FY 2023 Office of Justice Programs Community-Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative

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DARYL FOX: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, “FY 2023 Office of Justice Programs Community-Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative,” hosted by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. At this time, it's my pleasure to introduce Kathy Browning, Senior Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance for some welcoming remarks and to begin the presentation. Kathy?
KATHY BROWNING: Thank you, Daryl, and good afternoon, everyone. As Daryl said, my name is Kathy Browning and I work at BJA. And I'd like to welcome all of you to this webinar for the FY 23 OJP Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative Solicitation. If you have a copy of the solicitation handy, you might want to pull it out to take notes. Go to the next slide.
Today, I'm joined by a number of my OJP colleagues who are collaborating with BJA on this initiative, as well as on the solicitation. You'll get a chance to hear from each of them today. So, the next slide.
However, one of my colleagues, Eddie Bocanegra, Senior Advisor in the Office of the Assistant Attorney General, is not able to join us live today, so he recorded a message for you all. Daryl, can you play this?
EDDIE BOCANEGRA: Hello, everyone. I'd like to start by expressing my gratitude for all those who are listening in and for all those, day in and day out, trying to make our communities healthier, vibrant, and safe through healing, collaboration, and hard work. We see you. Today's webinar is in our 2023 CVIPI Solicitation. And here at OJP, we have been excited about this next wave of funding for a million reasons, with the most important one being helping to reduce incidents of violence in our community.
Our first solicitation last year resulted in funding for 47 site-based awards, three intermediary groups providing funding, and TTA to smaller local CVI programs, and three TTA awards, funded in part to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. These marked the historic investment in community violence intervention programs from Department of Justice. This issue continues to be a key priority of the department. This past February, we held our first conference for CVIPI grantees, where current, previous, and subject experts were invited to attend the conference in our efforts to join you in continuing to build a community of healers. The energy of the conference was inspiring as it was an opportunity for people who have been doing this work for so long to come together, to learn from each other, and to motivate one another. It also provided an opportunity for our guests in the field to hear directly from key leadership that included Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Amy Solomon, Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, and the Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland. The overall message, CVI is a priority. The work that you do is important.
This year, we're excited to have another $100,000,000 for CVIPI awards. You'll notice we added a new category for state this year. As we know, they played an important part in building CVI infrastructure and supporting CVI strategies. We have also taken proactive steps to increase the pool of peer reviewers, particularly for those who have much better understanding of these issues. We have visited several CVI programs and engaged other stakeholders who might not have had access to DOJ. We did a five-part webinar series on the various elements of CVI to help inform current and future grantees, including having other federal partners discussing their resources to support CVIPI programs. In addition to CVIPI, the Department is prioritizing CVIPI strategies under other funding opportunities, including BJA's Smart Policing Initiatives and the Byrne JAG program. These are just some examples and we know there's still work to do. Lastly, on April 7th, we'll be hosting our second webinar on OJP's Capacity Building Series. We provide strategies and information to assist applicants, like you, on how to best leverage your community expertise to receive priority consideration. I look forward to seeing you there. Thank you.
KATHY BROWNING: Thank you, Daryl. Can we go to the next slide?
Hi. So, I'd like to start with a very brief guide to what OJP looks like, for some of you might be new to this Office, and a little bit about what the alphabet soup stands for. So OJP provides grant funding, training, research, and statistics to the criminal justice community. You'll see underneath there, there are six different components of OJP as the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Institute of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the SMART Office. All right. Next slide.
Now I'm going to dive into the solicitation. The CVI initiative provides funding to reduce violent crime by supporting comprehensive violence intervention and prevention programs that involve partnerships between residents, local government, victim service providers, community-based organizations, or CBOs, researchers, and other community stakeholders. Next slide.
As I mentioned earlier, this initiative is a collaboration of several of the components of OJP, including BJA, OJJDP, OVC, and NIJ, all of whom are participating in this webinar. And the involvement of all of these individuals allows us to ensure that we're including a focus on victims and juvenile justice system issues, as well as supporting important research on effective practices.
So there are four principles that guide us in this work. First, we're focusing on targeted intervention that support the highest need group and the highest risk group as opposed to the at-risk groups more generally. These approaches are community-centered and equity-focused. Involvement of the community that is being served is critical in this work. Integration with public safety and public health, this is a multidisciplinary approach to violence reduction, and it reaches across a range of services, including law enforcement as well as public health agencies. It's also strategic and data-driven. So we encourage, as part of these projects, to do strategic planning to identify the CVI approaches that are the best fit for your community and partnerships with researchers to help determine what's working and what needs to be changed or modified. Next slide.
As Eddie mentioned, have been a couple changes to the solicitation, so for those of you who are familiar with last year's solicitation, pay close attention here because it's a little bit different. We have reduced the number of categories, plus we've added a new one. So you'll see Category 1 this year is for community-based and Tribal organizations. So these are four awards up to $2,000,000 each. The second category will focus on applicants from city and county and Tribal government. So, hopefully all of these have partnerships across the range, but this is who the applicant is. For Category 3, this is the new category for state government, so we're looking for a state government application. And these will be up to $4,000,000 each. And then the fourth category is for capacity building, where we will be funding intermediary organizations to make smaller awards to local agencies that often aren't able to get federal funds or haven't had access to them. These are up to $4,000,000 each. Now, one thing I did want to just point out is that, as we say in here, up to $2,000,000, up to $4,000,000, we know that some of the areas might be smaller and not need all of this money. We ask that you apply for what you need within that framework there, so just a little chip up front on that. So this time, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague at BJA, Tenzing Lahdon.
TENZING LAHDON: Thank you, Kathy. I am Tenzing Lahdon, Senior Policy Advisor with BJA. And I'm going to be focusing on Category 1 and 2. And we are really looking for applications that plan to develop, implement, expand, or enhance comprehensive strategies in their community. Category 1 focuses on community-based organizations or Tribal organizations. And Category 2 focuses on city, county, and Tribal government. And with any community-based or community-led effort, you can be at any stage of readiness for implementation. You can be at a planning, or implementation stage, or you could be really further along in your approach towards the community violence intervention strategy. We want to meet you where you are, recognize and lift your work, and provide resources to support implementation, expansion, or enhancing the reach of your existing services.
So, multidisciplinary team plays an important role in approaching the issue in a comprehensive manner, that individualized feedback from different stakeholders. Stakeholders reflect the needs and resources of the community in which it is developed. So you might already have a multidisciplinary team of stakeholders in place, or maybe you want to review and assess your current stakeholders, or maybe you want to expand the team or create a new formal working group, committee or collaboration. So please make sure that your project design proposes to undertake the work through a multidisciplinary team of stakeholders. Next slide, please.
So, some examples of stakeholders on the team may include, but are not limited to, CVI service providers, county/local public sector leadership, community-based organizations, court personnel. And there are a lot of examples that are listed on your screen. So, I would say the multidisciplinary team should plan to meet regularly throughout the project period to guide and inform the planning and implementation processes. So, please make sure to include a separate attachment titled CVI Team, which includes the list of your multidisciplinary team members and name of their agency. And if you already have a Memorandum of Understanding or Memorandum of Agreements with stakeholders, feel free to include them as an attachment to your application. Also, please plan to incorporate voices of survivors of community violence in your proposed approach. Next slide, please.
One of the things that I think is really important to note is that the proposed CVI program is grounded in an understanding of what is driving the violence in community. And they should be informed by data and community input as well as feedback from those who have experienced the violence or are at risk of violence. Hence, the successful applicants or an award recipient will engage in an initial planning process of up to nine months by engaging stakeholders, including researchers, to use the data and the information to design and refine approaches to addressing community violence that are based on evidence or test a theory of change. The multidisciplinary stakeholder team will develop and enhance a community-specific comprehensive Violence Reduction Strategic Plan that is informed by local data. And, you might have an existing strategic plan so you can review that, too. So we do encourage you, and by that I mean require you to collaborate with research partners to assist with conducting a community violence assessment to determine where and why the violence is occurring and to assess current gaps and barriers that may exist. It is expected that a research partner will be an active member of the working group and employ an action research method to implement the program and its strategies. Identify and suggest evidence-based strategies that is tailored to the community and leading the identification and collection of key performance matrix to include ongoing process and outcome assessments. So, if you do not submit that completed documentation, such as Letter of Commitment, Memorandum of Understanding, that demonstrates the structure and the partners to the community collaboration piece, as well as who will be responsible for implementing what aspect of the project design, you'll be required to submit that within the six months of the award. So before we move to next slide, there is a BJA CVI Implementation Checklist. It is referenced in the solicitation. It is a good resource to inform planning and implementation of your program. Next slide, please.
So, award recipients from the Category 1 and 2 will be expected to work with and receive training and technical assistance from OJP-funded TTA provider. Our current PTA provider, community-based public safety collective, will be working directly with funded project sites. And we also have two other TTA providers, LISC and Heartland Alliance, that they will provide CVI TTA resources and support the field. As for evaluation, we strongly encourage applicants to participate in a rigorous evaluation of their CVI strategies. We encourage applicants to applying under categories 1 and 2 to also participate in NIJ evaluation piece. And Jen from NIJ, she will be talking about that towards the end of this session. It is important that you think about that piece for Category 1 and 2 as OJP will prioritize funding applications that also submit a paired proposal in response to the NIJ solicitation. So if you are planning to submit an application that is paired proposal in NIJ solicitation, please clearly indicate that in the Proposal Abstract and provide the name of your research partner that you will be working with. If the same entity or individual is to carry out the roles of research partner and evaluator under the NIJ solicitation, then you must budget separately for the roles in respective application and clearly describe the methods for distinguishing these roles and maintaining objectivity and independence in the evaluation process. Next slide, please.
So, page two and three of the solicitation includes eligibility criteria. For Category 1, the focus is on community-based and/or Tribal organization, so eligibility is limited to nonprofits, for-profits, Native American and Alaskan Native travel organization. And this is a tip for any solicitation, eligibility is the first thing that you want to check because we would hate for you to have put a lot of effort into an application only to find out that you are not eligible to apply for the solicitation. So really encourage you to for any kind of solicitation to look at the eligibility requirement first. Next slide, please.
Category 2 is geared towards city, county, tribal governments. And these are limited to the following type of organizations. City, township government, county government, Native American, Alaska Native tribal governments, Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Regional Corporations, special district governments, public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, and independent school district. Next slide, please.
So, deliverables for Category 1 and 2 are listed on page 18 on the solicitation. You will need to submit a full list of active working group members, as well as Letter of Commitment or MOU and should be submitted within the first six months of the date of the award. You will also be required to develop or enhance existing community-specific Violence Reduction Strategic Plan that's informed by available data, existing plans that could be used as a guide for the project. Real participation in efforts to assess, evaluate, and translate learning from the program to the field to advance the knowledge and support peer learning. Examples include participation and presentation at actual conference. It could be web-based presentation, partnership engagement, or podcasts. So these are something that these can be something that is organized by OJP-funded training and technical assistance provider or OJP. This is not an exhaustive list, but it gives you a sense of the type of interfaces that we may ask successful applicants to engage in as we help promote the strategies and opportunities to address community violence. Next slide, please.
Documentation for a particular strategy that is data-driven, evidence informed, community-led and trauma-informed. These four are fundamental to success and are emblematic, probably not saying it correctly, of a true CVI strategy. And so the final report summarizing the activities of the program, including successes, lesson learned, and future plans are due within 90 days of the program end date and if you have a research partner it's expected that their programmatic process and outcome finding be integrated into the final report. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, Sharron, at OVC. She will be covering Category 3 and 4.
SHARRON FLETCHER: Okay. Thank you, Tenzing. Good afternoon, everyone, or hello because I know some people might be earlier in the day, so it's great to see everybody. So as Tenzing mentioned, I'm Sharron Fletcher. I'm in the Office for Victims of Crime. And I'm going to take a few moments to go over our Category 3 and 4 solicitation categories today and I want to make sure that we understand that these category 3 and 4 are both going to be still focused and highlighting those solicitation priorities that were outlined earlier in this presentation, around targeting violence and evictions, and supports for highest-need groups. Having a community-centered and equity-focused approach, as well as integration with public safety and public health. And also funding and looking for strategic data-driven and performance focus strategies.
So, starting with Category 3, CVIP for State Governments. This category will support state government agencies and coordinate and support local-level CVI strategies with subawards across multiple communities in one or more jurisdictions within that state. So this category is really going to be looking for applications that are focused on statewide approaches to providing some subaward that will then support CVI approaches at the local level. So, they're going to be passing that money through essentially. So these applications may propose to either one, develop, and implement new state-level strategies, which should support CVI implementation at the local level or they can expand or enhance the reach of their existing state level strategies to support CVI implementation at the local level. So I know I've heard there are several states that are doing statewide approaches to credible methods and street outreach approaches, as well as some states that have provided funding to do statewide projects that are supporting hospital-based approaches. So we know there's some existing strategies that are being used there. So this is the space where we'll be able to either, again, develop some new statewide strategies or enhance those existing strategies that you know are working in your community.
So applicants in Category 3 should propose, of course, a multidisciplinary team of stakeholders, as was mentioned previously. So those stakeholders could be unique to your state and come from a variety of areas. So, that would include your CVI service providers, county and local leadership, community-based organizations, juvenile justice professionals, law enforcement, of course, victim advocates and service providers, mental health services, your local researchers and other school administrators, so just an array of partners that we know are supporting your efforts on the ground. And so, again, this is another category that is asking that applicants include an attachment that's labeled CVIPI Team that lists team participants’ names as well as the names of their agencies. Applicants should also describe the process that their state will choose those—and select those local level programs that will receive the subawards. And that process should include a timeline, funding ranges for the subawards, and a process, of course, for monitoring those subawards after they're made. Award recipients, as we mentioned previously for the other categories, these award recipients will also be able to access the TTA from the OJP-funded TTA providers with LISC, Heartland Alliance, and The Collective, and they’ll be able to access that TTA provider for their subrecipient as well as their overall project. Your application should also discuss your plan for identifying TTA needs of the programs that are funded via subawards. And that plan should indicate any other resources that you plan to dedicate to support those projects. Next slide, please.
So because Category 3 has a very simple eligibility, it's our state government agency since we are focused specifically on statewide efforts. So again, state government agencies are those that are eligible for Category 3. Next slide, please.
So just to walk through the deliverables, if anyone is following along on in the solicitation, I believe this starts at the bottom of page 17. Deliverables for Category 3 include developing and implementing that process for assessing and addressing gaps in local government and CBOs' capacity to implement CVI projects. So as was mentioned previously, again, we are really trying to list up strategies that are using some assessments to provide indicators of what's driving the violence in the state, as well as assessment of existing efforts and gaps in resources to meet those needs, as well as engaging a strategic planning to identify community safety priorities. And the focus of both of these efforts are, of course, to make sure that we are being thoughtful in what approaches we are putting together to address the violence in our communities and track that down and using that data-driven approach to make sure we are being effective in our response to violence.
Other deliverables for Category 3 include supporting the local implementation of the CVI strategies through the subawards. And, of course, there's a requirement that you submit a final report and the elements of those reports, of course, would include a clear summary description of the strategies that were implemented and supported by those subrecipients. And I should mention that those subrecipients, of course, will be required to submit to those intermediary agencies, the state government agency kind of reports as well. So a lot of this information will be gleaned from the subrecipients' final reports and then report it up to OJP. But that final report will also cover an assessment of the programmatic violence reduction or capacity enhancement outcomes. It should identify promising practices and should also identify common themes that emerge from across those CVI strategies funded in subawards. And a key point, of course, is sharing out those lessons learned and very importantly, those challenges encountered so that we can learn from those in future iterations, as well as recommendations for future CVI program development. Next slide, please.
So our Category 4 is CVI Capacity Building Category. So this category is similar to the state space, but is instead is targeting organizations that are serving as fiscal agents that will then provide those subawards. So, through this category, OJP is looking for to identify at least five intermediary organizations that will serve as fiscal agents that will then identify and provide TTA oversight and subawards to up to five community-based organizations, or CBOs, over the course of the project period. So those intermediary organizations, again, not state level, but state government agencies, but they should be national, regional, or more localized organizations that have established capacity to work with CBOs, and particularly those focused on underserved communities. And so we're open to a range of models that can be used by these intermediary organizations serving as fiscal agents. They could be CBO-focused in a particular city, region, or have a broader national scope. And the approach is...
SHARRON FLETCHER: …my audio still working?
DARYL FOX: Yes. Sorry about that, Sharron. That issue has been taken care of.
SHARRON FLETCHER: I wasn't sure if that was me or something else. All right. Sorry, guys. But moving on. So the approaches that are put in place by these intermediary organizations to fund the subawards should seek to build capacities that can be sustained by the local or regional partners at the end of the project. So, we do anticipate that the intermediary organizations will compare to the award those subawards in collaboration, of course, with OJP, as well as provide TTA to support the selected CBOs implementing the new CVI programs and existing programs.
Subawards are expected to range between $100,000 and $250,000. So subawards are expected to range between $100,000 to $250,000 and, again, we do anticipate that the CBO will be using this money to increase their capacity and workforce development in support of CVI interventions. So there's a range of methods that might go into doing that. So that would include offering support through these subawards to CBOs that may cover salary, support equipment, materials, training opportunities, and travel costs associated with training with technical assistance. Funds can also be used to develop curriculum assessment tools or organizational policies and procedures, such as wellness plan, to support your CVI staff because we know that this is pretty hard work that we're doing. So, we want to make sure that we are being very thoughtful and intentional in creating healthy workplaces that have healthy staff to go out and do this hard work. Next slide, please.
Eligibility for Category 4 includes public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, as well as private institutions of higher education, nonprofits that do or do not have 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, and also for-profit organizations, which would also include small businesses. Next slide.
So our deliverables for Category 4, which I believe are outlined in page 18 of the solicitation. So, each of these grantees should be—not grantees, applicants should include in your proposals how you address these deliverables. And so that will include assessing the gaps in the CBOs' capacity to implement CVI projects. And so the CBOs reflected in this deliverable are those that will be receiving those subawards. We also anticipate that you'll be able to show us how you plan to develop in collaboration with OJP, that solicitation or request for proposals with agreed-upon selection criteria to identify those subawards. We anticipate that you'll also be able to develop and host, again, in collaboration with OJP, a pre-application solicitation webinar, much like the one we are on right now for potential applicants of those subawards. And then we also would like to make sure that you're giving us some good information and detail for how you're going to conduct that selection process for subawards in collaboration with and approval from BJA to identify the subrecipient sites as part of the process. And that process should ensure that each of the CBOs meet the following criteria. So those CBOs should be able to identify at least one CVI strategy, that it should plan to initiate or is already operating in the jurisdiction. It should also clearly identify the resources needed to support that strategy and build their capacity to address their violence issues and reduce violence. And then it should also demonstrate their capacity and willingness to work collaboratively with the TTA provider. Next slide, please.
So, the final set of deliverables for Category 4 are these—here are actually reflected— reflecting requirements after the subawards are made. So from there, we do anticipate that you'll be able to conduct meetings with subrecipient CBOs on a periodic basis to memorialize the proceedings and, I'm sorry, and memorialize the proceedings with meeting notes, transcripts of recordings. So, you'll be able to have a note and keep track and record of what you're doing so that we can mark our progress and learn. We anticipate that applicants would be able to complete Capacity Needs Assessments for each participating CBO and work with those organizations to prepare some capacity development plan. In some spaces, I have heard them refer to this as the TTA plan, but really being thoughtful in thinking about the needs of those organizations, what resources we have to bear to address those needs and putting together a solid plan on how we are going to address those. And so that capacity development plan is guiding, of course, that TTA provided by the intermediary organization, and should be reviewed and updated as necessary during the project period.
And then lastly, we do anticipate that they will be conducting some regional and topical meetings across sites on common issue areas. And these meetings should include subject matter experts and materials from DOJ programs and initiatives, including but not limited to, of course, my office, OVC, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the Bureau of Justice Assistance and our related programs that we are all working with to support violence intervention efforts. Next slide, please.
So that said, I will move to talk about the priority considerations that are covered for all of our categories. So, that's for all four categories that these considerations come into play. The first two are related to our executive order 13985 on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. So there are two categories where you may claim priority consideration. The first here is applications that include projects that will promote racial equity and removal of barriers to access and opportunity for communities that have been historically underserved, marginalized, and adversely affected by inequality when making award decisions. So, to claim this specific priority consideration, we do ask that applicants specifically address and identify that they want to expressly claim this priority consideration and have some narrative in their program narrative and/or program abstract that explains how they support this effort and how their projects are promoting racial equity and removal of barriers to access for these communities.
The second piece under the executive order 13985, where applicants may claim priority consideration, are those applicants that are able to demonstrate that their Capabilities and Competencies for implementing their projects are enhanced because they, or one of their subrecipients or partners, are a culturally specific organization that will receive at least 40% of the requested award funding, as demonstrated in the budget, meaning the budget must clearly show that the organization that claims that that is identified as a culturally specific organization is receiving 40% of the funding. And again, that one, to claim that prior to consideration, you must have that clearly identified in your application budget and, again, identify that in your program narrative and program abstract. Other areas of priority consideration for all of our categories include applications from communities with documented high or increased levels of homicides per capita. And those applicants, again, should include documentation in your Proposal Narrative to support that. Another area of priority consideration are applicants that demonstrate existing partnerships with multidisciplinary team stakeholder members through Letters of Commitment or Memorandums of Understanding, and those applicants will receive priority consideration and should include their Letters of Commitment, or their MOU, as an attachment that is clearly labeled CVIPI team with the names of the participants on the team and the names of their agencies, as well as what those Letters of Commitment and MOU might cover as far as any program considerations and collaborations between agencies.
And lastly, the last priority consideration shall cover for all categories are applicants that propose a companion evaluation application under the NIJ solicitation that is also now open for funding, and that NIJ solicitation of funding, evaluation and research activities of our CVIPI project. So one last note, of course, is that I just want to make clear that even though advocates may address these priority areas, these priority consideration areas are only one of the many factors that OJP considers when making funding decisions. So receiving your priority consideration for one of my prior years does not guarantee an award. So with that, I will pass it off to my colleague, Scott.
SCOTT PESTRIDGE: So as Sharon and Tenzing pointed out, the strategies really may look very different from one community to another. And frankly, they should, based on the need and the resources available. My name is Scott Pestridge. I'm a Senior Program Manager with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Just going to walk through a couple of things. Additional resources are enumerated in the solicitation. They're really called from these four principles that Kathy talked about earlier around targeted intervention supports for the highest need group, community-centered, equity-focus, integration with public safety, public health, and strategic data-driven and performance-focused. These resources are not all inclusive, but they're emblematic of resources that you may find helpful as you stand up CVI Strategies. Probably the most seminal resource listed is this Bureau of Justice Assistance Community Violence Intervention microsite that has a community CVI Checklist, principles, glossary, strategies, some great resources, webinars, that sort of thing. It's good information should you have the time to dig deep. But I know you're going to be digging pretty deep in terms of responding to this pretty in-depth and comprehensive solicitation. CrimeSolutions is another great resource that uses rigorous research to inform practitioners and policymakers. You might want to look at that. BCJI program focuses on data-driven, comprehensive, community-led strategies. There's a great link there. Next slide.
I'm just trying to be mindful of time. Youth.gov is a great overarching government-wide site that we all contribute to. There's a National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention. Included in there that you might want to take a look at is the 2016 Final Report, may be of interest to you. It may speak to a particular community you may be representing, may have some import. The OJJDP Model Programs Guide is somewhat contained within the CrimeSolutions, but it really is focused on specifically evidence-based juvenile justice and youth prevention intervention, and reentry programs, and strategies. Our National Gang Center is OJJDP's National Gang Center. It's a good resource. It also includes information on our Comprehensive Gang Model, which focuses on a lot of community-led organizational development social, intervention type activities that are very much in line with CBI strategies. Next slide.
So, Model Standards for Serving Victims and Survivors of Crime is an excellent resource, as well as the Vicarious Trauma Toolkit. Their links embedded here. There are several trauma links that added into this, which we appreciate. Some great tools for the field. So do take a look at that and familiarize yourself with it. Next slide.
So, I would want to talk for a minute about what an application should include. Of course your Project Narrative that includes the Description of the Issue, your Design and Implementation, Capabilities and Competencies, and your Plan for Collecting Data. It also must include an abstract. It's no more than 400 words. That is a required component that you submit that. And as well as a Budget Worksheet and Budget Narrative. It's a web-based form, so it's something that's input directly into JustGrants. It may be a little convoluted-seeming at first, but I think it's pretty straightforward once you kind of dig into it. Next slide.
Additional Application Components. I'm going to just spend a minute on that. Timeline is one, where really you should submit an attachment that has a realistic timeline with milestone charts, and talks about major tasks associated with goals and objectives. And, assigns responsibility for each, and plots completion of a task by a month or quarter. Understanding this is a roadmap. In some ways, this is your goal, right? And it could shift based on if you happen to be a successful applicant. And you might hit some stumbling blocks as you come down. But put your best effort into what you think is a realistic timeline in terms of implementing your goals and objectives as outlined in your response to the solicitation. For Documentation of Subrecipients, indicate those clearly, the subrecipients, including the name, organizational affiliation, city and state, and any key activities that they are to endeavor as part of your overall program model, and this should be submitted as an attachment in JustGrants.
So, your team, your CVIPI Team should be submitted, that was outlined earlier by Sharron. Memorandums of Understanding, Letters of Support, other supporting documentations. Documentations should all be included. In terms of your Capabilities and Competencies, if you have, previous activities that you have endeavored in terms of past experience, and planning, and team structure, you want to enumerate that in your response as well. An organizational chart should also be included. Next slide.
So, a Tribal Authorizing Resolution, it may require it that you include that as an attachment if you have a Tribal Authorizing Resolution. If applicable, you will submit that document by uploading it is an attachment. For Research and Evaluation, independence, and integrity, if you're proposing research and/or evaluation, you have to demonstrate its independence and integrity, also include appropriate safeguards before it could receive award funds. And that should be included as an attachment in JustGrants as well. And all of these disclosures and assurances listed are application components that you need to address, lobbying activities, disclosure of duplication of costs, basically saying that you're not applying for any of this under any other initiatives, and you're not duplicating any sort of effort that's already funded. There's Standard Assurances you have to sign and there's links to all of this in the solicitation, but these are important components regarding the lobbying, especially, all of them really. And making sure that if you are considered a high-risk grant by DOJ and you're currently a grantee, there has to be a disclosure and justification. So next slide.
Real quick, I just want to talk about your Basic Minimum Requirements. So the Project Abstract, that's that 400-word document is a requirement. So meaning that if you went through all this trouble and you did all these other things but you failed to submit a Proposal Abstract, you would be removed from consideration for a competitive process. So, you would never get past go, if you will. It happened. So please take the time to really pull together a concise 400-word Proposal Abstract included as an attachment because it's a necessary, not sufficient, but a necessary condition for you to be reviewed as a competitive submitter under this solicitation.
The Proposal Narrative and the Budget Worksheet, which is that web-based form that includes budget details in the Budget Narrative, as well as the timeline. Those elements are necessary for you to pass go, if you will. Next slide.
So, I just want to talk for one second about the Review Process and then I'm going to turn it over to my colleague. So the applications are reviewed to ensure that they meet those minimum requirements that we just talked about, those elements, the four elements, and that they're included. And if they include those, they're moved forward to peer review. If they're not, they're excluded from peer review. And that's not great. So I believe everyone on this call is going to focus on those four elements. The peer review is a panel of three external subject matter experts that review, convene, come together, and then there's scores that are presented to a Bureau Justice Assistance program representative who provides the scoring results to the director of BJA with recommendations for funding. And then that final decision is made by BJA Director and that's the process in a nutshell. There's a couple, just two last words on the next slide, and then I'm going to turn it over. The next slide.
So, the deadline. This is probably one of the most important things you got to keep track of, is that there's a dual reality in terms of deadlines. There's this Grants.gov deadline of May 18th where you're required to go in prior to May 18th at 8:59 PM Eastern Time, and you have to submit an SF-424, which is that application for federal assistance. That's your cover page. It's pretty basic information about who you are as an organization, and it also includes your lobbying disclosure form. If you fail to submit those two things as part of your Grants.gov deadline, everything stops. There's no ability for you to submit a full application on May 25th. So I would encourage each of you to go into Grants.gov in the next week or so, get that piece done, because if you encounter an issue, you'll have plenty of time to figure out how to rectify that issue. You just don't want to be last minute, going into that, getting locked out, and then having an inability to submit what may be of nearly complete application, but it will not be reviewed if you fail to meet the May 18th deadline. So again, the May 18th deadline is a necessary but not sufficient condition for you to be able to successfully submit. Hopefully, that's helpful. So keep track of those deadlines. With that, I'll turn it over to Curtis Cannon, my colleague in OJJDP.
CURTIS CANNON: Thank you, Scott. And good afternoon to all you for joining us today. Again, my name is Curtis Cannon. I'm a Program Manager with OJJDP, and I'd like to share some additional application resources with you today. For more helpful information on how to apply for this opportunity, please take a look at our recorded webinar, “The Federal Funding Process: First Steps to Applying, How to Prepare Now, and Other Considerations.” This series is designed to help applicants find and apply for BJA funding opportunities. This webinar will provide you with information about the registrations that are necessary to apply for funding, how to navigate Grants.gov, and JustGrants, and what resources are available for applicants. Links to access these webinars are provided here on the slide.
As Scott mentioned, your SF-424 and SF-LLL are critical and required components of your application. For assistance submitting these documents, there's Grants.gov applicant support, and they're available via phone or email 24/7, except for federal holidays. And when you reach out, do make sure that you include an issue, the issue that you're facing, for supporting details when you call or email so they know exactly how to provide support. Another thing about Grants.gov, you'll be able to search for available funding opportunities across federal agencies at this site.
JustGrants Support. DOJ also provides user support for its Justice Grants systems, or JustGrants. There's a support hotline, email, and a Resource Center with all kinds of helpful guides to support you. There are FAQs and trainings. And I encourage you to use all of these various support options listed here below to assist in accessing and using the JustGrants system to its fullest. For general questions and information about available OJP publications, statistics training, and technical assistance, as well as funding opportunities in our solicitations, there's also the OJP Resource Center or Response Center, which can be reached via email or web chat and phone. To stay connected, you can also sign up to receive email notifications on new funding opportunities and other resources. There is a twice weekly or twice monthly JUSTINFO newsletter and the weekly funding news email. To subscribe to these, please visit link provided here and select "Grants/funding" as your area of interest.
I’d also like to discuss some dos and don'ts for applying, things to consider as you're pulling together your application. Use simple and concise language, the clearer, the better. You never know who's going to be reviewing your application, so you want to make sure that they can track what you're proposing. Again, so you want to ensure that your information is presentable and organized. Add tables, graphs, staff photos, and other images when possible, while being mindful, again, of the grant guidelines that we’ve discussed before. Be realistic about how you will achieve the goals that you're proposing. To do this, I'd encourage you to get feedback from those who may be running the project to make sure these are, in fact, realistic goals. Make sure the proposal is consistent with the solicitation because, again, that’s what we’re checking against in our review, those solicitation requirements. And lastly, check, recheck, and check again, your budget grant requirements, references, and other grant details.
Lastly, here are a few more ways to stay connected with us here. You can sign up for Text OJP for more updates from the agency, and you can also find us on Facebook and Twitter. And ,again, for more information on funding opportunities, publications, initiatives, you can always visit us at BJA's website. Thank you so much for your time today. I'd now like to hand things over to my colleague, Jen Grotpeter.
JENNIFER GROTPETER: Thank you, Curtis. And on behalf of NIJ, thank you to everyone joining today's webinar. My name is Jen Grotpeter and I am one of the NIJ Social Science Analysts working on the CVP research portfolio. Our solicitation is titled NIJ Fiscal Year '23 CVIPI Research Evaluation and Associated Training and Technical Assistance Support. We already held a webinar on our solicitation last week on March 23rd. In a few minutes, we'll show you where to find information on our solicitation and on that webinar. I will note that our solicitation, like the OJP solicitation, was posted on March 7th. Ours, however, will close on June 5th, 2023 in JustGrants with a Grants.gov deadline of May 22nd. This is intended to give applicants a little more time to prepare evaluation applications after the programmatic applications are submitted. All I'll say on the next slide about the program history is that last year, NIJ funded two evaluation studies, up to 47 programmatic studies that were funded by OJP. And this year, we anticipate making additional rigorous evaluation study awards. To the next slide.
Broadly, our solicitation takes applications funding to support the conduct of and to carry out independent evaluations of CVIPI programs and to conduct rigorous research on community violence with the goal of enhancing a CVI evaluation capacity, and to produce practical knowledge that can advance the prevention and reduction of violent crime in communities.
On the next slide, you'll see that our solicitation includes four funding categories with different expectations and requirements to support research and evaluation complimentary to and in support of the CVIPI. Category 3 here is most similar to last year's NIJ solicitation. Applicants may apply for NIJ funding consideration under multiple categories, but if an applicant intends to submit multiple—proposal to multiple categories, each proposal should be submitted in a separate application and must specify which category is applicable on the cover page. And as Tenzing mentioned earlier, also, if you're submitting paired applications for a program site and an evaluation partner for Category 3 this year, please clearly indicate on the cover page which application program you're applying to evaluate.
And on our final slide, for a much more detailed information on all four of our funding categories, please find on the slide a link to the NIJ solicitation. It includes frequently asked questions, which includes a list of those OJP-funded sites that were awarded last year and are eligible for evaluation under this year's solicitation. Slides and transcripts from our webinar will be posted soon on that page, and I will now turn the program back over to Daryl to begin the Q&A.
DARYL FOX: Thanks so much. And thanks to all of our presenters today. What I wanted to highlight here before we conclude for today is just a quick reference guide that you can use to contact once we conclude today, for any support, whether it's Grants.gov, contact them at [email protected]. JustGrants, [email protected], or OJP Response Center for any programmatic requirements or questions about the solicitation itself at [email protected]. And I'll pass it to Tenzing. Tenzing, did you want to address any at this point or...
TENZING LAHDON: Sure. I hope you can hear me clearly. So, we got lot of questions and I don't think we will get through all the questions, but we will be responding to the questions that came in today. We will take a couple of questions now, like questions that we are seeing asked a lot. So the first question is, "Can applicants be eligible to apply if they have recently been funded as a lead or like awarded a CVIPI grant, or like any other grant also?" So Kathy?
KATHY BROWNING: Yeah. So you can apply for a grant this time if you already have another award. Just make sure that the activities on these are discreet from each other.
TENZING LAHDON: And the other question was, "Can you apply for funding under more than one category?"
KATHY BROWNING: Yes, that is also possible. You could apply to a Category 1 and a Category 4. Again, just making sure that you're being responsive to all parts of each one of those and not overlapping in time commitment.
TENZING LAHDON: And the next question is, "If a county agency has already completed a planning process, how will the required nine-month planning phase impact us? Will we have to redo planning efforts, violence assessment, and et cetera? Or we can—grantees want to be more heavily on implementation based on planning work already done?"
KATHY BROWNING: Yeah, that's a great question. So no, you do not have to redo your planning. It's a time to if you've got any additional planning to doon that or build on that work, then you may do that. You do not have to take the whole nine months. It's sort of up to nine months, that's sort of a ballpark there of that time. So I hope that answered that.
TENZING LAHDON: Kathy, do we have more time for more questions or...
KATHY BROWNING: I think we're getting a little tight on time since we've gone over. What I will recommend is, because we had a lot going on in the Q&A and in the chat, and I think we answered quite a few of them in Q&A, but we will compile all of these and send out a frequently asked questions. Also something that we'll post—I think we'll be able to post that on our website. But if there are any questions that we did not answer, we don't answer through the FAQ, please feel free to contact the help desk that we've pointed to here. So Daryl, I think that's about it for now. Is there anything else before we close?
DARYL FOX: No. Just to reiterate what you mentioned, everybody on today's call will receive an email once the deliverables are posted to the BJA website and that'll include that additional FAQ file that Kathy did mention. Be on the lookout for that. So on behalf of the Bureau of Justice Assistance and our panelists, we want to thank you for joining today's webinar. This will end today's presentation.