Funding Opportunities for Your Community in 2024: Corrections, Community Corrections, and Reentry

Transcript also available as PDF.

DARYL FOX: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, “Funding Opportunities For Your Community in 2024: Corrections, Community Corrections, and Reentry,” hosted by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. At this time, it's my pleasure to introduce Michelle Garcia, Deputy Director for Programs within BJA to begin the presentation. Michelle?

MICHELLE GARCIA: Thank you so much, Daryl. And welcome, everyone, to our presentation today on FY '24 Funding Opportunities. As Daryl said, my name is Michelle Garcia and I'm joined today by my colleague Alex Stojsavljevic. We are going to be focusing today on opportunities available to support corrections, community corrections, and reentry activities.

We'll start by giving a little bit of an overview of the Office of Justice Programs and the Bureau of Justice Assistance, talk about our formula as well as discretionary grant programs planned for this fiscal year, provide you with some resources that can assist you as you're considering or working on applications, and we've also built in time to address any questions you might have at the end of this presentation. But before we jump in, we want to get a little bit of a sense of your experience applying for and perhaps receiving funding from BJA previously.

So, our first poll question is, "Have you previously applied for BJA funding?" So the poll feature should have opened on your screen and if you could just take a moment to indicate yes or no, whether you have previously applied for BJA funding. All right. Let's see the answers coming in. All right. Give it about five more seconds. And Daryl, will you go ahead and close the poll for us, please? Thank you everyone who responded.

So, it looks like more than twice of you—as many of you have not applied for BJA funding previously but a significant number of you who have. So, we welcome everyone. If this is perhaps your first introduction to BJA and the work that we do, we'll tell you a little bit more about who we are in just a moment. “For those of you that have previously applied for BJA funding, have you been successful and received a BJA award?” So please take a moment to answer that poll question. And one of the things I'll note, and we'll reiterate this again later, is that for the vast majority of our competitive solicitations, we receive more applications than we have the resources to fund. And so if you have previously applied and did not receive funding, that's not an indication of the work that you're doing, the value of your program, or even necessarily the overall quality of your application, just recognizing that with limited resources, it often requires difficult decisions to be made. Give you just a couple more seconds to reply. And Daryl, could we close the poll, please?

Now, in this case, for those of you that have applied, twice as many of you have been successful in actually receiving BJA funding previously. So, appreciate those of you who have. For those of you who were not, for many of our solicitations, particularly those that are peer-reviewed, if you were not successful in receiving funding, you may have received a summary of the strengths and weaknesses of your application. And if you're considering applying again, we really encourage you to review those strengths and weaknesses to help inform your next application.

So, many of you said you've not applied for BJA funding previously, I want to provide a little bit of an overview of the Office of Justice Programs and the Bureau of Justice Assistance. OJP is the largest grant-making entity within the Department of Justice and along with our sister agencies, the Office on Violence Against Women and the Office of Community Oriented Policing, we are the grant-making entities within DOJ. Within the Office of Justice Program or OJP, there are six program offices, all of which provide grant funding. Today, we're going to focus on funding opportunities planned for FY '24 from the Bureau of Justice Assistance but I also encourage you to check out the other offices within OJP and the funding opportunities they have available.

BJA is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. We were created in 1984 to reduce violent crime, create safer communities, and reform our nation's criminal justice system. And to do that, our work really focuses in three areas.

First, investments. The grants and cooperative agreements that we make all across the nation supporting aspects of the criminal justice system in related areas. We also work to share knowledge. We have a vast network of training and technical assistance providers and grantees who are working to develop best practices, share guidelines, experiences, innovations that can be replicated across the country. And also engagement, engaging with you, engaging with communities all across the country to hear what your needs are and how we can support those needs.

This fiscal year, we have over 80 planned solicitations. And I do want to note given where we are in our cycle of budgets that we are operating under continuing resolution currently. And so until we have a final budget, this is subject to change. All of the grants that we'll be talking about today are ultimately subject to the availability of appropriations and potential legislative changes of statutory requirements. So this information may change and could include content that could be updated including additions made, substitutions, or even the full cancelation of a planned solicitation. Because of that, for some of these, there may be very specific questions that you have that we might not be able to answer. But we will provide resources where you can get additional information.

And here are two websites that I highly recommend bookmarking because this is where you can go to get information about all of the planned solicitations for the Department of Justice and then specifically for BJA as we release them. Starting on the right, the planned solicitations, you can visit the DOJ grant program plan page and find information on all of the planned solicitations under the Office of Justice Programs as well as OVW and the COPS office. One of the great features on this website is you can do a keyword search.

So, for instance, if you were looking for grant funding to support reentry housing or if you were looking for grant funding to support supervision practices, you could put those keywords into the search and you could find all the solicitations that might be able to support those activities, click on the solicitation and then get additional information. On the left is the website for the Bureau of Justice Assistance's available funding. As we release our solicitations, we will post them here. And similarly, you can do a keyword search to find information suited to the types of activities that you're looking to support.

Now, when we look at the types of grants that BJA awards, there are two types of grant programs, Formula and Discretionary. Formula Grants are typically awarded on a noncompetitive basis, which means that every eligible applicant receives some funding. The amount of funding for a specific agency or jurisdiction can vary based on the variety of factors which often include population as well as crime rates. Most Formula programs are administered by a State Administering Agency or an SAA, that SAA then subs-award funds to state and local organizations and agencies. If you don't know who your SAA is or don't already have an active relationship with your SAA, I encourage you to start one today. And if you don't know who your SAA is, I'll give you information in just a moment where you can find out who it is.

For Discretionary Grants, you would apply directly to BJA. These grants, they're typically competitive and awards are based on a predetermined review process and availability of funds. As I mentioned earlier for most programs, we receive more applications than we have actual funding for, so we try to fund the strongest proposals based on that objective review criteria.

I want to highlight a few of our Formula Grants. Again as I noted, these typically go to State Administering Agencies but those SAAs are then subawarding the dollars to state and local agencies. And so I want to highlight the types of activities that are supported under these grants.

The first is the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant ,which is really our flagship criminal justice funding program within the Bureau of Justice Assistance. As you can see, there are nine very broad purpose areas that include supporting the types of activities that we're focusing on here today, corrections, community corrections, and reentry, but also looking at related elements like mental health programs, crisis intervention, as well as drug treatment and enforcement.

Byrne JAG has two types of eligible applicants, state, which I already spoke about but there are also local units of government that are eligible to receive direct JAG funding. Those units are determined every year through the Formula process and information is posted as part of the solicitation. To give you a sense of the scope of the funding, in Fiscal Year '23, we made 56 awards to states totaling over $209 million. And to date, we've made 949 local awards, totaling over $96 million. We anticipate that the FY '24 solicitation will be released sometime in the summer.

The second formula program I wanted to mention is the Byrne State Crisis Intervention Program and this is a relatively new program. It was created under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was signed into law in 2022. And it provides five years of funding, $150 million per year from FY '22 through FY '26 to support a range of state crisis intervention activities, including court proceedings and other programs or initiatives like extremist protection order programs, treatment courts, drug courts, mental health courts. States have to establish a state crisis intervention advisory board to help them determine how these funds will be spent in their state. And so again, this is another opportunity to develop a relationship with the SAA to actually be able to have some input around how these dollars are going to be used in the states that have received them.

And then the last formula program that I want to mention is the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, or SCAAP. BJA administers SCAAP in conjunction with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as the Department of Homeland Security. SCAAP provides federal payments to states and localities that incur correctional officer salary costs for incarcerating undocumented criminal aliens with at least one felony or two misdemeanor convictions for violations of state or local law and who are incarcerated for at least four consecutive days during the reporting period. SCAAP payments will be calculated using a formula that provides a relative share of funding to jurisdictions that apply and is based on the number of eligible criminal aliens as determined by the Department of Homeland Security.

And I mentioned the importance of knowing who in developing a relationship with your SAA is in your state. If you don't know who that office is, you can go to our website and find the information on your State Administering Agency. Not only will you be able to see who the SAAs are for Bureau of Justice Assistance funding but also for formula funds under the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention as well as the Office for Victims of Crime. With that, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague Alex.

ALEX STOJSAVLJEVIC: Thanks, Michelle. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Alex Stojsavljevic and I serve as a Policy Advisor on our corrections, reentry, and justice reform team. And I'm going to be going over our Discretionary Grants.

As you can see here, we have a lot of programs that are working to support the corrections, community corrections, and reentry providers out there. This is the list that we'll be going over today. As you can see, there's a lot of programs out there, so we'll go ahead and jump in and get started.

The first that we're going to go over here is our Body-Worn Camera Policy and Implementation Program to support law enforcement agencies. One thing I'll note before we jump into the program is to keep an eye out on the slides as we go over these programs. The key things to focus in on are who might apply for these, so who is eligible to apply. And as you can see on this slide, there's a lot of eligible participants out there. Why might individuals apply for this? We'll provide a brief summary of what the program can accomplish and then the maximum award that you could receive if you're awarded this solicitation.

So, focusing in on body cameras, we know that body-worn cameras are increasingly seen as must-haves for any law enforcement agencies and communities. And BJA funds the purchase of body-worn cameras that are implemented as part of the comprehensive BWC programs. BJA has a body-worn camera toolkit and a clearinghouse website for agencies who are interested in planning and implementing a body-worn camera program. As you can see on this slide, award amounts vary for this program and can range anywhere from $10,000 to $2 million depending on the size of your agency.
Now within that program is new this year, the Small, Rural, Tribal Body Worn Camera Program. And I will draw your attention as you see on this slide. This program is open right now and the submission deadline is March 4th, 2024. So keep an eye on if you're interested in this program. And as you can see on the slide here, this program provides funds for body-worn cameras to specific law enforcement departments with 50 or fewer full-time sworn personnel, rural agencies within a non-urban or non-metro counties, and then federally-recognized tribal agencies.

Moving on to our Collaborative Crisis Response and Intervention Training Program, as you can see, who may apply here is open to cities, township, counties, and state governments, tribal governments, public and state-controlled institution, and higher education with on-campus police departments. This solicitation really seeks to fund implementing a crisis response and intervention training program that will support your law enforcement, correctional, probation and parole and sheriff's department officers on how to effectively partner with your mental health, substance use disorders, or community service agencies to provide responses to individuals in crisis. Some examples of that might be to create, design, and implement new or enhanced training programs in line with the BJA CRIT curriculum, or analyze existing training and deployment of policies and practices in collaboration with your local stakeholders and agency staff, or adopting and implementing new technology to track those implementation efforts, and/or defining and tracking process measures, as well as short and long-term program outcomes.

Another large program that's very successful is our COSSUP program, that is our comprehensive opioid, stimulant, and substance use-based program. As you can see, the eligible applicants are up top there. And this is really focused on funding to develop, implement, or expand comprehensive programs that address the overdose crisis and the impacts of use or misuse of opioid, stimulants, or other substances. Some examples of what might be funded in this program are deflection and diversion programs, hiring behavioral health professionals, naloxone distribution, access to recovery support services, and community-based prevention and education. And as you can see here, the awards, again, vary for local applications up to $1.6 million per award and that includes no-cost training and technical assistance. And for our state applications, up to $7 million per award, and again that includes no-cost TTA.

Moving on to our Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation, so this is open for federally-recognized Native American tribal governments or consortia consisting of two or more federally-recognized tribes. And this solicitation combines seven of DOJ's government-specific competitive solicitations into one which really helps streamline things into one application. Some activities are strategies that could be funded under this award are hiring additional personnel, risk and needs assessments, diversions and alternatives to incarceration, prevention, treatment, and recovery services, training programs, new and enhanced tribal and peacemaking courts, and assessing tribal justice system's gaps and needs. And as you can see, there are a few different award types in here with different maximums per award. And again, as I would note as our other earlier program, the deadline for this is active so keep an eye out on this. If you're interested, your Grants.gov deadline is March 5th and your JustGrants deadline is March 12th.

Also new for Fiscal Year '24 is Enhancing Correctional Practices to Protect Vulnerable People, which is a Technical Assistance and Microgrant Program. With this program, BJA will award one cooperative agreement to fund an organization to administer a competitive microgrant program and provide training and technical assistance to state, local, and tribal confinement agencies working to protect vulnerable people who are confined in their facilities, and to reduce the use of punitive or overly-restrictive operations that people claim to use to keep these individuals safe. And when we're talking about vulnerable people, that includes but is not limited to, those with one or more physical disabilities, with severe or persistent mental illness, those who identify as LGBTQIA+, those who are blind, deaf, or non-English-speaking. Understanding and responding to the vulnerability of people who are incarcerated is really essential to promoting safe management in correctional facilities, and the creation of rehabilitative environments that are conductive to successful reentry back into our communities.

Unfortunately, we've seen specific strategies intended to ensure the safety of vulnerable people are often overly-restrictive or punitive to those individuals that they claim that they try to protect. So we hope with these microgrants for state, local, and tribal agencies and for the TTA to be funded under this new program, so it will support the implementation of policies and practices that increase the safety of vulnerable people who are confined.

Another program is our Field Initiated: Encouraging Innovation. And this looks to invest in collaborations with the field and experts to prevent and reduce crime and enhance the criminal justice system through innovative approaches and accelerating justice by identifying, defining, and responding to emerging or chronic problems that we see. And so BJA is looking to find out what those new approaches are so that we can address those gaps. And some examples of things that could be funded under this award would be responding to precipices, increases in crime, including violent crime, and improving system capacity to track and respond to increases in those types of crime. Additional activities could be addressing substance use disorders and efforts to prevent or respond to those drug overdoses or drug fatalities, improving outcomes for justice system-involved individuals, including those who are currently or formerly incarcerated, and responding to an increase in hate crimes and/or the increase to access to justice and to supportive services. And as you'll see on this one, there are two different category types with award amounts up to $1 million dollars each.

Another program that we have within our team is the Improving Adult and Juvenile Crisis Stabilization and Community Reentry Program and this one is open, again, to cities, townships, county, or state governments, tribal agencies, and community-based nonprofits and behavioral health care providers. This one seeks to fund or enhance services to improve reentry, reduce recidivism, and address treatment and recovery needs of the people with mental health or substance use disorders or co-occurring disorders who are currently or formerly involved in the justice system. And then things that could be funded through this project are screening and assessment tools, clinical treatment and recovery services, continuous care coordination, and planning and wraparound services. In this program, it has awards up to $750,000 and that includes, again, that no-cost training and technical assistance.

Moving into our Second Chance Act. As you'll see, Second Chance has a whole suite of offerings here and so I would just draw your attention that as we go through these, just to keep an eye on the titles of each, because I believe there's four or five different types of solicitations that will be potentially released under the Second Chance Act.

And the first one we'll be going over is our Community-based Incubator Initiative. And this one really understands that community and faith-based organizations provide critical reentry services for people returning from incarceration to their communities. However, we've realized that many CBOs, or Community-based Organizations, face significant barriers directly assessing and managing our federal grants. So with this solicitation, BJA seeks to fund at least one intermediary organization that will design and administer a competitive incubator initiative for community and faith-based reentry providers. And these intermediary organizations will provide subawards with oversight and comprehensive training and technical assistance services to help build capability, capacity, and sustainability among CBO subawardees. And to meet the needs of people returning home from incarceration and to apply for and manage the private and public grants funding in the future, we anticipate one award here for up to $4 million. And I would say, if you don't directly apply for this, we certainly want you to keep an eye out for an announcement on those subawards that I talked about.

The next in our Second Chance Act suite here is the reentry program, and this is open to Native American tribal governments and nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, or other institutions of higher education. And this program is really focused on the Comprehensive Community-based Adult Reentry Program to provide opportunities for nonprofit service providers and tribes to implement or expand on reentry programs that demonstrates strong partnerships with corrections, parole, probation, and other reentry service providers in order to provide critical transitional services as individuals return from incarceration and back into our communities. And these partnerships should develop comprehensive case management plans that directly address criminogenic risks and needs as determined by validated criminogenic risk assessments, and include delivery or facilitation of services.

Grants under this program could be used for mentoring adults during incarceration through transition back into the community and post-release transitional services to assist reintegration of individuals leaving incarceration, and training and technical assistance. This corrections reentry solicitation is specific for nonprofit organizations to apply for funding directly. While other reentry solicitations may be directed towards our states, localities, and tribes as the other eligible applicants, nonprofits could partner with them as a subgrantee under those solicitations, for example, partnering with a state or local subgrantee in order to provide community services. And this one, again, has awards up to $750,000 per award.

Next up within our Second Chance Act suite is Improving Reentry and Education and Employment Outcome Programs. As you can see here, this one has a larger group of applicants who may apply. And this program seeks to reduce recidivism and enhance educational opportunities, as well as employment perspectives for incarcerated adults reentering our workforce. Partnerships can support the establishment and improvement of academic and vocational education programs, as well as career training programs available in prisons and jails. And some examples of strategic activities that could be funded would be screening and assessment tools, educational and vocational programs including partnerships with colleges or universities, subsidizing wages or other employment costs, activities supported by the federal Pell Grant reinstatement for students who are incarcerated, transitional services, staff training, development of partnerships with local employers, tracking and monitoring employment outcomes, career training programs, and conducting reentry career planning. And again, this one has awards up to $900,000 per award.

Again in our Second Chance Act suite is Improving Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery Outcomes for Adults in Reentry. This one really seeks to fund and to establish, expand, or improve upon treatment and recovery services for people with substance use disorders or co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders while they're incarcerated and while they're reentering into our community.

Some examples of activities or strategies that could be funded under this solicitation would be implementation or expansion of substance use disorder or co-occurring order treatment services, recovery support services, hiring personnel, medication to support substance use disorder programming, harm reduction or reentry services, transitional or recovery housing, contracts for in-reach or continued treatment recovery services, screening and assessment tools, and information sharing.

Still within our Second Chance Act is our Pay for Success Program. This program is to receive funding to purchase a wide range of reentry services tailored to individuals leaving incarceration, and particularly those focused with mental health or substance use, or co-occurring disorders. And some examples, again, of things that could be funded under this solicitation would be enhancing contracts to provide individualized reentry services for our individuals, managing a performance or outcomes-based reentry service contract, training, providing permanent supportive housing, managing those permanent supportive housing contracts, data collection, and performance evaluation.

And another Second Chance Act here is our Community Supervision Strategies. This one is for folks who are seeking funding to develop and test new or enhanced applications of the Swift, Certain, and Fair principles of intervention that focus on reducing recidivism and improving outcomes for those on community supervision. So things that could be funded under this solicitation would be using data and research-informed strategies to both assess and improve responses to people under community supervision in accordance with the Swift, Certain, and Fair principles. Also, you could use it to identify a target population for the project, developing and implementing supervision strategies based on the Swift, Certain, and Fair principles, lowering your recidivism rates, evaluating the effectiveness of your Swift, Certain, and Fair strategies, and promoting a fair administration of justice, and advancing public safety.

And that was the last of our Second Chance Act suite there, as you can see, we have a lot of programs under that Second Chance Act. And then lastly is our Smart Reentry, Housing Demonstration Project. This is new in Fiscal Year '24. As you can see, it's open to tribal governments and nonprofits, and this is—again, keep your eye out for information on this—but really, this one is focused on funding to assess jurisdictions reentry systems so that you can both identify your strengths and the gaps in those systems, and then build capacity for improving housing options for adults who are being released from prison or jail. This one has a maximum award of up to $1 million. And as Michelle said in the beginning of our presentation, information will be forthcoming on the BJA website that she had talked about.

Lastly is our Smart Supervision Program here. This one is open to state, local, and tribal entities with responsibilities for adults who are on probation and/or parole. This one is focused on funding and access to experts to support those agencies that wish to build their capacity to help adults successfully complete the supervision, and in the process, desist from crime and lead productive, pro-social lives. So things that could be funded under this solicitation would be providing training to your staff, adopting new tools or technology, increasing the delivery of services, moving towards an evidence-based policy and practice in your agency, assessing your existing interventions, and then testing innovative new approaches to this. And, again, this will be up to $850,000 per award, and that also includes your no-cost training and technical assistance.

And then, lastly, wrapping up here, we just want to bring your attention to the BJA's National Training and Technical Assistance Center. BJA supports the training and technical assistance programs to meet the unique needs of grantees and other criminal justice practitioners and agencies. The objective of BJA's TTA services are really focused on providing information to grantees and to criminal justice professionals to replicate models of programs and approaches that we know work and work well. And we want to focus on increasing knowledge and use of best practices, emerging technologies and new models, and support agencies and jurisdictions to identify and address operational and programmatic needs. And BJA's NTTAC program, is what we call for short, promotes BJA's mission by serving as a one-stop shop for BJA's justice-related training and technical assistance center. And I would just note here that this service is open and available to those both who are BJA grantees and those who are not BJA grantees. And so I just wanted to point that out as a resource for folks as you go through our solicitations, and certainly in the future, if there's anything BJA can do for you, our NTTAC team is happy to assist in any way that we can. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Michelle.

MICHELLE GARCIA: Thanks so much, Alex. As I mentioned, we want to leave you with some resources that can assist you as you're considering applying or working on applications for funding. So the first I'll note is that for every solicitation that we release, we will post it on our website. And if you go to the webpage, you'll see some basic information around the solicitation itself, its deadlines. Please note that there are two application deadlines. The first is a Grants.gov deadline and the second is a JustGrants deadline. Our application process is a two-part process. You will start with Grants.gov, where you will submit some minimal information and then you'll proceed to JustGrants where you submit the bulk of your application.

On this page, you can download a copy of the solicitation. Also, see some basic information. But I encourage you to start with the Solicitation Overview. For almost all of our solicitations now, we've created these one-pagers that provide the essential information to start with as you're considering is this the right program to support the activities or the services that I am providing or seeking to provide. And very similar to how we've talked about our solicitations today, it'll start with who's eligible to apply. So is your organization even eligible? But as Alex mentioned, even if you're not eligible as a primary applicant, there may still be an opportunity for you to partner with an organization that is and be able to be a sub-recipient on that award. Considerations about why you would apply, the funding that's available, the types of activities that can be supported with this.

If, once reviewing the Solicitation Overview, it looks like this might be something that could support what you're seeing to fund, then definitely dive into the full solicitation, which is a really lengthy document but intended to provide you with all the information that you need in order to submit your application. For almost every solicitation that we release, we will also hold a funding webinar specific to that solicitation. So on that website, it'll also include information where you can register for those webinars, where we'll go through the solicitation in detail and also answer any questions that you might have at the time.

I also want to note that this webinar is part of a series of webinars that we are doing to focus on our FY '24 funding opportunities. Several have already been held and those recordings will be posted on our website along with the materials. We're also hosting a webinar tomorrow focused on solicitations and programs specifically supporting tribes and tribal organizations. Next week, focused on law enforcement.

But for those of you who have not applied for federal funding or BJA funding previously, I want to highlight the webinar that's going to be held on Monday, which is our federal funding process. First steps to applying, how to prepare it now, and other considerations. It will be a great introduction to the processes and for things to think about as you're considering whether to apply.
An application resource that as someone who actually spent most of my career in the nonprofit sector applying for funding from OJP, that I think is just a valuable tool is the Grant Application Resource Guide. It is really the A to Z resource for all pieces of the application process. If you have a question as you're working on an application or working to submit an application, this is a great place to start to see if you can get your questions answered there. And if not, we'll point you to some additional places to turn in just a moment.

One question we often got from applicants who were not successful in receiving funding is, "Could I possibly see an example of something that an agency or organization submitted that was successful in receiving funding?" And so for the past several years, we've been working, with the permission of successful applicants, to publish their successful applications across our grant programs. So if you're looking to apply under a specific program, you can go to this site and you can see examples from other applicants that did receive funding in prior fiscal years. It's a great place to see how they answered the questions, how they structured their application, and really to think about how you may want to work on your application as well.

As I mentioned, our application process is a two-step process, the second and the largest part of that application being completed in our electronic grants management system or JustGrants. If you are successful and do receive award—an award, this will also be where you manage that award. And so it is useful to get familiar with the JustGrants system prior to submitting your application. If you go to the JustGrants website, you can access trainings, you can get user guides, you can get one-on-one technical support.

And one thing I will strongly recommend is that if you are submitting, start your application early so that if you do run into challenges or any issues, you have the time to reach out and get assistance.

And two places that you can turn for additional assistance and support are both Grants.gov and JustGrants technical assistance, which are both available by phone as well as email to answer your questions and address your needs.

I think it can also be helpful to look at what is required of award recipients as you're considering whether to submit an application or not.

And if you go to the OJP Award Recipient Resources website, you can get a sense of the types of things that are required of award recipients. You can see the DOJ Grants Financial Guide to understand what is necessary in terms of financial compliance and just a host of other resources that are there to assist and support grantees.

And so how do you know when our solicitations are released? Well, one really easy way to do that is to sign up for our funding news, which is a weekly notice of new grant opportunities as well as application tips. If you go to our website, ojp.gov/subscribe, you can sign up there to get those funding news alerts or you can also text your email address to OJP at 468-311 in order to be subscribed. You can also follow us on social media. As we're releasing solicitations, we are posting them on our social media sites as well as our website. And then, lastly, if you're reading through a solicitation, if you're working on an application and you have a question and you haven't found the answer anyplace else, please reach out to the OJP Resource Center. They're really that entity who should be able to address any and all questions that you might have at the time. And with that, we will see what questions you have for us now. Okay.

So, I see folks have been putting questions into the Q&A. And just a reminder, if you have a question, please submit it in the Q&A section rather than the chat, but we will try and go and pull the questions from the chat as well if we have time.

So, it was asked, "If my organization has already received a subaward for COSSUP grant that is currently happening, can we still apply for COSSUP this year?" I believe that you can apply again, but please review the solicitation when it is released to confirm. As I mentioned earlier, we have just started releasing solicitations and we'll be releasing more every week and every month. Because certain solicitations have not been released yet, there may be specific questions that we’re unable to answer today.

"Could you review the process for reapplying for a COSSUP grant if you're in your final year of your current COSSUP grant?"

I recommend waiting to see when that solicitation is released for detailed information, and also planning to sign up for the webinar for that solicitation to get additional information.

"Will this recording be shared?"

Yes. Today's recording transcript and PowerPoint slides will be posted on our website and an email will be sent to all registrants when those are available.

"Are there any second chance solicitations targeted towards small rural communities?"

In the past there have been some. Yes. As you know, in the past, there have. For instance, last years Second Chance Act Community-Based Reentry Program had two categories, one of which was specific to organizations serving rural communities. What I can say at this time is that when the solicitations are released, they will indicate if there are categories specific to rural agencies or rural-serving organizations.

"For Second Chance, can we work with federal prisons or does it have to be a city, county, or state?"

Alex, do you know the answer to that one?

ALEX STOJSAVLJEVIC: I believe it's city, county, or state but I can double-check.

MICHELLE GARCIA: All right. Thank you.

"Would these programs be able to help with probation compliance and instead of reporting to probation officers, they report to program and report activity to government agency?"

Again, I would say look at the solicitations when they're released, which will detail what type of activity is allowable. And if you're still not certain in reading through the solicitation, again, I encourage you to attend the webinar for that particular solicitation to see if the activity you're proposing would be allowable.

"Has anyone ever seen Second Chance Act Community Reentry Program for nonprofits be used for intensive case management in housing, for example, a woman leaving prison housing program that also includes intensive case management?"

Well, off the top of my head, I don't know the specific answer to this question. What I can suggest is you can do a couple different things. Recently, OJP released a website highlighting its FY '22—FY '21, FY '22, and FY '23 awards. And you can actually go on there and you can search by solicitation or you can search by keyword or you can search by geographic location to see who was actually awarded and what they are using those funds for. So we'll provide information on who the grantee is, what they were—how much funding they received, and you can also get additional information there on their project descriptions. Similarly, if you go to the BJA website and you do a search for a specific solicitation, if you scroll to the bottom of that page, it'll provide a list of all of the awards that were made and you can get additional descriptions as to what was funded.

"In regards to Second Chance Act programs, is it required to have a partnership with a correctional agency or can a nonprofit that helps individuals post-incarceration without partnership with an—with an agency apply?"

I will say that—for some of the solicitations, yes, it doesn't necessarily require a partnership with a correctional agency, but in others, it is encouraged or required depending on the solicitation. Again, when the solicitation is released, please review to see what the specific requirements are.

"I contact with a national correctional association. Is there any opportunities in working with your NTTAC group?"

I think it depends what is that you're looking to work with NTTAC for—with. I would reach out to NTTAC to see if there are those opportunities directly.

"Are the BJA grants normally three to five years?"

Most of our grants typically have a 36-month award period, so three years. But in some cases, they may be longer and there are opportunities for grantees also to request no cost extensions, if for some reason, they've run into challenges or barriers with expending the grant funds within the initial award period.

"Are formula grants being continued for FY '24? I only saw JAG."

It depends on the formula award. So, if there's a specific one that you're looking for, let us know. But, for instance, RSAT or the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment program, we anticipate releasing in '24, JAG, Byrne SCIP. So, again, if you go to the DOJ program plan, you can see the anticipated or planned solicitations that we will be releasing this year.

"Is there funding available to support infrastructure to improve, build facilities to support those experiencing incarceration and their families and/or to provide places to help implement some of the opportunities provided today?"

So, if this is asking about facilities in either building or renovations, I will start by saying that the Byrne JAG formula funds typically do not allow for construction or a significant renovation. The exception to that is correctional facilities. So, as I noted earlier, Byrne JAG dollars are awarded either to states or to units of local government, and so there may be an opportunity in—talking with your state SAA or seeing if your unit of local government received a direct Byrne JAG award and if there's an opportunity for those funds to support building facilities. There may not be enough money, but definitely renovations. And, Alex, do you know, are there—I believe under the Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation, there is some support for building for tribes and tribal organizations, but do you know of any other programs that might support building facilities or infrastructure?

ALEX STOJSAVLJEVIC: Other than those two, no, not off the top of my head. . MICHELLE GARCIA: Thank you.

"Do partnerships need to be set up prior to an application or is there a possibility of being paired through the application process?"

Typically, you would not be paired through the application process. Most of the solicitations will detail whether they require a letter of support or an MOU, demonstrating the partnerships that are being proposed in your application. In some cases, there may be an opportunity within so many months or days of receiving an award to submit that documentation of a partnership. But it's, more often than not, the responsibility of the applicant to identify who their intended partners are.

"Is there any timeline for when the Second Chance Act Community-Based Reentry Program will be released?"

If you visit the DOJ grants program plan website and you search for the solicitation that you're looking for, you can actually get additional information, and that will include the quarter in which it is anticipated that that solicitation will be released.

"We are a nonprofit, registered in our state, but have not received our tax exemption status from the IRS yet. Are we eligible to apply as a nonprofit?"

Again, it depends on the solicitation. Some include nonprofits that are 501(c)(3)s. Some include nonprofits that are not yet 501(c)(3)s or have no intention of being 501(c)(3)s. And so I would say look at each individual solicitation to see if you're eligible. We'll once again remind folks that even if you're not directly eligible, there may be an opportunity to partner with an organization that is and that you could be a sub-recipient on that award.

"We have a relationship with county and state facilities for reentry and are working with our federal facility to begin reentry program. Can we include a federal facility and halfway house in our grant application?"

I think this was similar to a previous application that, Alex, I think you were going to see if we can find additional information, but I would say look at each solicitation to see what is allowable as it is released.

"I found a link for successful applications in the past but can only see the abstract. Is that all we can see, is there a link? I'm missing the full narrative.”

So, I believe there should be more information available. I will see if one of my colleagues can go online and answer that question.

"Are any of the Second Chance grants multi-year?"

Most of our grants are multi-year grants. As I mentioned, typically our award periods are 36 months. That may vary by particular program, and even with a 36-month period, there may be opportunities to extend that.

"Could you show slide 14 again?"

Yes. I’m happy to go back to that in just a few moments.

"Is there a day in the month when you typically release solicitation? Second Friday, first Tuesday?"

Unfortunately, no. There is not a specific day. They are coming out as quickly as we can get them out. So any day of the week, we may have a solicitation released.

"Can a CBO apply for more than one grant or be listed in a partner in more than one grant application?"

Yes. Absolutely.

"What is the best website to go to to learn about grant submission?"

There are a couple different websites. So, if you're talking about how to submit via Grants.gov or through JustGrants, I recommend going to the JustGrants website, which actually has information about the full application process. The other thing I'll recommend is, again, the webinar that we're hosting on Monday, about the federal funding application process, where we'll walk through the grant application and submission process and provide some additional links and resources. If you're not able to attend that webinar on Monday, it will be recorded and the materials will be made available.

"Are Second Chance Act grant recipients eligible to win multiple Second Chance Acts with overlapping funding periods?"

Yes. Given the large number of Second Chance Act programs that Alex highlighted, yes, you can be an organization that applies under multiple different programs and can have awards overlapping for the same period.

"Would it be possible, maybe as an enhancement to the past award, to search past awards based on a program rather than the solicitation, for instance, mobile crisis program applications that may have been submitted for various solicitations?"

This is already somewhat a feature that you can do. If you go to the BJA website and you search for, say, mobile crisis, it should, I believe, be able to pull up and identify previous applications or awards that were funded or awards that were made where mobile crisis, I think appears in either the name or perhaps even the project description. So it is a good suggestion in terms of we are always looking to try and make information more accessible and there may be another way to do this, but that is the one that is coming to mind immediately for me.

"Our organization runs and operates multiple STRTP homes for at-risk youth here in Los Angeles, formerly known as Group Homes for At-Risk Youth. Would we qualify for these grants?"

I recommend looking at one of our other program offices within the Office of Justice Programs, which is the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, which focuses on youth. Most of our programs focus on adults. Some of them do have the ability to also serve youth. But OJJDP is really the entity within the Office of Justice Programs that focuses on supporting youth and youth services.

"If our reentry program is faith-based, are we required to offer non-faith based alternatives to be given an award?"

I believe there's language in the solicitations around faith-based organizations. So, again, I would recommend you look at the specific solicitations to see that language.

"Is there an amendment process in case of changes made to initial proposals to accommodate changes in scope of project?"

Yes. If you receive an award and there are challenges or barriers or reasons why there may need to be adjustments, you can request that through what we call a change of scope GAM or grant adjustment and it would be a conversation with your grant manager around that.

"Are the award amounts annual? So are there continued applications similar to how SAMHSA funds?"

So, again, most of our awards are multi-year. And so if you apply for FY '24 funding, you would receive the award in FY '24. More often than not, that award has a 36-month award period. Again, potential to have those extended. You could apply for other BJA grant programs during that same period in which you have an open award.

"Can you describe the types of funding sources eligible for the escalating match?"

Once more, I would say look at the particular program or solicitation that has a match requirement. They discuss the specifics. So, in some cases, it can be a cash or an in-kind match. In other cases, it may only be a cash match that's allowable. So each solicitation where there is a match requirement, will talk about what can support that match.

"Our state has a local JRAC, Justice Reinvestment Act Council, which is a statutory group of people, primarily in the courts and mental health community. Because this group encompasses many areas of the justice system, is it still eligible for funding?"

I would say it depends how it is actually structured, where it sits within your state government, and on the solicitation. So look at each solicitation and see. But it's—also would be dependent on how the council is structured and where it sits in your state government.

"Any recommendations for organizations that help connect individuals with services in the community that can help with their reentry, more of a connection tool than providing services directly?"

I would say look at our community-based reentry and some of our Second Chance programs. They often have a pretty wide range of eligible activities that can be supported, which could potentially include making those connections rather than providing services directly.

"Does the Second Chance Act for Reentry and Education cover technology and Wi-Fi infrastructure to support higher education programs offering Pell Grant programs?"

So, I would specifically look at our Second Chance Act Improving Outcomes in Education and Employment, and I hope I have the order of that name correct. That may be able to support those activities.

"If you currently have a COSSUP grant that is set to expire, can you apply?"

Again, I strongly recommend looking at the COSSUP solicitation, when it is released and attending that solicitation webinar to ask that specific question. For specific release dates, please go to the program plan to see the anticipated quarter. That is the most specific information we can offer right now.

"Are there, in general, any pre-requirements for a nonprofit, for-profit to apply, such as requirements for previous grant experience or time-based experience?"

More often than not, there are not prerequisites like that. Having previously had a grant, we strongly encourage organizations who've never applied for or received federal funding or BJA funding to apply for funding. And we don't look at how long an organization necessarily has been in existence, but there are questions about the capacity of an organization and you will have to detail your ability to actually engage in the activities that you're proposing to do.

And I see that we are at time, so I think I can go. I recognize folks may have to jump off. We're going to take just another minute to answer the few last questions that I see. But, again, we'll be posting these materials and the recording and the transcripts on our website. Let's see.

"Are state agencies permitted to apply for Congressionally directed funding under the JAG?"

Congressionally directed funding is actually determined by members of Congress, and so, if you're an entity or a state agency that is interested in Congressionally directed funding, I recommend reaching out to your members of Congress to see what their process is for soliciting applications or ideas for that funding.

"Can you post a link to Monday's webinar please?"

That is available on our website. The registration, I believe Daryl might be able to put that in the chat if you're looking to register for that. Similar question. There. I see, Daryl has already put it. Thank you so much, Daryl. All right. And with that, thank you all very much for your time and your engagement and your many questions. We hope this is an indicator of how interested you may be in applying for some of our fundings. Please sign up to get notice of the solicitations when they're released. Please attend the webinars as they are posted. And I wish you all the best of luck in your applications this year. Thank you.

DARYL FOX: 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.