Funding Opportunities for Your Community in 2024: Tribes and Tribal Organizations

Transcript also available as PDF.

DARYL FOX: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, “Funding Opportunities for Your Community in 2024: Tribes and Tribal Organizations,” 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, Daryl, and welcome everyone. We're excited to have you with us today as we highlight some of our planned FY '24 Funding Opportunities for Tribes and Tribal Organizations. As Daryl said, my name is Michelle Garcia and I'm the Deputy Director for Programs at BJA. And I'm joined by colleagues today, Julius Dupree and Trish Thackston who you will meet shortly.

Today, we'll provide you with an overview of the Office of Justice Programs and the Bureau of Justice Assistance, address multiple solicitations that we have planned, both formula and discretionary awards. We'll leave you with some resources that you can use if you're considering whether to apply or in preparing and submitting your application. And lastly, we have time dedicated at the end for question and answer. As Daryl said, please be submitting your questions throughout the presentation using the question and answer feature in WebEx.

But before we jump in, we want to learn a little bit more about you and your experiences applying for funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance. So our first poll question is, "Have you previously applied for BJA funding?" We'll give you a couple of moments to respond. And so we just like to know whether you previously applied. All right. We'll give you just a few more seconds. All right. Daryl, could you close the poll, please?

So, of those of you that answered, it appears we're at about 50/50. Half of you have previously applied for BJA funding and about half of you haven't. The second question is, for those of you that have previously applied for BJA funding, have you been successful and have you received an award from BJA? Please take a moment to respond. And I will note that as we go through and talk about our solicitations, the majority of solicitations that BJA releases in a year are competitive. And for almost all of our competitive solicitations, we receive far more applications than we have resources. And so, if you previously applied and you haven't received funding, it's not necessarily an indication of the work that you're doing, of your program, of the project that you're proposing, or even necessarily about the application that you submitted, it just recognizes that we often have to make very difficult decisions. Daryl, could you please go ahead and close the poll? All right.

So, for those of you that have previously applied, actually an overwhelming majority of you have been successful and have received BJA funding in the past. So, that's great to have current grantees or returning grantees who are interested in seeing what might be available to them in FY '24. For those of you that have applied but haven't been successful, one of the things that we recommend is that for many of our programs, we'll release a summary of your strengths and weaknesses of your application. Please review any feedback that you've gotten and that's going to assist you in preparing a future application.

So, for those of you who may not be as familiar with the Office of Justice Programs, we are one of three and the largest of the grant-making components of the Department of Justice along with the Office on Violence Against Women and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is one of six offices within OJP, the other six offices are all grant-making entities as well. And we encourage you to check out each of their websites as well to see what funding opportunities they will have available this fiscal year.

BJA is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. We were created in 1984 to reduce violent crimes, create safer communities, and reform our nation's criminal justice system. And we're led by our Director Karhlton F. Moore. Our work focuses in three primary areas. First, investments that we make through grant programs across the country. We provide site-based grant funding and offering and training and technically assistance through programs such as our Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation, our COSSUP program, Adult Treatment Court, and the Second Chance Act Reentry Program.
We also work to share knowledge, identifying best practices, emerging innovations, and other resources that can benefit and move the field forward. We provide information on emerging and promising tribal justice related programs in Indian countries through the BJA-funded Tribal Access to Justice Innovation website and the National Institute of Justice CrimeSolutions website.

And lastly, we engage. We engage with communities and organizations across the country to the hear the kinds of challenges that you're facing. We consult with tribal representatives, tribal training and technical assistance providers, and federal partners to host events such as the American Indian Justice Conference, the Alaska Tribal Justice Conference, and Tribal Intergovernmental Reentry Workshop to provide training and facilitate coordination and encourage peer-to-peer engagement. In the investments arena, this year, we have over 80 planned solicitations. I will note that because we are currently operating under a continuing resolution, that the planned solicitations, this information is just for awareness at this point, and that all program plans and data are subject to the availability of appropriations and potential legislative changes of statutory requirements. This information could change, may be updated frequently, including the addition, substitution, or cancelation of any projected solicitation.

So, we encourage you to routinely check back to see the information as it becomes available. And two sites where you can find up-to-date information are both on the BJA website and then the Office of Justice Programs website as well. Starting on the right, Planned Solicitations, this site lists all of the Office of Justice Programs, OVW, and COPS planned solicitations for FY '24. One of the great features on this page is you can actually do a keyword search. So if you are looking for funding to support a particular type of activity, say, a Healing to Wellness Court or for reentry services, you can enter in that term and it'll bring up a list of solicitations that might be able to support those activities. Again, this is for all of the OJP as well as OVW and COPS planned solicitation. On the left is the website for the Bureau of Justice Assistance's active or Current Solicitations. As we release solicitations, we'll post them here. And very similarly, you can go in and you can do a search for awards that are available, either for a particular purpose area or to a particular type of organization.

The awards that we make, there are two types of grants, Formula and Discretionary. Formula grants are typically awarded on a non-competitive basis, which usually means that every eligible applicant that submits an application receive some funding. The amount of funding for a specific agency or jurisdiction can vary based on a variety of factors, which often include population and crime rate. Most of our Formula Grant Programs are administered by a State Administering Agency, or SAA, which then subawards those funds out to state, local, and tribal organizations within their state. If you don't have an active relationship with your SAA, I encourage you to start one today. I'll give you information shortly about how you can find out who your SAA is. With our Discretionary grant, applicants apply directly to BJA or to OJP offices. These grants are typically competitive and awards are based on predetermined review processes and availability of funds. As I mentioned earlier, for most of our discretionary awards, we receive applications that exceed the amount of funding that we have available. So we are trying to fund the strongest proposals based on the objective criteria that's laid out in the solicitation. I want to highlight a couple of our Formula Grant Programs. As I mentioned, these typically go to State Administering Agencies, which then award out funds to state, local, and tribal organizations within their state. Our flagship Formula award is our Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant. It is our largest grant program funding criminal justice and related activities across the United States. And as you can see, there is nine very broad purpose areas. So a range of activities are supported through Byrne JAG.

In addition to the Byrne JAG State Formula Program, there are also units of local governments as well as tribes that may be eligible for a JAG local award. These again are based on a formula determination and each year when the solicitation is released, those units of local government are identified. To give you a sense of how large this program is, last fiscal year, we made 56 state awards totaling over $209 million and to date, 949 local awards totaling over $96 million. We anticipate that the JAG state and local solicitations will be released this summer.

The second Formula Program I want to mention is our Byrne State Crisis Intervention Program. This is a relatively new Formula Program, it was created under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022. And it focuses on reducing gun violence and saving lives by making progress in keeping guns out of dangerous hands. The funds can support a wide range of activities, including state crisis intervention court proceedings, Extreme Risk Protection Order programs, and other activities that work to keep guns out of the hands of those who pose a threat to themselves or to others. For the Byrne SCIP program, we have five years of funding, $150 million per year. We've already released the '22 and '23, and we anticipate the solicitation for FY '24 will be released this spring.

As I mentioned, these types of programs are awarded to State Administering Agencies. You can find information on your State Administering Agency on the OJP website. And I'll note that not only will you be able to see who the State Administering Agency is for any Bureau of Justice Assistance funding, but you'll also see who the SAA is for Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, as well as for the Office for Victims of Crime. With that, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague Trish to kick us off in our Discretionary awards. Trish?

TRISH THACKSTON: Hello and welcome, everybody. Thanks so much for being here with us today. I am going to begin by discussing a number of Discretionary Programs that tribes are eligible to apply for. As you can see on the screen here, we have a whole bunch of different programs that tribes are eligible applicants for. I'm not going to just read through this list for you, we'll get into each of them on the following slides, but we're going to talk about 27 different opportunities that tribes are eligible for.

The first one I'm going to talk to you about is our Collaborative Crisis Response and Intervention Training Program, also referred to as CCRITP. Some examples of strategies and activities that can be funded through this program are to create and design and implement a new or enhanced training program in line with the Collaborative Crisis Response and Intervention Training curriculum, analyze existing training and deployment policies and practices in collaboration with local stakeholders and agency staff, adapt and implement new technology to track training implementation, and define and track process measures as well as short and long-term program outcomes.

The OJP Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative. Examples of strategies and activities that can be funded include, developing and implementing or expanding, and enhancing comprehensive community-based violent strategies, also known as CVI strategies to maximize existing and new resources, conduct needs assessments and gap analyses, build a new or strengthen an existing multidisciplinary working group to serve as the CVIPI team, develop and implement a data-driven violence reduction strategic plan, enhance a state's capacity to lead provocative CVI strategies, and deliver training, technical assistance, and subawards to subrecipient community-based organizations to implement and lead CVI strategies.

The Community Courts Initiative, there's a couple of different categories that you can apply for under Community Courts. Category one provides funding to plan or implement community court programs that address substance use disorders and other issues using evidence-based principles and practices. Category two provides funding to enhance existing community court programs that address substance use disorders and other issues using evidence-based principles and practices. Common principles and practices of community courts, although there are many differences in general, they all rely on a set of common principles and practices. Enhanced information: utilizing more specialized staff training about complex issues like substance use disorder and mental illness, combined with more comprehensive information about defendants, victims and the community context of crime, to help improve decision-making of judges, attorneys, and other justice systems officials. Community engagement: engaging residents and people with lived experience to help identify, prioritize, and solve community safety, public health and other social issues within a jurisdiction. Collaboration: bringing together justice system stakeholders such as judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement, probation officers and court administrators, and other potential community stakeholders such as social service providers, residents, victims, groups, and schools to improve inter-agency communication and trust between community members and local government to foster new responses to problems. Individualized justice: using evidence-based risk and need assessment instruments to link defendants to individually-tailored community-based services such as job training, behavioral health treatment, and recovery support, and other support services and safety planning. Accountability: employing community restitution mandates and regular compliance monitoring with clear consequences for non-compliance to improve the accountability of defendants. And outcomes: collecting and analyzing data, outcomes, processes, costs and benefits on an active and ongoing basis to evaluate the effectiveness of operations and encourage continuous improvement.

The Adult Treatment Court Program, and I will mention here that many tribes have successfully accessed these funds. Examples of strategies and activities that can be funded are clinical and medication-assisted treatment, case management, training and overdose prevention, and take home naloxone availability in the community, providing transitional recovery, housing assistance, peer recovery support, a collaboration between state, local, or tribal jurisdictions, and management information systems. This is a place where you might look at a Healing to Wellness Court or Veterans Treatment Courts and so forth.

The Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation is where all of BJA's tribal specific grant funding is housed. And this particular solicitation, the only eligible applicants are federally-recognized tribal governments in contrast to all of the others that we're talking about today where federally-recognized tribal governments are one of the eligible applicants. Examples of strategies that can be funded through CTAS include hiring personnel, risk and needs assessments, diversion and alternatives to incarceration, prevention, treatment and recovery training, new and enhanced tribal peacemaking courts, assessing tribal justice system gaps and needs, integrating your traditional practices into the justice system. Really, the full spectrum of the justice system can be covered within the purpose areas that BJA includes in CTAS. And I should actually mention that CTAS is currently open and we do have the closing dates on this one coming up shortly, March 5th, is the Grants.gov deadline and March 12th is the JustGrants deadline.

The Emmett Till Cold Case Investigations Program supports state, local, and tribal law enforcement prosecution agencies to investigate and prosecute unsolved homicide cold case murders suspected of being racially-motivated. It includes support for victims' families and stakeholders impacted by these cases. The funds are limited to violations of civil rights statutes resulting in death that occurred no later than December 31st, 1979. So this is going back a fair distance in history, obviously. That's part of why being able to support those community relations and efforts to support victims' families can be very important here. And we have not yet had a tribe apply for these funds directly. We did recently make an award to the State of Washington, that is, the State of Washington is working with tribal governments within the state to identify, and investigate, and prosecute cases that fall within these guidelines. But we would love to see tribes consider this as an option as well. And BJA collaborates with the DOJ Community Relations Service to support reconciliation and support services for the families of victims and other stakeholders.

Our Field Initiated solicitation, Encouraging Innovation, this is a very broad opportunity for applicants to share with us their innovative ideas to address crime and violence in their communities. We don't necessarily provide direction as to how we suggest you do that. It really is the opportunity to share your innovative ideas. Examples of strategies that can be funded under this solicitation include responding to precipitous increases in crime, including violent crime, and improve system capacity to track and respond to increases in these kinds of crime; address substance use disorders and/or efforts to prevent and respond to drug overdose fatalities; improve outcomes for justice system-involved individuals, including those who are currently or formerly incarcerated; and respond to an increase in hate crimes or an increase in access to justice and supportive services.

Our Matthew Shephard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Program, hate crimes or sometimes called bias-motivated crimes, are criminal offenses motivated by some type of bias toward a victim on the basis of their perceived or actual race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability. The Matthew Shephard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Program support state, local, and tribal law enforcement and prosecution agencies in their outreach to and education of the public, victims, and their staff and partners about hate crimes. This program also reimburses expenses associated with the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes. Some examples of strategies and activities that can be funded are, build strong collaboration between law enforcement, prosecution, and community-based organizations; establish state and region-wide coordinated efforts to prevent, identify, and investigate, and heal from hate crimes; create comprehensive approaches that expand strategies to increase the reporting, identification, and charging of hate crimes; enhance the capacity of law enforcement and prosecutors to prevent and address hate crimes; increase trust and
confidence in state, local, and tribal justice partners to be able to identify, investigate, and prosecute hate crimes; and implement an action plan resulting in the prosecution and resolution of cases.

Our Rural and Small Department Violent Crime Reduction Program, several years ago, the Bureau of Justice Assistance in partnership with Major City Chiefs Association, developed and released the Violent Crime Reduction Operations Guide to assist jurisdictions in their efforts to combat violent crime. The Violent Crime Reduction Operations Guide outlines actions and activities that can adapt to any agency. BJA later partnered with AEquitas to develop a companion tool, the Prosecutors' Guide to Reducing Violence and Building Safer Communities, which also outlines critical crime reduction strategic principles for prosecutors' offices through a continuum of crime reduction capacities. This program will provide funding to small and/or rural agencies and to prosecutors that are interested in implementing or improving the capacity of their organization around one or more critical elements found in the Violent Crime Reduction Operations Guide, or the Prosecutors' Guide to Reducing Violence and Building Safer Communities.

The Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, or SAKI is a program that assists in addressing backlogs of unprocessed sexual assault kits. SAKI is critical to enhancing the criminal justice response to sexual assault and ensuring justice for victims of crime. The funding not only helps to link victims to advocates and needed services, but it also helps jurisdictions to implement best practices and comprehensive reform to bring perpetrators to justice and increase safety in communities by preventing future sexual assaults. SAKI provides funding to support multidisciplinary community response teams to inventory, track and expeditiously test previously un-submitted sexual assault kits; to collect and test lawfully-owned DNA from offenders and arrestees; to produce necessary protocols and policies to improve collaboration among laboratories, police, prosecutors, and victim services providers; to provide resources to address the sexual assault investigations and prosecutions that result from evidence and CODIS hits produced by tested sexual assault kits; and optimize victim notification protocols and services. And there have been many, many cases throughout the country that have been solved after being unsolved for a long time through this program.

Now the Visiting Fellow Program is a very different kind of program than these grant funding programs I've been talking about. BJA encourages applications. This is an opportunity to bring in individuals who work within BJA as part of the team to help bring lived experience and knowledge and perspective to BJA in the field. We encourage agencies who have not received BJA funding to consider applying. Examples of strategies and activities that can be funded are supporting research partnerships to assist in the reduction of substance use related crime and overdose, support reducing the stigma for persons with a criminal justice involvement who are in recovery; improving corrections and reintegration under the Second Chance Act; enhancing and upholding the rule of law and preventing wrongful conviction; advancing strategies to prevent and respond to hate crimes; and enhancing strategies for addressing violent crime in tribal communities.

Reimagining Justice, Testing a New Model for Community Safety is another program. And examples of strategies and activities that can be funded are to create innovative strategies or models to improve community safety, focus on economically-disadvantaged neighborhoods where crimes are persistent and concentrated; engage residents and leaders in the target area and the development and implementation of the safety model; work with a research partner to assess needs and document implementation and develop tools to support the field; build capacity of local resources and institutions that have the ability to reduce and prevent crime; and fund and administer subawards to provide training and technical assistance. And with that, I am going to turn this over to my colleague Julius Dupree.

JULIUS DUPREE: Thank you, Trish. I'm going to start off talking about a couple of law enforcement related programs and then also going to address some of our substance use programs, as well as some corrections-related programming.

So the first program I wanted to discuss is the Body-Worn Camera Policy and Implementation Program to Support Law Enforcement Agencies. And so this particular program allows for you to purchase or lease body-worn cameras as part of a larger program or comprehensive program to really help with managing evidence, digital evidence, as well as helping improve officer training for constitutional policing practices. And we've seen an increase, obviously it's been an increased need as you all are aware. We have a number of tribes that have been successful in receiving that funding under that particular program, and the funding amounts are listed below on that. So definitely take note of that. Next slide please.

And so, we also have the Small, Rural, Tribal Body Worn Camera Program, which is more of a microgrant-related program. And it's really it's for the same purpose as I had mentioned before. You can see it's currently open. It's open until March 4th of this year.

And there's a link there at the bottom of the slide if you want to access the application process and apply for that particular opportunity. Next slide please.

The STOP School Violence Program—that program is really focusing on helping jurisdictions to do threat assessments, as well as support mental health training, bullying training, and technology solutions, such as anonymous reporting systems. And it's really designed to give students and teachers the tools to really recognize and prevent school violence. I should note that the COPS Office or Office of Community Oriented Policing also has the companion program around STOP School Violence, but it's really more focused on doors, locks, cameras, and other target hardening measures. So we encourage you to visit the COPS Office if you're really looking for information on that program. And some examples of tribal projects that we funded under this particular program includes technology reporting systems, staff training on identifying mental health concerns, evidence-based social risk analysis methods to enhance school-specific threat assessments, installing technology that can really better equip the school safety intervention teams with interacting during drills and active situations, as well as hiring licensed mental health professionals to provide supportive services to children and families. Next slide.

Now, the Connect and Protect: Law Enforcement Behavioral Health Response Program is really designed to kind of enhance partnerships between police departments and mental health providers. And so it's to really improve the outcomes of first responder situations, especially with those individuals that may have mental health disorders or co-occurring disorders. And some examples of some of the strategies that have been funded through this include the cross-system collaboration programs, such as case management, crisis intervention teams, and co-responder teams, and mobile crisis teams. Also, training coordination for mental health collaboration, as well as collecting data and forming practices and developing policies, engaging residents via the outreach and education to improve public health safety, and enhancing officer skills or responding to community members. And I can tell you an example of a project that a tribe received funding for was really to help unify their police department and their mental health agency to really better and to coordinate those services and actually help de-escalate those situations before it becomes something dangerous. And so we estimate that we would maybe make about 30 awards under that project. Next slide please.

Our Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Use Program, also known as COSSUP, and I know Michelle mentioned that earlier. So that program is really designed to really help address the overdose crisis that the country is experiencing and really helping with addressing those opioid, stimulant, and other substances misuse types of issues. And it's really a comprehensive program because it really allows for you to apply for funding to really support projects across the justice continuum. And some of you may have heard of the Sequential Intercept Model. So that's what that is. From the beginning of the justice system actually to reentry, you can get funding under that particular program. And some of the examples of things that can be funded includes deflection and diversion, behavioral health professionals, naloxone distribution, recovery support services, community-based prevention and education, embedding social workers and justice agencies, alternative to incarceration programs, transitional housing, jail-based services, I should say, harm reduction services, and expansion of treatment services. One thing I could say is the most applications that we've received from tribes is through this particular program, as far as the non-tribal-specific, and then we've made the most awards to tribes through this program as well. Some of the examples of tribal projects include delivering evidence-based and culturally-inclusive recovery support tools to address the those most vulnerable residents of the community, hiring peer support counselors to work in conjunction with police departments, naloxone distribution, as well as developing tribal Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion programs, also known as LEAD, which is really an alternative to the judicial system. Next slide please.

Now, the Intellectual Property Enforcement Program, that really addresses intellectual property crimes, if you will. So for that particular program, it really assists states, locals, and tribal jurisdictions by preventing and reducing intellectual property theft, as well as supporting law enforcement investigating or prosecuting intellectual property crimes. Some of the examples of the strategies and activities funded include investigating and prosecuting intellectual property crimes with the focus on public health and safety, showing possible intellectual property links to organized crime, criminal gangs, and drug trafficking, as well as providing an overview of intellectual property cases and investigations and highlighting successes and those ones that showed promise but did not result in an arrest. Next slide please.

Now, I'm going to talk a little bit about some of our corrections-related programs. This first one is Improving Adult and Youth Crisis Stabilization and Community Reentry. And so, for this particular program, it's just as the name implies, it's really to help really fund activities around addressing those with co-occurring disorders, providing treatment recovery services to really facilitate the reentry of folks from a period of incarceration back into the community. And I can give you an example of one tribal project that we funded under that particular program, where the tribe actually hired a licensed addiction counselor and a peer support specialist to provide targeted services for high-risk and high-need justice-involved adults and youth. And this is a fairly new program, I should note, and it just started in 2022. And so I do encourage you to apply when it becomes available. And a number of these projects that we're referring to, we see low numbers of tribal applicants, and so we definitely want to see more participation there. So please definitely keep that in mind as you look at some of these programs that we're talking about. Next slide please.

The Second Chance Act Community-based Reentry Program. Now, we have seen a good number of tribes apply for this particular program. And it's very general, as it relates to supporting reentry services for communities. That's also more so pre-release services before they are released, as well as post-release, after a period of incarceration. And so, grants made under this program may be used for mentoring services, transitional services, as well as training. And some examples of tribal projects that we have funded under this program really include providing evidence-based modalities that are fused with best practice indigenous traditional ways to those reentering the community. And, also, partnering with the state Department of Corrections to provide culturally-relevant and holistic reentry services to its members, because we do realize, as you all know, some of the state facilities or local facilities may not have those culturally-appropriate services. So, you may want to look to this opportunity to help partner with those entities, so that your community members are receiving that support. Next slide please.

So the Second Chance Act Improving Reentry Education & Employment Outcomes Program. And so, this is actually really targeted at really enhancing or improving the provision of educational services and employment services for those who are incarcerated or post-incarceration. And there's a number of different activities that are funded under this project that can include screening and assessment tools, educational and vocational programming, which includes partnerships with colleges and universities, staff training, developing partnerships with local employers, career training programs, as well as conducting reentry career planning. Next slide please.

Well, I'm sorry. And I did want to note that, as far as examples of tribal projects that we funded under that previous program that I mentioned, we had a tribe that actually received funding to transform their probation and parole services to really increase the public safety and reduce recidivism and increase job readiness for those folks that are returning from incarceration. And another tribe, actually, as I mentioned before, had provided educational vocational services to members that were in the state Department of Corrections. Next slide, please.

The Second Chance Act Improving Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery Outcomes for Adults in Reentry Program. And so this another that really helps focus on that holistic provision of services to address those with substance use disorders, as well as mental health disorders. So if you're interested in that program, you could receive funding to do a number of different things to support hiring personnel, medication to support substance use disorder programming or harm reduction, as well as screening and assessment tools, and process and outcome evaluation. And the example of a tribal projects that were funded under this particular initiative, we did have a tribe that actually received funding to do individualized case management and case planning, risk assessment, as well as Moral Reconation Therapy, peer support groups, and cultural activities. And then, also, we've seen a project related to providing integrated substance use and mental health disorder treatment. Next slide please.

The Second Chance Act: Pay for Success Program. So, this is really designed to really help with implementing or establishing contracts to improve permanent housing or permanent supportive housing options, as well as provide reentry services to include mental health and substance use and co-occurring disorders. And some examples of things that can be funded under this particular program include providing permanent supportive housing, as well as managing performance or outcomes-related reentry services contract. And an example of a tribe that actually received funding under this program was to actually provide education, employment, and supportive services in partnership with recovery housing. Next slide please.

The Second Chance Community Supervision Strategies Program. So this particular program is really designed to enhance community supervisions program. So if you have a tribal probation program, this particular program can really help with researching informed strategies to really improve responses to folks that are under community supervision, and, really, in accordance with the Swift, Certain, and Fair principles. And so that may be something that you may be interested in if you're looking to do that. Also, if you really want to evaluate the effectiveness of your strategies that you're currently using to improve the outcomes, then this is a particular program that you may want to look at as well. Next slide please.

Smart Reentry: Housing Demonstration Project. Now, this is a new project, but what it is designed to do is to allow you to really do an assessment of your housing situation or housing options and actually, hopefully, build capacity to improve housing options for those that are being released from prisons or jails. And, again, this is a new program in FY '24, so we really do hope that you take a look at that once it does become available. Next slide please.

Smart Supervision Program. This is another community supervision-related program that we do fund, and it's really to help with, really, capacity building. So if there's a need to adopt new tools or technology or basically move towards more evidence-based policies and practices, or if you really want to test innovative approaches to improving outcomes for those under supervision, then you may want to consider this opportunity as well. Next slide please.

Now, the BJA National Training and Technical Assistance Center, also referred to as NTTAC, is our overarching training and technical assistance resource. So you don't have to receive a grant to receive these services. But they are available. We do encourage you to take a look at that. We really want to help support you all in your justice program implementation efforts. And so if we could do that by providing you with information on practice-based evidence models, as well as supporting agencies to really address operational programmatic needs and just really helping improve your justice capacity overall by training criminal justice practitioners to replicate different model programs and approaches, then we definitely want to assist with that. And you'll see, as this was provided, the website for more information on that. And with that, I'm going to turn it back over to our colleague, Michelle.

MICHELLE GARCIA: Thanks, Julius. So, as I mentioned, we want to leave you with some resources to assist you as you're considering applying or working on applications. Every time we release a solicitation, we will post it on our website. If you go to that solicitation page, you'll find basic information. You can also download the full solicitation. I want to highlight a resource that I think is a great place to start, and that is the Solicitation Overview. For almost all of our solicitations, we've created a one-pager that highlights the key information about that solicitation. So who might apply, who's eligible to apply, why would you apply for this funding, and some examples of activities, the amounts available for each award. And I will also reiterate that if it is a solicitation where you're not eligible yourself or your organization or entity is not eligible to directly apply, we do encourage partnerships. And so you might be able to partner with another organization and receive a subaward if they are successful in that application.

For almost every solicitation we release, we will also hold a webinar about that solicitation, where we'll walk through the solicitation, what's required, if we had released that solicitation in priority years, highlight any changes from previous years, and then also answer any questions you might have specific to that solicitation. So those are an opportunity for you to get more information. I will also highlight that today's webinar is part of a series that we are doing, focusing on the different solicitations we anticipate for FY '24. So for the ones that we've held, if you have a particular interest area, I encourage you to check those out. And I'll also highlight Monday's webinar, which is the “Federal Funding Process: The First Steps to Applying, How to Prepare Now, & Other Considerations.” And for those of you who've not previously applied for BJA or OJP or federal funding, this particular webinar can be a great opportunity to think about things as you're considering applying.

The OJP Grant Application Resource Guide is really the A to Z resource on all things related to the application. I will say, as someone who spent a large part of my career in the nonprofit sector when I was applying for grants from the Office of Justice Programs, this was a resource that I utilized frequently. Anytime I had a question about the application or application process, I would start here. If I didn't find the answer here, I will tell you where you can go to get additional questions answered.

Also, I want to highlight that one of the frequent asks we've gotten from applicants who were not successful in receiving funding was, "Would it be possible for me to see an example of an application that was successful?" And so we have started over the past several years compiling information and making available applications from other entities that have been successful in receiving funding. So if you are looking at a particular solicitation and would like to get a sense of what someone else has applied for, there are several examples available, specifically from tribes and tribal organizations as well.

And then as you would have seen for the solicitations that are already open this year, there were two deadlines, the Grants.gov deadline and the JustGrants deadline. So our application process is a two-step process. You'll start your application in Grants.gov and then you'll complete your application in JustGrants, which is our electronic grant management system. The bulk of the application will be completed in JustGrants. And if you receive award, that is actually where you will manage your award. The JustGrants website has numerous resources available to help you in navigating JustGrants. They have training videos. They have user guides. They have frequently asked questions. You can get direct one-on-one user support to address any challenges you might be having. And as you move through the application process, if you have questions, either with Grants.gov or JustGrants, customer support is available both by phone and by email. I also would recommend that if you've not received federal funding before or OJP or BJA funding, that it can be helpful to go to the Award Recipient Resources page. Now, this becomes really valuable if you receive an award, but it can be also useful while you're considering submitting an application to get a sense of what is actually required of grantees. You can, for instance, look at the DOJ Grants Financial Guide to get a sense of what are the financial systems that are needed to be in place to help manage the dollars.

And then to stay up-to-date on when solicitations are released, there's a couple ways you can do that. One is you can actually subscribe to receive our funding news, which is a weekly notice of new grant opportunities, as well as application tips. So if you go to the ojp.gov/subscribe website, you can sign up there. You can also sign up by texting your email address to 468-311 to start receiving those alerts. We also will advertise on social media once we're releasing solicitations. So if you follow us on Facebook or X, formerly Twitter, you can get updates when solicitations are released there. And as I said, we'll also be posting them on the BJA website at bja.ojp.gov.

If you're reading through a solicitation, if you're working on your application and have questions and you haven't been able to find the answers in other places, then please reach out to the OJP Resource Center, which should be able to answer any remaining questions that you have. Again, that resource is available by phone or by email.

With that, we will turn to any questions we might have. So, again, reminder, if you have any questions, please use the Q&A feature to enter them there, and I will look and respond to the questions that we've received so far. So we had a question asking if we have a rough estimate of the total amount available in funding that we've discussed in the presentation. If you go to the DOJ Grant Program Plan page that I talked about at the beginning of this presentation, you can actually find the information for the funding available for every solicitation that we've talked about.

There is a question about, "Is there an email we can subscribe to receive notifications about open solicitations?" Yes. I just talked about where you can go on our website to subscribe or, again, if you text your email address to—and I want to make sure I get the number right—if you text your email address to 468-311, that should subscribe you for funding alerts.

"When will this presentation be placed on the BJA website for review?" Daryl, can you actually fill that question please?

DARYL FOX: Yes. So maybe roughly about seven to ten business days before that's posted, and everybody that has registered will receive an email with a link when that's available and where to access those. So keep an eye out for that.

MICHELLE GARCIA: Thank you, Daryl. Okay. I do see a question that was submitted in the chat. "I've been conducting research on cultural crimes, for example violations of cultural values and theft of cultural property. Would this qualify under the intellectual property theft solicitation?" So, for most of our solicitations, they haven't been released yet this year, so very specific questions like that, I can't definitively answer for FY '24. But this is a solicitation we have previously released and many of our solicitations are very similar or the same from year to year, so I would recommend viewing last year's solicitation for the intellectual property theft program and you might be able to get an answer there. But then once the FY '24 solicitation comes out, definitely review that. And if the answer isn't in the solicitation itself, if you can attend the webinar and ask the question there or reach out to the OJP Response Center, you should be able to get that question answered. All right.

I see a question on, "Please clarify COSSUP grant funding. This is my first time funding—funding link that shows up for a committee fund I [INDISTINCT], is COSSUP made up of [INDISTINCT]…” So, the COSSUP solicitation for FY '24 has not been released yet. Again, as I just similarly indicated, I would recommend looking at the FY '23 COSSUP solicitation to get a sense of what was funded last year, what type of activities and categories there were. As I mentioned, often our solicitations are very similar from year to year. But when the COSSUP solicitation is released for FY '24, it'll have all the detailed information to answer your question.

So, there's a question about, "Seeing that a state received multiple grants and another state did not get a grant, will that state have a chance this year?" As I mentioned when I started, for the majority of our discretionary grant programs, we receive more applications than we have resources for, and so we look to fund the strongest applications based on the criteria that's outlined in the solicitation. If you have or you know of an organization that has previously applied but was not successful, for many, if not most of our solicitations, applicants that did not receive funding would receive a summary of the strengths and weaknesses of their application, and I would really encourage using those to help and form an application this year. All right.

We are at 4:00. We want to be respectful of everybody's time, but, also, thank you for spending this hour with us and I hope you had an opportunity to learn about a program that might be able to support you and the really important work that you're doing in your community. Thank you all so much. And with that, I'll turn it over to Daryl.

DARYL FOX: Wonderful. Thanks, Michelle. So on behalf of the Bureau of Justice Assistance and our panelists, thank you for joining today's webinar. This will end today's presentation.