FY24 Reimagining Justice: Testing a New Model of Community Safety

Transcript also available as a PDF.

DARYL FOX: Good afternoon everyone and welcome to today's webinar, “FY 2024 Reimagining Justice, Testing a New Model of Community Safety,” hosted by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. So at this time, it's my pleasure to introduce Tenzing Lahdon, Senior Policy Advisor with BJA, to begin the presentation. Tenzing?

TENZING LAHDON: Thank you, Daryl. Welcome everyone and thank you so much for joining us today. I am Tenzing Lahdon, Senior Policy Advisor with BJA. And we at BJA are really excited about this solicitation as a part of our larger field-initiated activities. The solicitation is one of several OJP funding opportunities that are out there now to fund community-based organizations. And we hope you will consider applying and partnering with us on this, as well as other solicitations that are out there. Again, I am Tenzing Lahdon, and I am one of the presenters for today's webinar. And you will also hear from Alex and Lori from Rutgers University-Newark Public Safety Collaborative, which is one of our Reimagining Justice Project sites. Next.

So, for our today's agenda, we will do a brief overview of OJP and BJA, an overview of the solicitation followed by our guest speakers. We will talk about the eligibility and application requirements as well as resources and support that are available to you. And then we will save about 10 to 15 minutes at the end for any questions that you may have for us today. So if you have any questions, feel free to use the Q&A function at any time during this presentation. So the second one—you can go to the next slide. Thank you, Daryl.

So, what is Office of Justice Programs? Office of Justice Programs provides grant funding, training, and research and statistics for our criminal justice community. OJP is one of the three grant-making offices within Department of Justice, along with COPS Office and Office on Violence Against Women. Within the Office of Justice Programs, there are six bureaus, or Program Offices, that administer [INDISTINCT] OJP grant programs. So we have the National Institute of Justice, which is a research and development and evaluation agency within DOJ; Office of Victims of Crime, which supports a broader array of programs and services that are really focused on helping the victims; Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, which supports state, local, and communities in their effort to implement effective programs for children; Bureau of Justice Statistics, which is our primary statistical agency for Department of Justice; and the SMART Office, which provides jurisdiction with guidance regarding implementation of Adam Walsh Act; and lastly, the Bureau of Justice Assistance and we will go over that in the next slide.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance was created in 1984 to reduce violent crimes, create safer communities, and reform our nation's criminal justice system. BJA strengthens the nation criminal justice system and helps America's state, local, and tribal jurisdiction in reducing and preventing crime, reduce recidivism, and promote fair and safe criminal justice systems. Our director, Karhlton Moore, was appointed by President Biden in February of 2022. Director Moore leads our programmatic and policy efforts on providing a wide range of resources, including training and technical assistance to court, law enforcement, corrections, treatment, reentry, justice information sharing and community-based partners to address chronic and emerging criminal justice challenges nationwide. Next slide.

So, how does BJA support the field? We do that in three ways. The first being our investments. We put our solicitation to support the field as well as goals and the mission of BJA. Second is sharing knowledge. BJA supports number of research projects that support the field in terms of identifying what the best practices are. We equip the field with tools and resources needed based on the changing times and trends to build capacity and improve outcomes. And lastly, partnering, consulting, connecting, and convening with our partners in the field. And collectively to our investments, our research, and our engagement, we are working to create stronger programs that will impact communities and help you do the work that you do. Next slide.

So, we have our next poll question here. The question is, "Has your organization been awarded federal grants in the past?" And the options here are, "Yes, my organization has extensive experience with federal grants,” “Yes, though my organization does not currently have a federal grant,” “My organization has limited experience with federal grants," and lastly, "My organization is new to the federal grants and is looking to learn more." So I'll just give you a few more seconds to respond to this poll. Maybe five more seconds, Daryl, and then you can close the poll. All right.

It looks like a lot more of you have some experience with federal grants. So that's good. And hopefully, folks who have not responded or who do not have limited experience with federal grants will apply for the solicitation. And there are a lot of resources available and we will go over the solicitation in greater detail during our webinar today and provide you step-by-step guidance and point you to the resources. Thank you for completing the poll. Daryl, we can move to next slide. Thank you.

So, for the Reimagining Justice: Testing the New Model of Community Safety, our goal is to improve community safety, the quality of life by identifying, implementing, and testing, promising new and innovative community strategies that will reduce and prevent crime, address quality of life, improve community residents' perception of procedural fairness, and build capacity via training and technical assistance to sustain and translate these lessons learned to the field. Next.

Objectives under the solicitation are to, first, develop and test an effective community-based safety model to serve as an alternative to traditional enforcement processes for addressing lower-level types of crime; to increase community safety and build trust and credibility between law enforcement and residents by partnering with stakeholders such as community-based organizations, local government entities and other entities. These partnerships are critical in developing capacity as well as long-term sustainability of the project. Lastly, to design and deliver training and technical assistance and funding to support project sites, and build the capacity of project sites and the field at large. The third objective is directly related to Category 2, which we will discuss later in the presentation. Next slide.

So now, before we go deeper into our solicitation, we do have two guest speakers, Alex Santana and Lori Scott-Pickens from Rutgers University, part of the Newark Public Safety Collaborative. Thank you so much for joining us today to talk about your experience about your project, your experience in applying and managing the Reimagining Justice grants. So I'll pass it to Alex and Lori to introduce themselves and tell us a little bit about your project and your experience with Reimagining Justice grant.

DR. ALEJANDRO GIMENEZ SANTANA: Thank you so much, Tenzing. And thank you for having us here. I'm here with Lori Scott-Pickens, our Director of Community Outreach. And my name is Alex Santana. I'm Assistant Professor at the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers Newark, and also Co-Executive Director of the NPSC. Lori, can you introduce yourself, please? And then I will continue.

LORI SCOTT-PICKENS: Sure. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Lori Scott-Pickens. I'm Director of Outreach for the School of Criminal Justice and have been there for many years, and involved in community engagement activities in the city, the state, the county of New Jersey.

DR. ALEJANDRO GIMENEZ SANTANA: Thank you, Lori. So I'm going to start first talking about our experience as the first time that we received the Reimagining Justice solicitation from BJA. I'm going to start a little bit more talking about the more technical aspects of what was our experience applying for the grant and managing this grant and this funding as a university. So I might be a little more specific for it with higher education, but I will give a few examples also of nonprofits. And then I will co-present with Lori about the implementation of this program, with Lori having us, she just said, quite an experience in working in community outreach, not just in this grant over the last 20 years.

So first, again, as part of Rutgers University, when we applied for this grant, one of the first thing I will say that was important for us was to really look at the solicitation. If you download the PDF of the solicitation on the BJA website, you will find that there's a number of pages that detail exactly what are the things that BJA is looking for. A lot of attention, I think, is to be paid on some of the priorities. These priorities explain what are some of the things that they want to see done in some of these areas, for example, is your organization going to be serving minority communities? Is it going to be serving underserved communities? Is it going to be partnering with nonprofits that serve the Black and Brown communities? This is all important. So I think it's very important to pay attention to the solicitation. I will say one of the pieces of advice I will share is really pay a lot of attention, read over the solicitation several times to look at all those details because those details matter. And sometimes telling the story in a way where you are paying attention on the details that are asked for in the solicitation may help you to organize your story, organize your narrative, but also understand what is the format that the reviewers are going to be looking at when they are ranking your application versus others. I will say that's the first thing.

The next thing is, look very closely at all the deadlines, and Tenzing is going to be talking about this. There's parts of your application that need to go first before you launch the full application. As a university, I work, for example, closely with our research office to prepare the budget. The budget had to conform to certain rules that the university establishes, but then also pay attention on the solicitation and some of the details that need to be included on that budget. Things like indirect costs, things like fringe benefits, make sure that those are included, of course, in your application.

Another part is this grant, this particular solicitation, Reimagining Justice, connects or offers a chance to bring in some subawardees like we did. These subawardees are a key part of this solicitation. I know that now this particular one in 2024 is going to have two pieces, I'm going to talk just about the one where we as Rutgers University received the grant, but then we have three subawardees, three community-based organizations who are part of this grant. According to the solicitation, as seen here, that's why I keep referring to it, had to receive a certain amount of the grant. In this case, a third of the funds had to go to the subawardees. So we subdivided that into other three subawardees, each one of the subawardees had to prepare their own budgets, with their own indirect cost and fringe benefits, which then were included in our larger budget when we launched the application. So I would say take the time and start as soon as possible with the budget piece as you work your way into the narrative. I think it's very important to make sure that your budget brings all the pieces, both your expenses as the receiving organization and also the expenses of your subawardees.

Then once you receive the grant, there's a few months that are going to go by where you're going to have to work with different departments at BJA in making sure that your budget is conforming to all the rules. So there might be some time where you're not yet ready to be using that funding. So important is to look at on Grants.gov to be looking at all the things that your grant manager, which will be established on the letter that you will receive from BJA. Make sure that you follow all the steps and make sure that you're on top of some of the requirements.

Things that you're going to have to fill out are those reports that are due every three months. These reports need to be uploaded, and so, I will say, important is to have a good data collection database or archival of your efforts. What we've been doing at NPSC, for example, is to organize a spreadsheet where any type of communication with our community partnership, any type of analysis gets archived so we can quantify some of these interactions with the community. We can archive any data reports that we prepare for our community partners. So all of this gets archived, which help us then prepared those mandatory reports to BJA through the duration of the grant. In our case, we are midway to the grant. We received the grant in 2022, so we have another year and a half. And I will say, once you learned the system, it's not that complicated. I will encourage if you are awarded this grant, then you talk to your, again, your grant manager, which will be established on your award letter. And with this, again, if you have any questions, please, at the end, just ask me any questions you may have to me and Lori, we're happy to help. But now I'm going to jump into the implementation piece.

The implementation piece, and Lori, I would love for you to wade in as well on some of the challenges of collaborating with the community. And in our case, using data for example, to get them to implement activities in a localized matter. So, Lori, I wonder if you can talk a little bit about some of the challenges and some of the opportunities that we found in this work partnering with the community, and of course, put it in the perspective of your work as Director of Community Outreach at the school.

LORI SCOTT-PICKENS: Of course. Thank you, Alex, and thank you again, BJA, for hosting this session. The good news is that I've been in the community for a long time. The other news is that I've been in the community for a long time. And so it's very important to know the neighborhood and the city that you're going to work in, so that you know who are the go-getter agencies, the agencies who are viewed as anchor institutions themselves and who are out and have crime reduction and quality-of-life issues as part of their agenda.

We successfully identified three agencies who are considered anchoring institutions in their own neighborhoods. And so they had the capacity to do the things that Alex just pointed out to you with respect to managing funding, having had experience with having funding, and then, I like to say dates, dollars, and deliverables, but they have that experience in doing all of those things. The other thing is looking at what's happening in terms of crime trends around the city. So this insertion of data-informed community engagement is critically important because it helps facilitate the process by which communities engaged in their own strategies. We have successfully been able to with data and having the community have access to that data, no holds barred, no hiding it from them, or being dismissive of them, but engaging for them for them to see themselves what the issues are. So we have successfully seen these anchor institutions go back and use that data, share with their own constituencies, and then create strategies to try to eliminate the problem. And one of the big issues for us right now is theft from autos. And so we successfully dealt with the Hyundai and Kia challenge, and worked with the community to have a campaign, lock your car, take your keys, and it went over very well. In fact, the information sharing in different neighborhoods reduced the amount of cars thefts. Now we're talking about put your things away, don't have them highly visible, and just educating the community, and then showing them through the data where this stuff is happening most frequently, and working with them.

The same with robbery. You look in an area that has a lot of robberies and then you work with the community, giving them the opportunity to come up with their own strategies, really, and then supporting that work, so they can make it happen. So if it means us printing something, if it means us facilitating meetings, if it means us providing as much data as possible, that is what we've done. And it's one of the most successful community-engagement projects that I have worked on in the time that I've been at the School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers, Newark. It’s one of the best because it's led by the community, and I think that's what's key. I'll stop there, Alex, so I don't know if you want me to…

DR. ALEJANDRO GIMENEZ SANTANA: No, no. That was great. Thank you, Lori, I appreciate your words. And I'm just going to add one piece before passing it back to Tenzing. And like I said, if you have questions, please ask those questions at the end of this webinar. I'm just going to add the importance of co-production. And the word co-production in community safety, which Director Karlton mentioned at the last Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative, or CVIPI Conference in Chicago, is the idea of how can the community work alongside, not as simple attendees of meetings organized by the police, but actually as producers of safety to co-create community safety. And the co-production of community safety is at the fore of the work of the NPSC in the city of Newark, we work with the Office of Violence Prevention, the Newark Community Street team, and all their organizations and anchor institutions. And I think it's important to identify some of the tours, as Lori said, some of those organizations that are extremely engaged in the community. And our role has been to really create capacity. How do we bring capacity to the community through the use of data, through the use of analysis, to understand dynamics that bring crime programs to certain areas of the city, but also understand how to deal with these problems. By using a problems-oriented approach, we've been able to launch different campaigns near bodegas, in some bodegas as program places, as Lori mentioned, reduce auto theft. All these programs are community-led, are community-informed. And our role in this project as a BJA grantee has been to really both coordinate actions, but also increase capacity of our community, our community partners. So with this, I'm gonna get back to you, Tenzing. Thank you.

TENZING LAHDON: Thank you so much, Alex and Lori. I really appreciate you joining us today to talk about your experience with Reimagining Justice grants, importance of partnership and community engagement, how important data-driven strategies are, and successful implementation of the project. So thank you so much. And Alex and Lori will be available for any questions that you might have at the tail end of this webinar. And we do have three other new project sites that we funded in 2023 in Austin, Texas, Multnomah County, Oregon, and Greenville, South Carolina. Next slide.

Eligibility and Application requirement. So this slide provides award information. Under Category 1: Reimagining Justice Project Sites, we are expecting to make up to two awards with a maximum award amount of $2 million for the entire performance period of 36 months. And the start date for the award will be October 1st, 2024. Under Category 2: Reimagining Justice Training and Technical Assistance, we are expecting to make one award with a maximum award amount of $1 million for the entire performance period of 36 months. And the start date for the award will be October 1st, 2024. The total funding to be awarded under the Reimagining Justice solicitation is $5 million. So, encourage folks to apply. Next slide. All right.

So, in terms of eligibility, I think one of the questions was around eligibility. So, under Category 1, following applicants can apply: public or state-controlled institution of higher education; Native American tribal organizations other than federally-recognized tribal governments; Native American tribal governments that are federally recognized; nonprofits having 501(c)(3) status, as well as nonprofits that do not have 501(c)(3) status with IRS and other than institution of higher education; private institutions of higher education; and local non-law enforcement government agencies. Next.

Category 1 focuses on developing and testing new and innovative approaches to improving community safety and providing alternatives to traditional enforcement mechanisms for less serious and low-level criminal offenses and communities that are experiencing high rates of crime and related quality-of-life issues. For applicants interested in applying under Category 1, your program design should include details on community engagement with residents and leaders in the target area, what roles these community stakeholders will play during the development and implementation of your community safety model. Community stakeholders should include community residents, local government agencies, such as social services, community development agencies, local institutions such as schools, state-based institutions, and those most impacted by community safety strategies. Next.

For this program, we expect to see a lot of collaboration and partnerships. So, other items to include is a description of collaborative process where partners, including your subawardees, will execute their community engagement strategy and develop community safety model within the first year of the award. Additionally, description of any mechanism that will be used to resolve issues or cases, including details on how these issues or cases will be referred to community-based alternative programs and any relevant referral processes to facilitate the deflection of these matters entirely out of traditional legal systems. Next slide.

And Alex mentioned it. One of the key features of the solicitation is the subaward process or the role and responsibility of intermediary organization. So the applicant must identify in the application who the lead applicant is, and clearly describe what the management plan for coordinating across the collaborating entities and how they will be administering the subawards. The applicants will be expected to determine its project partners in the application or at least once it's awarded. Project partners will receive training and technical assistance from the lead applicant or the intermediary organization throughout the length of the project, and will work in close partnership with entities that will receive the subaward. The applicant serving as the intermediary organization or the lead agency, they can be national, regional, or more localized organization that has expertise in community safety strategies and an established capacity to work with entities outlined in the program design. The subawardees may use the funding to increase their capacity for community safety efforts in the chosen site or sites, if you have multiple. And you should be able to sustain them once the federal funding ends. So that's where the partnership, the collaboration is so important, because federal funding canno be sustainable option forever, so we really need to build that partnership with local community-based organizations with local stakeholders who can take this project forward. Next slide.

Applicants should also identify the researcher in the application who will collaborate with site-based partners and the intermediary organization or the lead organization and will collect data on the nature and extent of the crime in these site or sites, and their resident's perception of law enforcement and safety, procedural fairness, and legitimacy, which will inform development of the safety model at regular intervals throughout the implementation. The researcher will also conduct regular assessments of these data during the model's implementation phase, and report on any findings to the intermediary organization or the lead agency and its site partners to learn whether any adjustments are needed during the implementation process. Next slide.

Thank you. Under Category 2, eligible applicants are public and state-controlled institution of higher education, private institution of higher education, and Native American tribal organization other than federally-recognized tribal governments, Native American tribal governments that are federally recognized nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with IRS, other than institution of higher education and nonprofits that do not have 501(c)(3) status with IRS, other than institution of higher education. Category 2 focuses on supporting the Reimagining Justice project sites. So, we have one project site from 2022, three new project sites in 2023, and we are planning to make a couple more in '24. So supporting those Reimagining Justice project sites, their partners in the field by delivering the wide range of training and technical assistance services designed to support them in all stages of their project. Specifically support with the planning and implementation of data-driven and cross-sector strategies, building capacity of Reimagining Justice project sites and support grantees, community-based strategies assess these strategies, and develop online tools and resources for the field. Document lessons learned and results of these Reimagining Justice sites efforts to assist other communities with improving and enhancing their community safety efforts. Next slide.

So, what your application should include, there are many pieces such as SF-424 form proposal, abstract narrative, budget worksheet, detailed budget worksheet, and our cost rate, and financial management questionnaire, lobbying documentation, et cetera. I would highly encourage you to use the application checklist that's on page 39 of the solicitation to help you guide through the application submission process and to mark and make sure that you are not missing any of those required pieces in your application. Also, How to Apply section on page 14 is a great place to look at also. But the most important things are applications are screened to ensure that they meet the Basic Minimum Requirements prior to application going into the peer review process. And these are making sure that you are meeting the eligibility requirements, clearly specifying which category you are applying for and that it should not exceed the allowable limit. So for Category 1, it should not exceed 2 million. For Category 2, it should not exceed 1 million. And you must include a proposal abstract, a program narrative, budget detail worksheet, and time task plan. So those are the basic minimum required for application to even go through the peer review process. If you don't include those pieces, it will not go for the peer review stage. Abstract should not be more than 400 words summarizing the proposed project. It needs to include the applicant's name, project title, information such as target area or geographic location, neighborhoods that you're planning to serve. Population information, total funds requested, project goals and objectives, and specific crimes that you're planning to address. And lastly, if you are seeking a priority consideration, please note which priority consideration you are requesting if it's 1A, 1B, or both, all of that should go under project abstract piece. The Project Narrative must include all four sections, and these sections will be weighted in the scoring of your application. So you have first is the statement of problem or Description of Issue, which evaluates the applicant's understanding of the program and issues to be addressed.

Next is the Project Design and Implementation, which evaluates the advocacy of the proposal, including goals, objectives, timeline, milestones, and deliverables. Capabilities and Competencies evaluates the administrative and technical capacity of the applicant to successfully accomplish goals and objectives. So if you have a really strong community partner or partnership, that's the place you want to highlight and how they would be beneficial and aid your project. Next one is Plan for Collecting Data Required according to the solicitation. And that will evaluate the applicant's understanding of the performance data reporting requirement and the plan for collecting the required data.

The proposal narrative should not exceed 15 pages and should be submitted as an attachment. An important thing to note here is the rate of each of these sections. So for example, a big chunk of points is for program design and implementation. So you should use your 15-page limit very judiciously. You may want to spend more time talking about your project design and implementation in your application. The weighted scores for each section are noted on page 35 of the solicitation, and it is different for Category 1 and 2, slightly different for Category 1 and 2. The last is the budget and Budget Detail Worksheet where our peer reviewers will be evaluating for completeness, cost effectiveness, and allowability, for example like whether the expense that budget line item, whether looking at an expense and seeing whether that budget line item is reasonable, whether there's something that is allowable to the award. And lastly, whether it's necessary for the project activity. So those would be some of the things that they would be looking when it comes to your budget. Next.

Under additional items, we have Timeline and it should be for the full 36 months, and it should outline the goals, objectives, and summarize major activities, expected dates of completion or maybe month of completion, and responsible agencies or partners that would be helping you complete those goals. Resumes for all grant-funded positions should be attached. So if you are planning to have a project for a project manager or a project coordinator funded through the grant, then his or her resume should be attached. Letter of Support or any existing MOUs that you might have with key partners and reflecting their support, their role and agreements to collaborate, you will have to disclose pending application, research, and evaluation disclosures and other items that are listed here. Next.

We urge applicants to submit their applications in Grants.gov and JustGrants prior to the due date to allow sufficient time to correct any errors and resubmit via the submission deadline because we have seen sometimes rejection notification. Folks do get rejection notifications, so that gives them time to resubmit or reach out to our helpdesk to resolve any issues. So please remember, there are two deadlines. Step one is to submit the SF-424 and SF-LLL forms in Grants.gov by the deadline of July 1st, 2024, by 8:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. The step two is to summit the full application in JustGrants by the deadline of July 8th, 2024, by 8:59 p.m. Eastern. Next slide.

So we will go over application resources in the next few slides. So here is OJP Application Resource Guide, which provides you help or guidance in preparing and submitting the application for OJP funding and goes through step-by-step process on how to submit the application. Next.

And then we have the JustGrants learning system. So if you are moving forward with submitting your application through JustGrants, here again, are various resources that can support you in submitting your application through the JustGrants system. Next slide.

So, when you're looking to submit your application, again, step one on the left where it says Grants.gov. This is pretty much to provide you with technical support in submitting both SF-424 form and SF-LLL. You have a Customer Support Hotline so again, if you are having any technical issues with submission in Grants.gov, this is where you would go to be able to get assistance. And also to your right, we have JustGrants technical support. Same information, customer service hotline with email information, as well as variety of resources, and information is also included on page five of the solicitation. Next slide.

And what you see here on the screen are some different ways to connect with us. Subscribing will ensure that you're getting information, latest information about open solicitation, and programs and other support as soon as it's available. And you can text OJP with your email address to subscribe to our email for our email updates. And again, at the beginning of each year, we do a variety of webinars on all different solicitations that we will be putting out each year. So if this grant does not meet all your needs, and if you apply for the funding, but there are still gaps in services that you need, it is also helpful to look at those webinars to see what other funding opportunities that we do have that fit and support what your jurisdiction's needs are. And I'll include the link in the chat. With our current funding, these are open funding opportunities within Office of Justice Program, so that will include BJA, OJJDP, OVC, and other Offices. Next slide.

There are other ways to stay connected with us. We have Facebook, Twitter, as well as YouTube accounts. So definitely feel free to stay connected to what we are doing here at BJA. We are doing some great things, and we want you to be connected to that. So next slide.

And if you have any questions about the solicitation or solicitation requirements, or the programming, please contact the OJP Response Center at this email address or you can also call us at the number that's listed here. So if you don't get to all the questions today, then we have your email address and the phone that you can just put your questions to, and we will be able to respond to all your questions. Next slide.

Sorry, can you go one slide back? All right. So the Response Center is open from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern Monday through Friday. So if you have any questions, best way to do it is email. So there's a record of you asking a question, and then we will respond to it or you can also call and leave us a message. Next.

So, I know it's the same information, but it's so important because we see a lot of grantees missing the first deadline and they cannot apply for funding anymore. So there are two steps. First step submission of the two forms SF-424 and SF-LLL, and Grants.gov with deadline of July 1st. The second step is submission of full application in JustGrants by the deadline of July 8th, 8:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Next.

Here's the contact information from Grants.gov, JustGrants, as well as the OJP Response Center. So Grants.gov for the first step to submit the two forms. JustGrants to submit the full application. And if you have any questions about anything related to solicitation, OJP Response Center is the place you will email or call. Next slide.

So, we have some time now for any questions that you may have. So, let me look through the questions.

LORI SCOTT-PICKENS: Okay.

TENZING LAHDON: "So, can we partner with law enforcement?" The answer is yes. But I think the main focus is community-based organization. We want you to be partnering with community-based organizations, but we know law enforcement are important piece of public safety and are important to communities. So, you can partner with law enforcement.

Next question is, "Does this mean only two agencies will receive an award or each agency will receive two awards?" So, through the solicitation, we are making two awards for the full project period of 36 months. So, say if X, Y, Z organization gets an this award, that $2 million in Category 1 should last the full 36 months cycle. Yeah, the $2 million under Category 1 is for the entire grant project period of 36 months. And your budget should be broken down by year one and make projections for the year one, year two, year three. Yeah.

So, the question is, "Can you go more into…" The question is around research partner. We don't necessarily have specific requirements for who the research partner should be, or we leave it up to grantees to see and find a research partner that would work best. Most of the time it's the local universities or some research and evaluation nonprofits that they partner with for that piece. But we don't have any specific requirements, per se.

"In the application, do you have to identify the community safety strategies? Can you include data analysis and community feedback process prior to identifying or selecting?" So, maybe, if Alex is there or Lori, if you can talk a little bit about how your process was in identifying community safety strategy? Did some of it happen as a part of your application or you came up with the community safety strategies after your data analysis and survey piece?

LORI SCOTT-PICKENS: So I think there's two parts. This is Lori talking. One is—Alex has a little more detail than I—but I would say that law enforcement should be a partner, because in our particular case, law enforcement provides us the data. And so, we are sharing with them and they feel like an equal partner, as opposed to a group that is challenged or for lack of a better description here, attacked based on what the data is saying. And then the community partners, we looked really hard and in detail as who had the capacity. And we also looked at where things were happening, and that also drove us to particular neighborhoods to identify the anchor institutions in those places. I'll stop there.

DR. ALEJANDRO GIMENEZ SANTANA: Yeah. Just to add to what Lori said, in our case, we used a place-based approach to identify locations that where crimes are concentrated. And we use that as a first step in a problem solving exercise with community organizations to try to understand what are some of the problems that are bringing different types of crime. And in this case, for this solicitation, I know the focus is on low-level offenses, but what are some of the factors, some of the conditions that are bringing crime to some spaces, and then develop the strategies. So, just to answer the question, we did not come up with the strategies ahead or they were not part of the proposal. We gave examples of strategies that have been used in the past based on previous research, as well as our experience. Because NPSC existed before we received the grants. So, we preceded this solicitation. So I would say that the strategies that will be implemented don't need to be part of the proposal, but giving examples of some of the things that you believe as an organization could be implemented to deal with these problems, just a few examples, and why you think they will be useful is always useful. But in the end, as the program gets implemented, you may have to adapt and you will have to find probably new strategies or tweak some of the strategies that you initially had shared on the proposal. So, I wouldn't say it's that important that you know everything at first. Just have an idea what it is, the approach, and what is the process that you want to implement.

TENZING LAHDON: Thank you, Alex and Lori. And Reimagining Justice solicitation, the awards are made in a form of cooperative agreement. So, we work together, you might have a specific strategy, but we understand that with time and crime trends, things might change. So, we work together on, you might have to adjust your strategy, or program design, as needed. So, what you submit in your application we can work on it together after the award is made to make sure it still aligns. Maybe there are pieces that need to be reworked. So we will work together on that, once the award is made.
The two questions I see are related. "What's the difference between Category 1 and 2?" And then, also, "Do you have examples of successful Category 2 proposals that you can share?" The Category 2 is new this year. This is the first year we added Category 2 to the Reimagining Justice solicitation Category 2. Category 1 is focused on project sites, and where you have one intermediary organization or the lead organization that's leading the project and does some awards. And then in Category 2, it's more focused on training and technical assistance supporting the project sites that were in Category 1 and prior year's project sites, and also, supporting the field at large, and putting together lessons learned, tools and resources around Reimagining Justice projects. So that's the main difference. Category 1 focuses on project sites. Category 2 is more focused around training and technical assistance.

So, the question is around, "Working with parolees and probation clients could qualify for this project?" Because we are focusing on communities, so if they are community residents, like I'm not a hundred percent sure what the intent of the question is. Ernesto, if you can provide a little more information, that would be helpful, so I can put it in context and respond to it.

Let's see. “Is law enforcement is not required to partner with law enforcement?” We were just saying that law enforcement can be partners because there were earlier questions. But it's not required that you do use law enforcement as partner. And you can just have community-based organizations as your subawardees.

And I think there was a question around, "Do we need to partner service provider organizations or subawards to be competitive?" Yes. The RFP for subawards, generally, needs to be competitive, unless, you can justify that they are the only providers in the target area, and that there are no other service providers or community-based organizations that are working. That we can look at those exceptions together. But normally, the process has to be competitive. Yes. I think Daryl mentioned the slides presentation will be available. This is being recorded as well. So, a recording of this webinar would be available at a later date.

The question is for Alex and Lori. "Can you provide an estimate on how much time you took to work with partners prior to submitting your application?"

DR. ALEJANDRO GIMENEZ SANTANA: Lori, you want to go ahead first?

LORI SCOTT-PICKENS: So, I guess the first part is that I knew the community and I knew some of these partners. So, this project that was very specific allowed us to go in a direction of dealing with reimagining public safety. But I knew these agencies in advance, but what I want to compliment them on how they adjusted to the requirements of the grant to do the work that was needed. And I'm sure that's why we feel they're anchoring institutions because they've been in these communities for a long time, and they too can reimagine justice and public safety.

DR. ALEJANDRO GIMENEZ SANTANA: Just to add to what Lori said. I think it's important to embark into this venture with organizations that you know prior and that you have had some experience working in the past. So any prior working relationship with some of these subawardees that you may want to bring in will bring value and will make it easier to get started. I will discourage bringing in organizations that you're not familiar with or yet that you don't have a prior relationship, just because, sometimes, it takes time to establish those relationships. And so, again, it's important to find out who are the organizations that are active and have conversations with them about their interest in being part of this effort. In our case, we reached out to five organizations. And in the end, only three became subawardees of these grants. So we had conversations with different organizations, but we ended up just submitting the application for three.

TENZING LAHDON: Thank you, Alex, and thank you, Lori. We are at 3:00 mark, so I want to thank everyone for joining us today. And special thanks to our guest presenters, Alex and Lori. And we very much look forward to all exciting and very innovative proposals that you will be sending our way. And if you have any other questions or anything, or if your question was not answered during this webinar, please, please email those to OJP Response Center at [email protected], and we will send responses to your questions via email. So please do send your questions. And thank you, everyone, so much for being on this webinar today. I'll pass it back to Daryl.

DARYL FOX: Thanks so much, Tenzing. And just a reminder, again, that the captioned recording, PowerPoint, transcript for today's webinar will be posted on the BJA website. So everybody that's registered today will receive an email where and when to access that. And here's the OJP Response Center contact information that Tenzing just mentioned. So, on behalf of the Bureau of Justice Assistance and all of our panelists, we want to thank you for joining today's webinar. This will end today's presentation.