FY24 Office of Justice Programs Community-Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative

Transcript also available as PDF.

DARYL FOX: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, FY24 Office of Justice Programs Community-Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative, or CVIPI. At this time, it's my pleasure to introduce Tenzing Lahdon, Senior Policy Advisor, with BJA to begin the presentation. Tenzing?

TENZING LAHDON: Thank you, Daryl, and good afternoon and welcome, everyone, to the FY24 Office of Justice Programs Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative Solicitation webinar. And if you have a copy of solicitation handy, you might want to pull that out to take notes as we will be going over key areas of the solicitation. As Daryl mentioned, my name is Tenzing Lahdon. I am with Bureau of Justice Assistance. I'm joined by a number of my colleagues who represent different offices within the Office of Justice Programs who are collaborating with BJA on the overall community violence intervention and prevention initiative as well as on this solicitation. So, you will hear from Kathy from Bureau of Justice Assistance, Sharron from Office for Victims of Crime, Scott from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and Elizabeth from the National Institute of Justice. As for today's agenda, we will provide a program overview and cover the eligibility and application requirements, and Elizabeth will provide an overview of the National Institute of Justice solicitation followed by question and answer session.

The CVIPI initiative provides funding to reduce violent crimes by supporting comprehensive, evidence-based violence intervention and prevention programs that involve partnerships between residents, local governments, victim service providers, community-based organizations, researchers and other community stakeholders. The CVIPI initiative is a priority for our leadership and aligns clearly with both DOJ and OJP missions as stated on the slide. Next.

As I mentioned earlier, this initiative is a collaboration of several of the components within the Office of Justice Programs, including BJA, OJJDP, OVC, NIJ, all of whom are participating on this webinar. And the involvements of all these individuals allows to ensure that we are including its focus on victims, juvenile justice system issues as well as supporting important research on effective practices. This collaborative approach will provide jurisdictions access to expertise in addressing community violence involving youth, young adults and adults, and both those who perpetrate this violence as well as those who are victims of the violence.

The four principles of guidance in this work. First we are focusing on the targeted violence interventions that identifies and supports the highest need and the highest risk groups, as opposed to the at risk group more generally, reaching hard to engage population of any age to trusted credible messengers and disrupting the cycle of violence and retaliation, ensuring that these approaches are community-centered and equity-focused. Involving the community being served is critical in this work. Integration with public safety and public health taking the multidisciplinary approach with public, private and community partners to form a coalition or an ecosystem to prevent and reduce violence, strengthen community resilience and build social capital among other things. Also ensuring that it is also strategic, data-driven, performance-focused, we encourage as part of the project to do a strategic planning to identify the CVI approaches that best fit your communities. Partner with researchers to support analyses, an understanding of what's driving the violence and help determine what's working and what needs to be changed or modified.

And here is a quick overview of different categories and number of awards we expect to make and the maximum award amount for each. Solicitation categories are similar to last year. Category 1 is for community-based organizations and tribal organizations. And we are expecting to make anywhere from eight to twelve awards for up to $2 million each. Category 2 focuses on applicants from city, county, and tribal government. Similar to Category 1, we are expecting to make anywhere from eight to twelve awards for up to $2 million each. For Category 3, it is for state government applicants. And we are expecting to make four to five awards for up to $4 million each. Lastly, Category 4 focuses on 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. We are expecting to make three to four awards for up to $4 million each. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, Kathy Browning.

KATHARINE BROWNING: Thank you, Tenzing, and hello, everyone. I'm going to start talking about some of the eligibility and application requirements. So, Daryl, can we go to the next one? So, I’m going to talk about the first two categories because a lot of the requirements are the same. As Tenzing said, these are for the community-based organizations as well as—local government agencies. The focus of these are to support efforts to develop, implement, expand or enhance CVI strategies. It's intended for organizations and local governments at all stages of CVI implementation. So, if you're not already doing a CVI, doing CVI work, it could be for starting that up. Or, it could be for enhancing or expanding an existing effort.

One of the important things that you'll probably hear throughout this is that a multidisciplinary team is really needed to implement this work. Before I go on, I wanted to kind of pause a little bit here just because we have already been receiving some questions from the field to the OJP Resource Center. And we're talking questions about from a current site-based grantee. So, those who have been funded in the last couple of years about whether or not they can apply and how they could use the fund. And I want to emphasize here that these funds are for starting up a new program or enhancing or expanding an existing one. These funds may not be used to supplement an existing award or to simply sustain a program. So, if you're thinking about reapplying, just note that during our funding process, what we look at is past funding and we will be making sure that this is not duplicating any other work and that there is sufficient progress on your existing award to support some expansion or enhancement. So, if there are any other questions on this, we can take that at the Q&A. But this has come up several times, so I thought I would address it upfront. So, let's go on to the next slide.

So, overall we're looking for organizations to have a planning phase in the beginning, the length of time needed will vary depending on where you are in the process. Research partners are required under Category, 1 and 2. I'll refer to them, I guess, as the local research partners and these individuals should be an active member of the working group and using an action research method to assist the team in getting important information about the community and in implementing new strategies. Training and technical assistance will be provided to grants that are made in these categories by the OJP-funded TTA provider, which is the community-based public safety collective.

I just wanted to note that we are encouraging rigorous evaluations of these programs. There are still a lot we want to learn about what's effective and the impacts of CVI. So, you're going to hear a lot more about this at the end. Elizabeth will go into it, but just wanted to point out that for Categories 1 and 2, we're encouraging you to participate in an evaluation and partner that, I mean, not partner really, but work with an outside evaluator who can submit an application through the NIJ solicitation that would provide an external evaluation of your program. This is one of the priority areas for application in this solicitation. Again, something we will get into a little bit more, but just wanted to note that.

So, next slide. In terms of eligibility—and just note too that we're pulling out a few things to highlight, just because we don't highlight it does not mean it's not important. The solicitation is your guide for what needs to be in. So, just pointing out a few things where questions tend to come up.

So, for Category 1, we're looking at nonprofits and other local organizations, tribal organizations that are also eligible. For Category 2, this is the city or township governments, the county governments, the tribal governments, so a full range of different government entities. And we accept that—so, what we're talking about here is who the applicant is. The expectation is that they will be a multidisciplinary team. And so in both types, we are supposed to have partners and the other [INDISTINCT] focus on who the lead applicant is.

There are some basic deliverables. We encourage you all to submit letters of commitment and MOUs upfront with the application. But we know that's not always possible. So, we will ask for those in the first six months. You're expected to develop or enhance a community-specific Violence Reduction Strategic Plan. And then at the end, you will submit a final report that summarizes the activities of the program including successes and lessons learned. And now, I will hand it over to my colleague, Sharron Fletcher.

SHARRON FLETCHER: Good afternoon, everyone. So, I'm going to walk us through our next category of eligibility, and that is Category 3 for state governments. So in this section, under this category, we are looking to fund state government agencies that are coordinating and supporting local-level CVI strategies through subawards across multiple communities or jurisdictions in the state. So, multiple locations are definitely highlighted there. We're hoping that applicants will propose either to develop or implement new strategies to support CVI implementation at the local level or they will submit to enhance or expand the reach of existing state-level strategies to support CVI implementation at the local level. So either again, looking for new strategies or proposing to expand and enhance new set of strategies but always on the local level.

Applicants, of course, should propose some of the things we've already covered, but again, we're still looking for multidisciplinary teams of stakeholders that would be responsible for coordinating the state's approach on their CVI efforts. And they should, of course, have an attachment labeled "CVIPI Team" with the participants' names, as well as their names of their agencies in it. So, we can see how diverse that team is and the different organizations, agencies, what have you that are supporting those CVI strategies and development across their given state.

Deliverables for Category 3 include developing and implementing a process for assessing and addressing gaps in local government. So, we do anticipate that applicants would conduct an assessment of the local drivers of violence in their state, as well as an assessment of existing efforts and gaps and resources to meet those needs. So, we want to make sure that you're using a thoughtful approach and having some data-driven decision making involved in how you're selecting both the strategies that are being included in the application as well as who you intend to target. And then we do anticipate that these applicants would be engaged rather in some strategic planning to identify priorities. We are hoping these applicants will also support against the local implementation of those CVI strategies through subawards to those projects across the state. And the final deliverable, of course, would be a final report that would both describe what strategies were implemented, assess the outcomes to identify promising practices and things of that nature. So, we really want to have that final report kind of detailing what happened, what you learned and, of course, most importantly, what challenges you encountered and why so that we can hopefully learn from that in future submissions. Next slide, please.

Moving onto Category 4, one very big area that we found is useful in the field that has been really helping us learn a lot about what's going on on the ground and local agencies that are doing the work. As Category 4, CVIPI Capacity Building Category. Now this category is really important for us, because there are a number of organizations we know that are smaller and perhaps not ready to take on the responsibility of directly applying for a federal funding, but they could benefit from some partnership and support from larger organizations that can serve as their fiscal agents and help them kind of grow to the capacity where perhaps they could be able serve direct funding. And so the Category 4 very much is intended to help us build that capacity across the field, so that more organizations are able to consider and perhaps successfully apply for a direct funding.

But in this category, we're looking to fund four intermediary organizations that will serve as fiscal agents and again, provide subawards to up to five community-based organizations over the course of the project period. These intermediary organizations could be national, regional, or more local organizations that have the established capacity, of course, to work with CBOs and particularly those CBOs that are working and those neighborhoods that are most impacted by violence and focused on underserved communities. Applicants in this area should have a deep knowledge and experience in working and supporting CVI strategies as well as strong connection and close connection to victims and survivors which we know was a critical component of the work. We do allow for intermediary organizations to be comprised of multiple collaborating entities that collectively possess these range of skills, because again, we do anticipate that this would also be a multidisciplinary approach used to support the organizations that their funding through those subawards. We're also open to a range of models to be used by the intermediary organizations. And so we're open to innovation on what's happening in the field. We do anticipate that the subawards that the intermediaries put out would be done in a competitive fashion. Not unlike the one that we're using for this solicitation. And so those subawards should range in between $100,000 and $250,000. Of course, depending on the capacity of the organizations that are applying as well as the type of efforts that they would be funding. And those award amounts would be in total so that funding could be broken out over a period of time, but still within the overall award period.

CBOs would use the funding to increase capacity of their organizations and workforce development and support of CVI efforts. And those subawards that are going through the intermediaries could include funding for things such as salary, equipment, materials, training opportunities and travel, cost associated with training and technical assistance. They could also be used to support development of curriculum, assessment tools, as well as building out organization policies and procedures around wellness plans and other things that we know are critically important to support CVI organizations.

Eligibility for Category 4, and this Capacity Building space includes public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, so your universities both public and state-controlled, private institutions of higher education, so both private and public universities, nonprofits that do or don't have 501(c)(3) status and for-profit organizations, including small business. So the key here is that we have a range of organizations, but the key here is to have that experience and demonstrated experience working with CVI strategies and connection to communities.

Deliverables for Category 4 include working with OJP to develop the solicitation and proposal for funding that will go out to fund the subawards in this Category 4 area, including develop and hosting a pre-application solicitation webinar, much like the one we're engaged in right now. The lucky applicants would also, if selected for funding would also work with OJP to identify those subrecipient sites as part of the subaward process. So by that, we just mean that we would be involved in that whole application review and selection piece for these subawards funded by the applicant. And we were asking that each of those criteria here be met for those subawards including identifying one CVI strategy that it plans to initiate or expand in the jurisdiction that it clearly identifies resources needed to support that strategy and build the capacity as well as have some demonstrated capacity and willingness to work collaboratively with a TTA provider, because we know those supports will be necessarily again with the goal of building the capacity of those organizations. Next slide, please.

Once the subawards are made, the awardees will conduct meetings with the subrecipient CBOs. Complete a needs assessment for those organizations to make sure that we are tailoring the supports to their specific needs. And we're also asking that the intermediaries conduct some regional or topical meetings across sites too on common issues, because we know that peer learning is often where a lot of really rich engagement and capacity building takes place, as well as coordinate with different TA resources and informing them on initiatives across OJP offices, which include of course the Office for Victims of Crime where I work, OJJDP, and BJA. Additional deliverables under Category 4 include developing an online resource for subrecipients and others to search and access any knowledge products that are developed by the CBOs or by the intermediary. And then of course, again, completing a final report that really covers in detail the description of the strategies supported by the subrecipients, outcomes of what they were able to do, lessons learned, and again, helping us document any challenges encountered, so that we can learn from those in both in our CVI strategies and our work with our CVI programs and also on how we put together our own solicitations.

So, another area I would like to highlight for everyone and if you've been applying for any of our OJP solicitations, you've seen this in other solicitations as well. But our CVI solicitation this year does consider have priority considerations for all categories. And so those considerations are in support of Executive Order 13985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities. And this was put out several years ago by the Biden Administration. And so the top two areas in that include applicants that include projects that will promote racial equity and remove barriers to access, and opportunities for communities that have been historically underserved, marginalized and adversely affected by inequality when making award decisions, and you'll need to explain how your programs are doing so in your applications.

The second category that we are getting priority consideration are those applicants that demonstrate their capacity and capability for implementing their proposed projects is enhanced, because the main lead organization or subrecipient will receive at least 40% of the funding as demonstrated in the budget, and they identity as a culturally specific organization. And so that would have to be clearly demonstrated in the budget that 40% of the award will be going to that culturally specific organization or the lead applicant would have to explain how they are themselves identifying as a culturally specific organization. Additional priority consideration areas include applicants from communities that have documented high or increase levels of homicides per capita. And again, that documentation should be clearly outright and included in the proposal narratives. We are also giving consideration to applicants that can demonstrate that their existing partnerships with multidisciplinary team stakeholders, because you've probably heard us say that quite a few times already in this webinar today that we are giving priority consideration to those and we expect that demonstration to come through either inclusion of letters of commitment or MOUs with the application submission. And we are asking that those attachments should be labeled "CVIPI Team" with the names of those participating agencies or organizations, as well as the individuals from those organizations that are supporting your efforts. And then we're also asked giving some priority consideration to applicants that are proposing a companion evaluation under the NIJ solicitation that we will hear about towards the end of today's webinar. But this last little bar and then at the bottom of the slide, I do want to give you all a little reminder though that addressing the priority considerations is only one of the factors that we're considering in making funding decisions so just being able to qualify for one or more of those alone does not guarantee an award. And so next, I will pass it off to my colleague, Scott.

SCOTT PESTRIDGE: Thank you, Sharron. So just want to talk a little bit about some additional resources. You'll see on the screen, there's two seminal resources. There is a webpage that BJA manages that has key information regarding Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative work, it includes a guiding principles document, a checklist, glossary of terms, strategies, and many other relevant materials. So I encourage you to look at that to make sure that the type of work you're endeavoring is consistent with the type of initiative that is being supported through the CVIPI solicitation. The Resource and Field Support Center, also known as the Center, provides just a plethora of resources and tools to support communities looking to plan or implement approaches, CVI approaches and TTA support. So I encourage you to look at that. There's a resource library that provides resources, tools to support communities looking to plan or implement approaches. And, it's not limited to whether or not you're funded. This is an open support center for any interested applicant or CBO governmental-based organization doing work in the community, so please look at that. Next slide.

So, another thing we want to look at is what the application should include. Certainly, you need to include an Abstract, 400 words maximum, that really summarizes your proposed project that also includes primary activities, products and deliverables, the service area who will benefit from the proposed project. This is difficult to do. Four hundred words is tough, but just really focus on what is that core area of what you're looking to do with your initiative and include that—that is your abstract. That's a necessary component of your submission. Another is your Program Narrative. That needs to include a Description of the Issue, Project Design and Implementation, Capabilities and Competencies, and your Plan for Collecting Data Required for the Solicitation's Performance Measures. You don't have to speak for the Performance Measures, you need to able to speak that you have a plan for being able to capture those measures. That's an important piece. Also on Capabilities and Competencies, you may or may not have liaised with DOJ in terms of grantsmanship previously, and that's okay. But to the extent that you have, speak to it, to the extent that you have, connect with the work that you've done locally within your community to really enhance and buttress the supports that you have to really show that you are a capable and competent organization to even to move forward with whatever project design you're proposing in your response to the solicitation.

In terms of budget, you need to submit a Budget Worksheet and a Narrative. It's a web-based form and you need to complete that through JustGrants, which is our interface with your submission of your ultimate application. There's a two-step process we'll talk about in a minute, but your ultimate submission is going to be through JustGrants. And make sure that that federal request amount matches the amount in your SF-424, which is your application for federal assistance. Next slide.

So, there's additional components that you need to include. A timeline is essential relative to this particular solicitation. Any subrecipients that you are proposing, you need to document those as part of your application. Resumes or position descriptions, qualifications relative to their job roles, you'll want to make sure you articulate that in your application. Any sort of Memorandum of Understanding you've had, whether it's fully articulated or not, whether as a support, other supportive documents, the team that will kind of comprise the supports for the CVIPI initiative that you're endeavoring, it's important that you include that. And an Organizational Chart is also an important component. Next slide.

If you are a tribal entity submitting, you want to include a tribal authorizing resolution. If you are doing research as part of this, you'll want to include a Research and Evaluation Independence and Integrity piece as a submission as part of your application. You must include Disclosures and Assurances. Assurances that talk about disclosures of your lobbying activities if any, any sort of duplication in cost items, your standard certified assurances, and then any sort of certifications regarding lobbying, debarment, suspension, and other responsibility matters, and drug-free workplace requirements. These are just norm pro forma elements of submitting an application. And then your Applicant Disclosure and Justification, should you be a DOJ high-risk grantee. You'll know if you are assigned that term. If not, you don't have to worry about that particular element. I will say that one piece I want to mention is about the duplication in cost items. You may be submitting other applications, other federal funding pieces that may be supporting similar components. The piece there is to say, look, we did or we are also pursuing similar supports through X, Y, and Z solicitation. It's important, because one thing we don't want to do is—we want to supplement. We don't want to supplant. We don't want to duplicate. So this is just a way for you to make sure that you're capturing the fact that you're maybe going far and wide in terms of your potential supports for the work that you're doing, that you're applying for. So that's an important component. Next slide.

So the Basic Minimum Requirements is the minimum elements that must be submitted in order for you to be peer-reviewed. So that's the Proposal Abstract, the Narrative, the Budget Worksheet, which is the web-based form, which includes the budget details and budget narrative, as well as the Timeline. So if you were to submit the first three and exclude the timeline, you would not pass go and would not be able to be peer-reviewed and you would be eliminated from this competitive process. So I just want to underscore, these four elements are critical if you're going to endeavor an application with us. Next slide.

So, applications are reviewed to ensure that they meet these basic minimum requirements that we just talked about. And, if they are, then you move forward to peer review. And we have three external subject matter experts that review the applications. Federal staff are a part of each of those panels. Those scores are presented to the BJA program representative. And then your justice assistance staff work with OJP colleagues to provide scoring results with recommendations for funding to the Office of Justice Programs' leadership. And then the BJA Director ultimately makes the final decision and submits recommended applications to the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General at OJP. So it's a fairly transparent process, and I think it's worked well and I think it will continue to work well. But we want to make sure that you understand the process as you move forward in your consideration of applying for this. Next slide.

So, one really important thing to note is that there's dual deadlines. There is an initial deadline of applying within Grants.gov, and that's May 30th. That is a very, very simple process, and it's simply submitting your SF-424, which is your Application for Federal Assistance, and your Lobbying Disclosure Form. It is a very quick process. However, it's a necessary process in order for you to be able to move forward and submit your fully articulated application by June 10th. Meaning, if you fail to meet that very basic requirement of submitting your SF-424 and your lobbying disclosures in Grants.gov by May 30th, you will not be allowed to submit a fully articulated application on June 10th and you will basically not be able to submit an application. So I encourage every one of you on this call if you're really committed to this, applying for this initiative, to get in early, ahead of the May 30th deadline for the Grants.gov submission. Get it done. That way, if you have some issues or hiccups, you can address those, get them submitted, and you'll be able to then move forward, to pass go, so to speak, to submit your fully articulated application by June 10th. Similarly, I encourage you, if you do pass that first initial piece, that you try to submit your application prior to June 10th, so that you don't hit any stumbling blocks with JustGrants or any other submission element that would delay your ability to fully submit prior to the deadline of June 10th at 8:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. I could not underscore this more clearly. I think that it's one of the biggest things that we've heard frustrations from grantees for in the past, but a lot of those frustrations are born by an inability to proactively submit applications ahead of the deadline. So please eliminate that frustration. If you put all the sweat equity into applying, please support these processes ahead of the deadline so that you're not hitting a wall. Next slide.

So, this is a nicely laid out slide that you should maybe print out and have on your corkboard if you have one. I still do. I'm old-school. That just kind of lists your various touch points for Grants.gov and JustGrants help and support. It's a fairly robust support network, in terms for both Grants.gov and JustGrants, understanding that the majority of your assist is probably going to be in the JustGrants end once you submit the Grants.gov piece. But this is an important piece of information for you to have. Next slide.

And so the Response Center, and this is really critical. We have an Office of Justice Programs Response Center that the Department employs to really support our solicitation work, whether it be this webinar, responses to questions that come up. It's critical that you go through this central process via email, web chat, or the toll free or TTY number to connect, ask any questions that you have so that they can be cataloged appropriately, responded to, and you can move forward with responding to the solicitation with clarity and with conviction. Next slide.

A couple of dos and don'ts. Please use simple and concise language. Ensure that the information is presentable and organized. Add tables, graphs, photos, other images when possible. Be mindful of grant guidelines, page limits, that sort of thing. Be realistic about how you will achieve goals. Get feedback from those who may run the project. Make sure the proposal's consistent with the solicitation. Check, recheck, check again, and then recheck once more your budget grant requirements, references, and other grant details. Can't import this enough. And then we'll go to the next slide.

So stay connected. This is just a social media opportunity to connect through YouTube, Facebook, X, various opportunities to stay connected. I use this QR code that connects you to news from BJA that'll get you latest information from BJA in the field. The BJA's website is also listed. So please utilize these resources to avail yourself of current funding opportunities that may come available, subsequent to this currently open competitive solicitation. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to my very capable colleague and friend, Elizabeth Simpson.

ELIZABETH SIMPSON: Thank you, Scott. Thank you to everyone for joining this afternoon, and we appreciate your time. I'm going to spend a few minutes building on what my OJP colleagues have already presented and talk with you about the NIJ FY24 CVIPI Research and Evaluation solicitation. I would like to stress the importance of utilizing both the solicitation document for reference, and there's a link to that in the bottom of this slide. And then also, again, just reiterating what Scott said about utilizing the OJP support center services, because this is going to be an overview with highlights and we want to make sure any questions you have can be answered thoroughly.

So the NIJ, CVIPI Research and Evaluation funding opportunity is for research of CVIPI sites. The Grants.gov submission deadline is June 18th and the final closing date for the applications is July 2nd. Next slide please.

Just a brief overview. The National Institute of Justice is the research, development, and evaluation agency for the Department of Justice. We're dedicated to improving knowledge and understanding of crime and criminal justice issues. NIJ has a model of listen, learn, and inform. We listen to the field. We learn about how we can fulfill the needs of the field. And then we disseminate and inform the field through multimedia. We disseminate knowledge and tools that are based on rigorous and objective scientific research. And the goal of NIJ in the CVIPI is to support independent, rigorous evaluations of projects funded under the OJP CVIPI solicitation, which is the solicitation that my colleagues were just speaking about. Next slide please. Thank you.

The NIJ solicitation has two funding categories. The first is evaluation research of programmatic sites that are funded under OJP FY23 and FY24 CVIPI solicitations. And the second category is evaluations of research of other community-violence programs. So some basic principles that are applicable to both evaluation categories. We are looking for rigorous, independent outcome and/or impact evaluations. They must include components of the process or implementation evaluation in order to measure the program implementation fidelity, and the foundational evaluation work that lays the groundwork for future rigorous outcome and impact evaluations must include a developmental evaluation or a formative evaluation and a process evaluation, which can include an impact evaluability assessment. The applicant for NIJ solicitations can apply for more than one solicitation or they can apply multiple times within each category but there must be a different project site for each application. And we are looking for action research with both of the solicitation categories. Next slide please. Thank you.

Funding for Category 1 is the evaluation research of programmatic sites funded under OJP FY23 and FY24 CVIPI solicitations. The total number of awards will be determined by the number of applications that are received and those that have merit. Funding will be up to $5 million for multiple awards, and these are to be funded as grants. The performance period will be up to 60 months, and you can apply for less than that if you feel it's appropriate. We are looking for formative or process evaluations, outcome and impact evaluations that include program implementation. Next slide please.

Under Category 1, we're talking about partnering with CVIPI sites that have been funded under OJP FY23 Category 1 or 2 or those that are submitting an application concurrently for FY24 OJP CVIPI Categories 1 or 2. And I think it has been mentioned but I will mention again. It is extremely important that you make note, both in the cover page and in the application, that you are working with and applying with a CVIPI site as part of your application process. We have a list of CVIPI program sites that you can view. There's links for funding for Categories 1 and 2 that have BJA-funded awards and a map of the FY23 award grantees, that also includes FY22 grantees.

All qualifying program applicants under CVIPI Categories 1 or 2 are eligible and, of course, you can look to the solicitation to see what sorts of programs are included in that application universe. For funding Category 2, it is evaluation research of other community-violence programs. So we are looking for applications in this category for programs that have not received funding through FY23, FY22, or FY24 CVIPI federal funding. The total number of awards will be determined by the number of applications that have been received and their merit. And we will be funding up to $1 million for multiple awards. These are also to be funded as grants and these are outcome and impact evaluations that build on evidence of CVIPI program impact. So, again, we're looking for action research with these.

Solicitation categories in both cases, for Category 1 and Category 2. Applicant should demonstrate meaningful engagement with the people closest to the subject of study, including the practitioners, the community members, and others who are working in the field and represent crime victims, people that potentially are under criminal justice supervision, and members of high-crime communities. Applicants must clearly document their collaboration with programmatic sites and that needs to be done via memorandum of understanding or a letter of support with commitment to the project and start dates for sharing data. We also would like to stress that these solicitations are not to provide any direct services funding. This funding is for evaluation purposes.

The deliverables that we will be asking for with the NIJ solicitation is a final research report, research impact brief. We are encouraging an interim study report with preliminary findings, required data sets and adherence to the NIJ Data Archiving Plan, and then scholarly products that can include a variety of multimedia projects. We also want to stress again that it is important that the data is available and utilized and is part of working with the CVIPI sites and that they are meaningful and engaged partners in the research evaluation process.

This is some information about NIJ. An overview of our research, mission process, Listen, Learn, and Inform, our newsletter link, and our social media. I would like to encourage you to visit our website, and you can see our past award recipients and get more information about the work that we are doing with CVIPI as part of the larger OJP project work. So I am going to turn it back over now. And I just want to say thank you to everyone. And, again, please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions. Thank you.

TENZING LAHDON: So as I was saying, thank you, Elizabeth, and thank you also to all the presenters today for covering the solicitation, and we will now move into our question and answer session. And I'm not sure if we will get time to go through all the questions that came in through Q&A, but we will be collecting all the questions and responding to those questions. So I saw a few questions around Category 4. So maybe, Kathy, if you can explain a little bit more about Category 4, like the role of intermediary organizations and the subaward process and who can apply, I think that would be really helpful.

KATHARINE BROWNING: Sure. Yes, I saw a lot of these and I'll try to kind of hit a lot of points in the question. So we are looking for entities that are able to make subawards to CVOs or smaller organizations that don't have the capacity to apply for funds on their own and the goal is for them to make the subawards, work with those grantees, and provide training and technical assistance. There were questions about flexibility and sort of what we proposed there in terms of the amount, the range, the size of the subaward. And so there is some flexibility there. I think if you're going to divert from what is on the range of funding that you would do, the number of size that you would propose, you need to make a strong justification for why you were doing that. So I think, hopefully, that sort of encompasses the…so…

TENZING LAHDON: Thank you, Kathy. I think one of the other questions that came up was if an applicant is a current CVIPI grantee, can they apply for a grant in FY24? Like if they're planning to expand their project or add new sites or something along that line.

KATHARINE BROWNING: Right. Yeah. So you could apply for funding to expand the program into another area, to add, component to the program, to enhance it in some way. I know there were some question in there about the word duplicate and that shouldn't be duplicating when I mentioned that earlier that, what you don't want to do is to be supplementing that current award and working on those same activities. These need to be kind of discreet enhancement and/or expansion. And you should, though, have sufficient progress so that we can see that it's ready for that expansion.

TENZING LAHDON: Thank you. One of the other questions was around, "Are public school district eligible for any of the categories or would they need to partner with a nonprofit or other government entities to acquire for the grant, in any of the four categories?"

KATHARINE BROWNING: So, I think, technically, a public school could as part of a local agency. But, for all of these programs, we encourage you to have a multidisciplinary team, and I know that's kind of come up. So, what category you're applying to is based on a lead agency. We hope that you will have a range of stakeholders from your community.

TENZING LAHDON: Thank you, Kathy. There were a few questions around research, whether, it is required to partner with a research organization. There was also some…I don't want to say confusion around the NIJ research piece and the requirement in the solicitation to partner with research, so if you or Elizabeth can talk a little bit about that research piece.

KATHARINE BROWNING: I can clarify the point that the local research partner is required for Categories 1 and 2, and that is the person that will be part of the team and working with the team to collect data and look at impact and a range of things. The external evaluator is somebody that will often be from a different agency that will be doing a full evaluation. Maybe I should turn that over to Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH SIMPSON: Thank you, Kathy. Yes, there is no requirement to have an external evaluator. But the NIJ, National Institute of Justice, offers two options to fund evaluations of programs. And Category 1 is for organizations that have received funding in FY23 or are also applying in FY24 for funding. The reason that we stressed about identifying a partnership is so that that can be taken into consideration when we are doing our review. There is no requirement that you have a funding partner. It's just something that is part of our consideration during the review. And you can also conduct an independent evaluation for a CVI project that has not received federal funding. That's under our Category 2. Does that help?

TENZING LAHDON: Yeah. I think that's really helpful. I think just to clarify, applicants don't have to apply for NIJ research solicitation if they are Category 1 or 2, but they need to have a research partner on their application, regardless of whether they apply for NIJ research solicitation or not, right, Kathy?

KATHARINE BROWNING: Yes.

TENZING LAHDON: And one of the other questions that came up was around, "If you can define what high risk is?"

KATHARINE BROWNING: Yes. That came up multiple times, and I have been directing folks to page nine in the solicitation where we really spell this out a little bit more than we have in previous solicitations. But, essentially, we're looking at those who are persistent offenders. Generally, the highest risk of victimization as well as perpetrating violence and that have traditionally not been able to be served by many programs in the past, but I would encourage you to go look on page nine for more clarity on that.

TENZING LAHDON: Thank you, Kathy. One of the other questions was around project period and funding. And I know this question came up through our OJP Response Center also. So just to clarify, the project period end date is, so, the award amount should last the full project period end date. Kathy, do you want to talk a little bit more about that question around, "Will we get a supplement funding in the other years? Is it for one year only? Especially for Category 4, would there be any supplements?" So if you can talk a little bit about that, that would be helpful.

KATHARINE BROWNING: Sure. So your application is for either for $2 million or $4 million, depending on what category you're applying for, for three years of funding. There is no expectation of any supplements for any of these. Three years to implement that. So, hopefully, that's clear.

TENZING LAHDON: Kathy, do we have some time for additional questions? I know we are past…

KATHARINE BROWNING: I…

TENZING LAHDON: …the 2:00 p.m. mark.

KATHARINE BROWNING: Yeah. I think we are past time here. And what I would just emphasize—I know Daryl put this in the chat for you all—please, I mean, we really appreciate that you had so many questions. We just were not able to get to all of them. We responded—hopefully, you saw the ones that we did in the Q&A section—so, please, if we did not get to your question, please contact the OJP Response Center and they will take care, and we'll be able to get back to you that way.

DARYL FOX: Great. And, yes, just also a reference, the recording, PowerPoint slides, and transcript for today will be posted to BJA's website, so everybody that registered today will receive an email where and when to access that. So on behalf of the Bureau of Justice Assistance and all of our panelists, we want to thank you for joining today's webinar. This will end today's presentation.