated in fluid power, and to connect them to jobs in our industry.

The NFPA Education and Technology Foundation is a tax-exempt, charitable organization, affiliated with NFPA, that is dedicated to meeting this workforce development need.

This grant award aims to create cost-effective, replicable, and easy to implement projects for students at the high school and early college grade levels. The primary goal is to develop and pilot the full scope of the project by finalizing the BOM, lesson plans, and creating documented, tested curriculum for NFPA to publish publicly and share with other schools to use. NFPA may be able to help source an industry mentor to provide guidance.

Preference will be given to applicants whose final project is replicable and supports a lab class of about 10-15 students with the estimated cost of the final project to be less than $500 for high school and $2,000 per university class and those that show alignment with curriculum standards applicable at your school, or accrediting body. The grant award can be more than those limits to defray the costs of developing the lesson plans and testing the project. Project ideas have been identified and validated by industry so applicants would choose one of the existing NFPA project templates. Awards will be disbursed to educational institutions or eligible community organizations.

Questions and inquiries can be directed to:

Stephanie Scaccianoce

[email protected]

VP, Workforce Development

National Fluid Power Association