National Initiatives: Law Enforcement and Prosecution FY 2021 Solicitation Webinar

DARYL FOX: Good afternoon everyone and welcome to today's webinar, FY 2021 National Initiatives: Law Enforcement and Prosecution Program hosted by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. At this time, I'd like to introduce today's presenters Kristen Mahoney, Acting Director, Cornelia Sigworth, Acting Deputy Director, Becky Rose, Senior Policy Advisor, Tammy Brown, Senior Policy Advisor, and John Markovic, Senior Policy Advisor, all with the Bureau of Justice Assistance. Becky Rose is going to be starting us off today. Becky?

BECKY ROSE: Thanks so much, Daryl and thank you for joining us for this solicitation webinar on our National Initiatives Program focusing on law enforcement and prosecution. You can see in red that the deadlines are listed here. For our Grants.gov deadline is August 2nd. And our JustGrants deadline is August 16th. We'll talk a little bit more about that throughout the presentation. But I'm glad to have you all here today and really grateful for your interest in this program.

Today, we're going to highlight a couple of things. First, we're going to have a welcome from BJA leadership, then we're going to talk about eligibility and a couple other details, overview things to consider as we then dig in to the goals, objectives, and deliverables for each category under this solicitation. And then we'll wrap up with important funding and application details for you to consider as you're preparing your applications. And then, of course, we'll leave time for questions and answers. We have a good amount of time left for Q&A. So, we'll make sure to get to your questions. If you have questions as you're hearing the presenters speak today, please go ahead and type them in the Q&A and we'll be monitoring that box. And once we get to that section, we'll read out loud your questions and get those answered for you. So please remember to type in your questions in the Q&A box and we'll be sure to answer those at the end of the presentation.

So with that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to our Acting Director Kristen Mahoney to provide a welcome and vision for the program. Kristen?

KRISTEN MAHONEY: Hi. Hey, everybody. Thanks for attending our webinar and your interest in this grant solicitation. This is a pretty important grant solicitation for BJA. It's suggesting some bold and innovative programming that we have not been able to do for a long time. It represents ideas that many of us at BJA have had churning for years now and have the opportunity and with the Biden-Harris administration and the support of the attorney general to announce this solicitation. I'm going to go over a couple other categories with you to underscore some things that are in this category to let you know our vision and why we think they're important to support the field and our country. The first one is the National Law Enforcement Knowledge Lab. And this is something that will enable Bureau of Justice Assistance to focus in on the issues of constitutional policing, evidence-based policing practices and improving our training, and policy, and guidelines for the country. We're really excited to work on this initiative with our colleagues at the Civil Rights Division and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services so that we can ensure that the training and opportunities that the department offers for law enforcement reflects things that are being identified in Department of Justice consent decrees and the collaborative form programs that's administered by the COPS Office. So as such, we know that in our solicitation that one of the goals of the—or objectives of the Knowledge Lab is to review the consent decree issued by the department and the monitoring activity, so that we understand better what types of deficiencies are being identified by our colleagues at the COPS Office and the Civil Rights Division and crosswalk that with the interventions that we have available for law enforcement police chief and trainers. We want to make sure that we have resources available to law enforcement to interpret their own policies and guidelines, have subject-matter experts available and review training, people that can look at internal policies and practices, and offer recommendations for improvement or offer recommendations for implementation. We want to create a community of practice within constitutional policing and we want to make sure that we coordinate with community-based groups, civil rights groups, and other national law enforcement and international law enforcement agencies. So that the Law Enforcement Knowledge Lab becomes a true resource for all law enforcement in our communities to ensure that their knowledge, policy practices, and professionalism are guided by what we know works, what's best.

The second area that I want to talk to you a little bit about is the Prosecution Research Collaborative. This is another idea that we've been talking a lot about with our colleagues at the National Institute of Justice. And my team will be going over these initiatives in more detail. Right now, I'm just giving you a basic overview. For our vision behind the Prosecution Research Collaborative comes from a place of appreciation for the research that has been done to date within law enforcement, when you think about the various academic research that has been done with law enforcement with regards to what works and what doesn't work, in terms of hot spots and individual-based policing and different ways to police to ensure that you are not impacting people by race, or gender, or culture. We find that there's been a lot of research done to help inform law enforcement about those practices in those areas. We found that there's less research available to prosecutors about what works for them. What works for them should have effective and unbiased prosecutorial strategies. What works for them in crime reduction, what works for them in problem solving? How can prosecutors have an impact on crime reduction and an impact on constitutional policing? How can we help modernize prosecutor's offices and ensure that they—that their practices represent the best in 21st Century prosecution, and how can we ensure that they're transparent and have the best public safety outcome? We think that by developing a collaborative of researchers, we can look carefully at what has been studied and what has been reported first already and identify additional things that are needed and list up studies, or policies, or programs that have been published in the past that we can develop curriculum alongside or circulate more throughout the prosecutorial community. We're delighted to be able to work just with the prosecutorial community in this one.

The third category is the National Case Closed Project and this is a project that we've been working on for some time that it really does give us a chance to amplify it and we want to work with law enforcement and prosecutor agencies to increase the case—clearance rates in this country and we are looking for national training and technical assistance providers that can work with police agencies to improve their investigative process practice, training protocols regarding to violent crime, homicides, or non-fatal shootings. Really parachuting in, and providing in-depth consultations and assessments in implementing and developing recommendations. And then the final category that I want to talk about too today is something that we dreamed of launching for many years and we're so excited to bring it to you and that is the Crime and Corrections Analyst in Residence Program. This program enables us to establish a strong footprint for BJA and the country in the area of collecting information regarding crime analysis, collections, and analysis in correctional facilities. And having those resources available, new resources created, old resources revised, but most importantly, we have a vision for having a cadre of subject matter experts available to work in-house with police agencies in a hybrid or virtual model, almost like you—what many of your children participated in over the pandemic. And in this way, we see a cadre of crime analysts being available, jurisdictions signing up and saying I would love to have your engagement with our—the Analyst in Residence Program. The analyst would, you know, go to the location initially, conduct an assessment, and then work with that crime analysis unit on those—on those areas where they need to improve, maybe support the crime analyst in COMPSTAT or their crime reduction meetings, help them prepare for those meetings, review the materials off of suggestions to improve those materials. So we're really excited about the opportunity to have this kind of hybrid model where we have an expert on-site for a week or so a quarter, maybe a week a month and then back to their office to be providing a support virtually. We think it'll be a really effective way for us to build capacity for individual agencies as well as national capacity for this. And so I'm going to stop there.

Those are the big items for today. I hope you can tell that we're really excited to be able to offer those four categories. I'll also mention that our visiting fellow solicitation is open as well and visiting—and that's not going to be covered during this webinar but the solicitation is open. We have 12 visiting fellows. We're inviting 12 individuals to BJA to work with us and the field in priority areas for this administration. Anything from a visiting fellow with regard to substance abuse disorders, Sixth Amendment, behavioral health. We're looking for an individual who's fully incarcerated to help consult with us on improving corrections and reentry, rehab Elimination Act, we're also looking for—visiting fellows to help us support the National Law Enforcement Knowledge Lab once it's launched. We're looking for a visiting fellow to help us develop strategies to prevent and response about a crime, and hate crimes as well. So I think what you'll find is these are all very external focused opportunities. They are extremely complicated in that I think for them to be successful they're going to require a lot of collaboration, you know, of various stakeholders to come together to be successful applicants for these initiatives because they are fairly broad and require some various skillsets that we're looking for creativity, we're looking for innovation, we're looking for collaboration. And so I'll pause there and send it back to Becky and I hope that you enjoy the rest of the webinar and I think everyone will go into much more detail now on these finer points and thanks for listening and thanks for your interest.

BECKY ROSE: Kristen, thank you so much for that welcome and vision. And I—as you guys can tell, we're all very, very, very excited about this solicitation and this program and also the fellow solicitation. Just a quick note on that, there is actually going to be a solicitation webinar on that next week on the 14th. You should see some announcements from BJA this afternoon and later this week announcing that webinar on the fellow solicitation which Kristen just described, so thank you again, Kristen. So we are going to get into some nuts and bolts, you know, some of the stuff that Kristen mentioned, we'll talk a little bit about the funding amounts and different eligibility and other requirements for each category as well. So just to kick us off with some of the logistics around this eligibility and other details, this is all information that's listed directly in the solicitation but we've highlighted them, a couple of these sections for you all. So the eligibility for profit organizations and nonprofit institutions of higher education and then I'm not going to list the whole section there but this is on the cover page of the solicitation. We also will consider applications under which two or more entities would carry out the programming. So we encourage you to consider partnerships across all these categories. Especially, you know, we think that some of these categories are going to require a significant coordination with partners in the field. So we do encourage entity, you know, joint applications with one applicant being the lead applicant. And then, sorry, one other detail—a couple other details. So just a reminder, the purpose of this solicitation is to fund national in-scope training and technical assistance. So that we're seeking eligible applicants that can provide this national in-scope TTA that align with each of the four categories. We are planning for an award start date of October 1st, with a period of performance for 36 months. The total amount to be awarded under this solicitation is around $8 million. We will provide the breakdown as we get into the category specific information in a minute about the funding levels for each category. We do expect to make the awards under this solicitation as cooperative agreements and that means that OJP and BJA will have substantial involvement in carrying out the award activities.

Now, we're going to transition into a little bit more detail about the different categories. Kristen gave us her vision for these categories and kind of what was driving the decision to make these funding opportunities available. And then we're going to hear from our colleagues to talk a little bit more in-depth about the categories and what we're looking for. So for category one, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Cornelia Sigworth. Cornelia?

CORNELIA SIGWORTH: Hi, everyone. So you heard already about the National Law Enforcement Knowledge Lab from Kristen and I think she gave a pretty comprehensive view of the goals and objectives. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this slide. I'll probably just move forward and go over the particular deliverables of this. So you can find all the deliverables on page six of the solicitation. Please do review the list carefully because there are a lot of them. And the funding amount is set at about three—or not about, it is $3 million and so that's the ceiling. And then there's a special provision related to this one that talks about, if you have it—we definitely want a dedicated full-time project person on this award. And if you happen to be a D.C. applicant or have a D.C. office, we may ask that that person be assigned to come and work in BJA's offices as part of the work that we're doing. And I think that speaks to the closeness that we expect and collaboration around this project, and the fact that we, you know, need a dedicated full-time person, this sort of level of activity that we expect in this project. So let me just quickly go over some of the deliverables that are listed again on page six. But number one is really to create this dedicated infrastructure for the National Law Enforcement Lab. This includes building an online—robust online presence independent of any existing websites. So we don't want this buried in any other organization's website. The purpose of this is really to prioritize law enforcement knowledge, policies, and practices. And this online resource, and repository, and infrastructure will house all the other parts of this project. Second, we want to provide from this project modernized training focused on constitutional policing and evidence-based practices. Kristen talked a little bit about that already. You know, the topics of this training would be developed in partnership with BJA as we work through the awards—the award and sort of work through what the needs of the field are, and what we learned from the other parts of the award. But we would want the capacity to deliver that training in-person online for scenario-based where it's appropriate and that it, you know, the curriculum is evidence-based and standardized across the project. Next, we have an on-demand review and assessment of practices, protocols, and training by subject matter content to—for training that departments might be offering, so this comes up a lot for BJA. People develop their own training and are curious about whether or not, you know, that training is solid training. So while we wouldn't be giving it a green light, we would want to make sure that it has the review of the subject matter experts. And that those experts could make recommendations appropriate to that training based on the information that we're collecting throughout the rest of the project. And we would want an advisory group to help coordinate all the efforts of this project, that advisory group would include members from other DOJ entities including the COPS Office, and Civil Rights, and NIJ, as well as national stakeholders. And as part of that advisory group, we would want them to come together on a regular basis. Obviously, during the time of COVID, it may not be possible to bring everybody together in person at each meeting, but we want to make sure that there is a budget for some in-person meetings. And that this advisory group is comprehensive in nature and in terms of who the participants are and that would be reviewed and approved by BJA. We want to maintain—develop and maintain model policies for departments and practices. So we would want to work with law enforcement, this advisory group, to develop these specific guidance, and standards, and models, and policies, and practices that we would maintain and that they would be updated, that they would have the support of law enforcement and non-law enforcement stakeholder groups. And that we have to ensure the standards, and policies, and practices are available on this—in this online repository.
Another key element of this, as Kristen already talked about, is looking at the existing consent decrees and the existing works that the COPS Office has done, and understanding where those deficiencies are and how we can—what products we can create to help move the field forward in those areas. And so really maintaining a searchable database of those consent decree findings and linking those specific findings back to resources so that we're always providing a tool whenever we are able to identify something that is a need of the field. We would want to maintain a cadre of SMEs that could be used on-demand within departments as needed. So if a department has a specific training and technical assistance request, we would be able to send that SME out to work with that department, whether that's reviewing training, whether that's reviewing policies and protocols with them, whether it's assessing something of particular need for that department. We would want to make sure that we're coordinating all of our outreach, and all of our marketing, and all of our activities with the international organizations that work in this space already and that we're not recreating or duplicating efforts that are already out there. So that's going to require involvement of a lot of professional policing associations, going to the meetings, going to the research meetings, and sending subject matter experts on our project's behalf if we don't have the expertise within the project ourselves. We would want to be able to provide cost-benefit analysis to departments who are looking for that at their request. And then lastly, just a part of the project we might want to host in-person events, host community practices, and host webinars, other educational opportunities to really share with the field what we've learned to the rest of the facets of the project. And then this last bullet on page six does talk again about the staff person that I mentioned that at the beginning of the talk, it's really not well-worded so I apologize upfront for that. But what we're really trying to say is that we feel it's really critical to have a mid-level, mid-career, sort of, dedicated staff members full-time to this project that BJA can really rely on and turn to. And then again, if you're in the D.C. region, that person may be able to be onsite. That is, it doesn't give anybody a leg up in the application review process if they're in D.C. or not, it's just something that's may be an opportunity, if it so turns out that way and I think that's about all I have, Becky.

REBECCA ROSE: Okay, thanks. Tammy, on to you for category two and three.

TAMMY BROWN: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Tammy Brown and I'm a Senior Policy Advisor and I have the privilege of overseeing both categories two and three. Category two is our Prosecution and Research Collaborative. And as Kristen indicated, this is really about trying to identify for the prosecutors throughout the nation what works, what best practices are, and what is needed so we can help build that for them in the future similar of what we've been able to do for our local law enforcement. So the goal of this is really to work in partnership with our nation's prosecutors who are really experiencing increase in violent crime, to identify current research as well as those knowledge gaps regarding prosecutorial practices that ultimately will improve public safety and help us build that trust within the community. And that's something certainly we know that our prosecutors struggle with and it's something that is much needed in the field. So we're hoping through this initiative, we will be able to have some end products that will assist the field in addressing those issues. The overall objectives are really, again, just looking at related research, what already exists in the field, identifying best practices, so looking at programs within prosecutors' offices, potentially evaluating them, surveying the field, looking at unbiased crime reduction, and identifying areas of future research that may be needed for prosecutors' offices. Certainly, we would anticipate and expect that this provider would create products and tools for the field based on the research and their findings. And also, again, that focus on violent crime, which is so critical when we're looking at how we address violent crime to take into account the perspective of our victims and our survivors. So this project really must focus on jurisdictions that are, that are experiencing that precipitous increase in crime and is a requirement of this solicitation for category number two. The specific deliverables are listed on pages six and seven. I'm not going to read them all but they're all in the spirit of the overall objectives that I just covered. The—we anticipate to award one award in the amount of a million dollars. And similar to category one, if the applicant happens to be based in the D.C. region, we would potentially expect them to be onsite at BJA working hand and glove with us, potentially 40 hours a week. And really having that dedicated person assigned to this initiative that can help us for all the reasons that Cornelia already articulated for category one. I do want to emphasize that priority will not be given to individuals in the D.C. region based on that, but it is something that we would expect if the applicant is, you know, within reach of our office and somebody that we could work closely with and, you know, have that in-person regular interaction.

The next category is obviously category number three. And it's very straightforward and exactly what Kristen articulated this work that we've been doing for some time, and it's our National Closed—Case Closed Project. And then—and it's really about just helping departments improve their investigations to enhance their clearance rates. We all know that enhanced clearance rate is a big way to drive down violent crime. So we would anticipate that this provider would go onsite to jurisdictions again that have a precipitous increase in violent crime, provide assessments, look at what they're currently doing, and provide them with recommendations on how they can improve their clearance rates through their investigative processes, practices, and protocols. This particular initiative, again, we anticipate to award one provider in the amount of a million dollars and you can find the overall deliverables for this particular solicitation on page seven. And with that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to my colleague, John Markovic, who's going to close us out and provide you with the information regarding category four. John?

JOHN MARKOVIC: Right. So, the fourth purpose area under this solicitation has the goal of expanding the use of data analysis in both law enforcement and correction settings. So, it's the Crime and Corrections Analysts in Residence Program. And Kristen gave a great overview of this. We expect that the applicants here would maintain a cadre or a bullpen of subject matter experts, crime analysts, intelligence analysts, management analysts, and have experience in correctional institutions to provide in residence service to law enforcement and corrections department throughout the country. The applicants should be able demonstrate how to establish the capacity for law enforcement--on the law enforcement side. Let me talk about that first. The applicant should demonstrate how they'll build and establish law enforcement analysis and jurisdictions that have experienced precipitous increases in crime. You need not identify those sites and that's part of the reason for the cooperative agreement, you'll be working in tandem with BJA and the principles for BJA in identifying those sites where there have been precipitous increases in crime and where there's an appetite and a need for enhancing crime and intelligence analysis. So the applicant would, kind of, follow suit in what we often do in some of our other programs, the Public Safety Partnership Programs, the Strategic Placing Initiative, Project Safe Neighborhoods where we provide assessment of and recommendations to law enforcement agencies about their crime analysis practice, but it goes a step beyond that. As Kristen mentioned, we'd expect the people to parachute in and be embedded analyst in those institutions, either in person or remotely or maybe a week every month or a period of engagement, let's say, for four months based on the scope of the needs. But it would be very much a hands-on embedded program, so the applicant would have a cadre of those analysts at hand. And then, once those Senior Crime Analysts—we're expecting seasoned people, seasoned crime or intelligence analysts would be embedded in the sites to help and develop traditional crime analysis projects to focus on problem solving and crime reduction strategies and they work closely with the department personnel to enhance, establish, expand their current capability, fill in the gaps. So, then on the correction side, the applicant should provide a similar cadre of seasoned analysts. They could be management analyst or corrections analyst with experience on this side of the equation. We're not looking for correctional agencies. With the—where the jurisdiction has precipitous increase in crime, it needs to be focused on institutional corrections and state corrections agencies. So, instead of a crime analyst, there'd be a corrections analyst and institutional management analyst, so again would work closely with the correctional agencies and their leadership to enhance the analytical capabilities that are included some of the standard corrections analysis like projecting institutional populations, analysis of inmate populations, descriptive analysis, needs assessments of inmates, risk assessments, any of those analytical tools that corrections analysts often do. One of the provisions in this is that we hope to expand this in years coming up. So, we'd expect that the entity should be able to take that out of the institution eventually should BJA elect to support corrections analyst in community and field settings and so a community corrections. So the corrections analyst would create tools that drive operations, and as I said, they should be able to work towards community supervision tools in future years, but not necessarily in the immediate years. Next slide, please.

So, there is a more extensive list of deliverables on page seven and eight of the application. Each of these, like, of the fact that, you know, this would be a—basically, the applicant would establish a national crime correctional analysis, technical assistance program, and support all aspects of that program. As I mentioned, they should maintain a cadre of subject matter experts in both those fields. They would be developing tools, strategies, resources for those various types of analysis. As Becky mentioned, you know, partnerships are encouraged given the breadth of coverage in this area on both corrections and on—crime analysis partnerships would be encouraged. Again, for crime analyst, we are looking for a precipitous increase in crime. For corrections analysis, we wouldn't be looking for that and we will be working with you as if in a cooperative agreement and identifying those sites for crime analysis where there have been precipitous increases in crime and where the leadership in that organization is poised to work with you with the applicant with the TTA providers in upgrading their crime analysis capacity. As Kristen mentioned, I think you can be inventive. You could propose hybrid models that combine both in-person and virtual training as we're coming out of COVID. I think we've learned a lot about how to maximize virtual training but sometimes it's nothing like in-person training. So, fill that in. We would want—we also want in this solicitation, one of the deliverables is to provide for more ad hoc provision for ad hoc analysis where it may not necessarily be engagements of four weeks, but there may be agencies that need more specific assistance, ad hoc assistance, so the subject matter experts, the cadre of analysts should be able to provide support for that as well. The funding amount for this award is $3 million. So the single applicant who is applying for both the Crime and Corrections Analyst in Residence Program should split the budget about $2 million towards crime analysis with law enforcement agencies and $1,000 towards institutional management analysis with state correctional departments. And both Cornelia and Tammy pointed out we are looking for any agency with—that's in D.C. or had their presence in D.C., we've been looking for them to commit to providing on-site personnel, mid-level management personnel who can work closely with us in this collaborative engagement in cooperative agreements. And with that I'll turn it back to Becky.

REBECCA ROSE: Thank you John and thank you Cornelia and Tammy for going through this specific category information. I really appreciate it. I'm going to jump into a couple other kind of logistical things. I'm going to kind of go through these slides pretty quickly because I do want to leave some time for Q&A at the end. I do see some questions that have come in. So, again, just a reminder, please type in your questions to the Q&A box and I'll get through those and read through those in a minute. So, I do see some great questions coming in and we will get to you in a few minutes, so thank you for that. So, just some other details to share with you all. There's no match requirement for this grant. I already mentioned it's a 36-month—we're planning for a 36-month grant period. The submitted budget should be complete, cost-effective, allowable, again, make sure to tie your budget to the expected deliverables, and how your plan for implementation of those deliverables, and they all should be related to those objectives and goals.

The application must include if you're familiar with OJP solicitations, you know, that there is always a reference to what it must include to get through the—to the next phase of kind of review process within OJP or BJA. For this particular solicitation, you must include an abstract and narrative and a budget detail worksheet and budget narrative, which is actually online this year via JustGrants. I see a question actually on referencing the online form, which I'll talk about in a minute when I get to the Q&A. So, within the solicitation, there's actually a section called Application Elements and Formatting Instructions within—I'm sorry, the Application Resource Guide. This has a great kind of information for you and all the different elements that are required. And then we also have the checklist you typically at the back of the—or at the end of the solicitations as well.

The program abstract has some requirements, no more than 400 words. And your—we want you to summarize the proposed project, including the service area who will benefit and the primary activities, products, and deliverables. You will be submitting the abstract using a web-based form on JustGrants.
The project narrative formatting specifications for this solicitation, it's not to exceed 12 pages, double-spaced, that standard font, one-inch margins, use of the sections and structured format are preferred. So in the solicitation, we lay out the different sections we want you to respond to. So it's really helpful to us and our peer review team that go through these applications if you're following that format and the sections that we ask, because that's how we rate your applications, which I'll touch on in a minute. Attachments do not count against the page limit. So for example, if a timeline is required that does not count against your page limit. So just again, a note to closely follow the format as we have it laid out in the solicitation.

Project narrative topic areas, the description of the issue or related to the kind of research—the prosecutor research project would be the statement of the problem if research is involved, so that would be the first section. The second section of the project narrative would touch on project design and implementation. The next session—section is capabilities and competencies and then the next section is planning for collecting the data required for solicitations performance measures, which I'll touch on in a minute a little bit more. So, these are the different sections that we hope to see in your project narrative and there's a description of each of these sections within the solicitation that helps guide you in drafting your application.
For the performance management and reporting, excuse me, you actually award recipients will be required to submit performance measurement data in what we call the BJA TTA Reporting Portal. This is a reporting portal for our TTA providers or cooperative agreements, which I mentioned in the beginning of this presentation. This will be—these awards will be issued as cooperative agreements that will track your TTA activity and the metrics associated with those.

Attachments, again, all that are mentioned in the solicitation, but just to, kind of, keep in mind this checklist of attachments if applicable, indirect cost rate agreement, tribal authorizing resolutions, again, if applicable. Research and evaluation independence and integrity form, MOUs, letters of support from partner agencies or subrecipient agencies and research partner letter of participation, if applicable.

This breaks down the different criteria that I mentioned. The first four bullets are going to be included in the program narrative. And then the last bullet is the budget, which is a separate attachment and submitted on an online form in JustGrants. So, what this gives you right here is the breakdown of each section in what in the rating, the criteria and the weight that each section has. So, keep this in mind as you're drafting your application. So you can see here for example, project design and implementation is weighted at 35% and capabilities and competencies is rated at 25%. So we at BJA have obviously identified those two, you know, sections of your program narrative as pretty significant sections to understand how you're going to implement the project, design the project, and how you can carry it out. So keep that in mind as you're drafting your program narrative, you know, a recommendation is to spend a good amount of time on those two sections and then—and then you'll see the budget at 20%. So again, kind of, gives you a sense of where we're looking in terms of the key areas and in rating your application.

So, just to, kind of, talk about what to do next if you haven't already done this, you do need to—it's—there's kind of like a lot of steps you need to follow. But prior to registering with Grants.gov, you do have to acquire a DUNS number. Hopefully, many of you have already done that. Acquire or renew registration with SAM, which is System for Award Management. And then you do need to register with Grants.gov. This involves a couple of steps which is acquiring an AOR or the Authorized Organization Representative, and then getting that confirmation from a E-Biz POC, there's a lot of acronyms here but there's a lot of steps to follow so we want to make sure that you pay attention to that in the solicitation, you know, you're noting the deadlines that we have, the two-step process that we have, and you're making sure that all these steps are in a row before you reach those deadlines well in advance. So I would get started on this kind of stuff now.

So as I just mentioned, it is a two-step application process. Applications will be submitted step one, in Grants.gov, you're going to submit your 424 and your SF-LLL through Grants.gov. And then the step two which is the second deadline for it, they'll be submitted—you'll be submitting your full application including attachments. So the program narrative, the abstract, the budget, and any other attachments which we've—we talked about previously, will go into JustGrants. So again, read the solicitation document very carefully so you know where you're submitting and when.

So I mentioned earlier that we do have—for all of our solicitations at BJA, we have the application submission checklist, you can click on this link when you get these slide deck. This checklist gives you an idea of kind of how to prepare to apply, some of those kind of pieces that I went over, the DUNS number, the SAM, all that stuff, talking about what it means to complete the first deadline in Grants.gov, what is that—what are you going to have to have in preparation for that and then getting ready to submit in JustGrants and completing, and reviewing, and certifying your application in JustGrants and some other tips. So definitely would bookmark this if you're not familiar already with this checklist.

And then we also have the JustGrants application submission resources, we have a lot of videos that I see actually posted, our colleagues have posted them in the chat section here, so a lot of e-learning videos that provide kind of job aids, you know, videos that go over the application checklist, and other resources, you can see the list here and as I mentioned those are all posted in the chat function, thank you Tammy for doing that.

So this just gives you an idea of how to stay connected, obviously you've heard about this webinar so you probably are on, you know, BJA's Twitter page, or Facebook page, or you know, get our announcements via email but just remember, if you're not already getting our announcements regularly, these are different ways to stay connected. So any other solicitations that we have coming out, the fellow solicitation that we mentioned is already out on the streets but we'll be announcing the webinar shortly this afternoon, that'll be all shared via these different mechanisms. So make sure that you're connected to a variety of different mechanism, whatever your preference is.

And then most—sometimes, most importantly not only understanding the grant or solicitation requirements is having these kind of numbers on hand for technical assistance. So with our two-step application process, we want to make sure that you have the information on hand if you run into technical issues. So Grants.gov numbers are shared here, and then the JustGrants numbers are shared here, you know, when you're submitting the full application, and then finally the third thing listed here is an email for the OJP Response Center. So what's important is if you are having technical issues, you want to make sure your kind of first step is the appropriate number for either Grants.gov or JustGrants, but you also want to report this information, you know, as we're approaching deadlines to the OJP Response Center. The—as much information that you can provide to the OJP Response Center on any different technical issues, you know, this is the most helpful to us as we approach deadlines. So keep all these numbers, they're all listed in the solicitation I think on the first or the second page so they're all there, you don't need to write them down but please keep these numbers on hand if you're running into any technical issues. I'm going to share our colleague's contact information at the end of the presentation, but again, the OJP Response Center is also there to answer programmatic questions or just talk a little bit more about the solicitation and what might be required. So another great kind of one-stop shop for you to go ask any questions that you might have and then we see that in the chat feature, thank you.

Okay. So I went through those slides because I want to make sure to get to your questions. So let me go into our Q&A here and start reading through some of the questions. I see some in here. So thank you very much. And John, and Cornelia, and Tammy, I'll just ask you guys to be ready because I see some category-specific questions here for you. So our first question from the list, I'm going to answer one part of it, the second part of it, can you share the budget form required to be submitted for category one or is that not released until we submit our Grants.gov application? You actually can get a kind of sneak peek of what will be required in the budget form through JustGrants, if you go to the JustGrants DOJ website, there's something called a job aid reference--job aid reference guide which is on the application submission. So for you all, as potential applicant submitters, you have a guide that helps you kind of look through or kind of think through step by step process, it's a large document, it's 85 pages. So it's not, you know, super fun to read but you can search it and you can search for budget, there's a whole section on the online budget form. So in years past, we used to have a form that you would upload as an attachment but in JustGrants you'll be filling out an online form that is built into the system. So we don't have a form that we can share with you Melissa but you can go to this job aid guide and actually search for the budget and they'll give you the different sections that you will be asked for. So please keep in mind that job aid for you all, so Cornelia though, we have a question on category one. Are there minimum qualifications for the fulltime project manager required for category one, is there a maximum salary cap?

CORNELIA SIGWORTH: And so we don't have set out criteria other than say we expect the person to be at least some mid-career midlevel professional with the subject matter expertise to carry the project. So we're not looking for a research assistant level person as the main lead on this project and then in terms of salary cap, there's a specific to this category.

REBECCA ROSE: Thank you Cornelia. We're going to stick with you, another question on category one from Tyler. What is the expectation for being a host in-person events or training? Will there be any special consideration given to applicants based on things such as proximity to an airport, lodging availability, or the ability to host more than 100 participants for example?

CORNELIA SIGWORTH: No, there won't be any special consideration based on those factors. I think the expectation is really just about being able to organize and coordinate those kinds of in-person events and trainings, not that they would necessarily need to be hosted in the applicant's facility, we would be using government facilities or no cost facilities for that activity.

REBECCA ROSE: Thanks Cornelia. So the next question is related to category one, I'll go ahead and answer it but the—Mercedes says thank you to everyone at BJA. So thank you for being here. She wanted to ask about small business eligibility, are these opportunities not available for small businesses who are experienced in the field and are partnering together to do the work? So small businesses would be eligible as long as you have the experiences required, if you look on the front page, I think it's—there's some, you know, specifics about for profits or nonprofits, I'm not sure that says anything specifically about small businesses. So this would be awarded as a cooperative agreement. So it's not a contract where we're, you know, kind of setting aside things for small businesses versus not. So, you know, just take a look at the cover page for eligibility and, you know, make sure that you kind of fit within some of those criteria and then, of course, would be, you know, relevant to your experience as you—as you demonstrate in your application. And then, yes, this agreement is a cooperative agreement and would be in full collaboration with BJA staff members. Thank you Mercedes. Oh, we have another question here. I'm going to read it out loud, I also want to inquire about the exclusivity of a website for the training, would this be a designated space or a hub that is inclusive of an internet system for participant access and organizational management by BJA, or would this be a continuous endeavor maintained by the advisory group? So Cornelia, that's for you. So I think we're asking about the website that you mentioned.

CORNELIA SIGWORTH: It's not necessarily exclusive for the training. I think the idea is that the project in this repository has its own freestanding website that's not part of any other organization's main website. So that it says this is project specific and not dependent on the look or feel of any of the, you know, recipient's organization or any other part of the project's organization.

REBECCA ROSE: Great. Thank you Cornelia. We have another question from Tyler, with regards to the for profit applicants, will participation in the grant create any conflict of interest with regards to selling solutions to clients or agencies that utilize Knowledge Lab services? So I'll go ahead and respond to that, I think, you know, with grant funding from the federal government, all services are free of charge. So, you know, any kind of usage of the website or the Knowledge Lab resources, the expectation would be that all services provided, you know, through the Knowledge Lab, and not whatever that service is, whether it's, you know, kind of training and technical assistance, or just providing resources, or kind of combining all this information on a website would all be free to any users or the field that would access this information. Cornelia, anything to add to that?

CORNELIA SIGWORTH: No, I think you covered it, thanks.

REBECCA ROSE: Great. Thank you. So Brent, we—a question from Brent, we—in category one, is there—is there an area for a small law enforcement agency to apply? I think the answer for that would be no, we are looking for a national kind of in scope provider and that means is looking for somebody who can provide, you know, the Knowledge Lab deliverables as listed in the solicitation, and would be able to, you know, create this website that would house all of the different services and resources that we want to in this knowledge lab. So the applicant would be—would have to have kind of that national in scope, you know, ability and capability. Now once the Knowledge Lab is created, we would expect that law enforcement agencies would then access the information that is available in the Knowledge Lab. But in order to be an applicant, just to keep in mind, we do have to ensure that you have this kind of ability to stand something that is national in scope, meaning available across the country to all law enforcement agencies. Okay. The next question, Tyler again, the follow-up question, my question would relate to external fails not related necessarily in tandem with specific grant related engagements. So Tyler, I think we're maybe getting in a little bit into the weeds here and maybe we might want to discuss this offline, you know, all—as—just to kind of repeat all of our services that would be federally funded are free to the field, and if there's, you know, services that your company offers outside of the grant funded program, you know, we would have to discuss that from a—kind of a legal consideration with our general council but Tyler, I'll share all contact information with Cornelia in a minute once we wrap this up so you can reach out directly and talk to Cornelia a little bit more in detail about your question. Okay. Go ahead.

JOHN MARKOVIC: I'm seeing a question here from Kristen Rykert. Could you please suggest to me as to how best to direct my efforts regarding key member with Washington residency? I think just to clarify— it was Tammy or Cornelia, who provided a good explanation. So what we're looking here is to leverage opportunities if this is a Washington-based awardee or applicant, to have that person come to our office for a personal period of time to work hand in hand with us or if you have one of your staff who already has a Washington presence.

So we're not necessarily looking for you to establish it, it's not a requirement we're really looking for that—the quality of you as an applicant, your capabilities as an organization and your partnership. If you have a staff present, we're just alluding to you the fact that would be great to have some in-person presence in our office or—in our office in Washington D.C., should that be the case, but it's not a requirement and it won't be counted against you if you don't have such a person already lined up or part of your staff, or part of your partnership.

REBECCA ROSE: Wonderful. Thank you John so much, and, yeah, go ahead Cornelia.

CORNELIA SIGWORTH: A little bit on that, and just to reiterate, not only will it not be counted against you, it would not be counted for you as positive and it's not going to be considered at all for the application review process. And additionally there's no funding to—you can't use any grant funding to establish a person here or any of the expenses related to it. So it's truly if they happen to be here opportunity.

REBECCA ROSE: Wonderful. Thank you so much. So up here on the screen, I have contact information for the category leads. So again, Cornelia's the lead for category one, John is the lead for category four, and Tammy is the lead for category two and three. If your—if we did not get to your question or if we missed it somehow, please reach out to them directly to answer any—or to ask any programmatic questions, if you have any technical questions, please reach out to Grants.gov, or JustGrants, or the OJP Resource Center. Cornelia, before we wrap, is there any concluding remarks you would like to share?

CORNELIA SIGWORTH: I mean, I'm just going to say thank you, we see a lot of new friends and new faces so we appreciate everyone's interest in this program and these projects which are, you know, really some of the very few projects that BJA has the discretionary funding to support. So we're thrilled with these opportunities and we look forward getting these great applications in.

REBECCA ROSE: Wonderful. Thank you so much all for your participation and then as a reminder, the posting, the recording, and the PowerPoint will be posted on BJA's website, which was shared in the chat within five to ten business days. So we appreciate your participation and we look forward to getting your application. Take care everyone.