Administration for Children and Families - OCS grants

The Office of Community Services (OCS), within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), intends to issue a funding opportunity for a cooperative agreement for the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) Strengthening CSBG Outcomes: Performance Management, Data Collection, and Compliance Support.This NOFO will promote a national competition to identify one organization to support CSBG states, territories, and eligible entities with performance management activities, including data collection and reporting as well as approaches to remedy issues of non-compliance resulting from monitoring visits. This cooperative agreement builds on a national infrastructure for CSBG performance excellence by supporting data quality, outcome measurement, and the annual Report to Congress. This investment emphasizes practical capacity building—enabling states, territories, and eligible entities to translate data into actionable insights designed to inform and improve CSBG program outcomes.This cooperative agreement builds off a previous NOFO and enhances the CSBG Performance Management Framework by emphasizing training and technical assistance (T/TA) that helps the CSBG network translate data into actionable insights designed to improve CSBG impacts, outcomes, and accountability.

The Office of Community Services (OCS) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) will support a funding opportunity for six (6) three-year cooperative agreements for the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) Communities of Practice (CoP).Six CoPs will be established to provide training and technical assistance (TTA). These CoPs will include CSBG-funded states, territories, and tribes, and CSBG state associations and eligible entities. The specialized TTA must: account for regional, state, city, county, tribal, and community characteristics (i.e., jurisdictional levels, demographic categories, socioeconomic tiers, community resources, etc.); be based on evidence-informed TTA models specific to the assigned CoPs; and include scalable approaches that states, territories, state associations, tribes, and CSBG-eligible entities can implement to support individuals and families with low incomes as they progress towards economic security.The six award recipients will be required to provide their respective grouping of CSBG states, territories, tribes, state associations, and eligible entities with capacity-building that creates scalable, evidence-informed interventions that improve earned income, employment stability, and asset development for families with low incomes through coordinated service delivery and systems alignment.TTA developed under these CoPs will advance community-level strategies that prevent and reduce barriers to attaining economic mobility; education and workforce development; transportation; and access to safe and stable housing, including support for the A Home for Every Child administrative priority. Each CoP is expected to invest in partnerships to support data-driven decision-making and infrastructure that strengthens service delivery, enhances reporting and compliance, and reduces opportunities for fraud, waste, and abuse across the Network.

The Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) Tribal Capacity Building Training and Technical Assistance (TCBTTA) project intends to support one organization to help build tribal and tribal organization capacity within CSBG. This cooperative agreement addresses a critical gap in CSBG infrastructure: the absence of tailored training and technical assistance for tribal grant recipients. By receiving dedicated resources for capacity‐building, tribes and tribal organizations will be better equipped to administer their CSBG services, strengthen compliance and program performance, and more effectively use CSBG funds to support housing and economic stability initiatives that align with the A Home for Every Child administrative priority.The training and technical assistance (TTA) provided under this NOFO will include best practices in CSBG oversight, support with budgeting, financial reporting, internal controls, compliance with federal grant requirements, the CSBG Tribal Annual Report, and use of data for program improvements. The training and technical assistance will assist tribes and tribal organizations on conducting community needs assessment and the development of CSBG plans that reflect tribal priorities, technical support for designing and delivering services that align with CSBG goals while honoring tribal sovereignty, and facilitate connections among tribal award recipients to share best practices, challenges, and improved processes in implementing CSBG funded programs.

The Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) Essentials for Improved Outcomes will fund an organization to help states, territories, and CSBG-eligible entities: 1) strengthen their understanding of CSBG statutory and regulatory requirements; 2) enhance their implementation of critical program elements (e.g., community needs assessment, tripartite board, monitoring and reporting compliance etc.); and 3) support the coordination and development of additional anti-poverty resources that support the overall administration of CSBG. Strengthening capacity to navigate complex systems is critical to successful administration. By fostering collaboration and service models for navigating systems like foster care, behavioral health, housing and other public assistances, award recipients can better ensure children and families receive specialized support for building stable, permanent environments where families and communities thrive

The Office of Community Services (OCS) intends to fund Community Action Agencies (CAAs) and tribes that received FY25 Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) awards and own affordable housing units. The purpose of the AHSSD is to demonstrate the potential for improving housing stability, economic mobility, and well-being by boosting public welfare and support service enrollment for residents of affordable housing who are American citizens. AHSSD does this by improving the coordination of public and private assistance programs to prevent and reduce dependency among this population cohort. Recipients will offer direct provision of specific public welfare and support services, internal referrals to assistance programs, external referrals to programming offered through other agencies, and/or case management and human-services coordination. Recipients must also provide services to eligible residents who live in affordable housing units.The range of service enrollment is broad, including educational opportunities for children and adults; afterschool and/or summer programs for children and teens; direct provision of childcare programs/opportunities for children ages 0 to 5 or connections to Head Start and Early Head Start programs; older adult care services; mental health, alcohol, and addiction services; services for Americans and eligible residents with disabilities; self-sufficiency resources; resources on homeownership; financial literacy training; transportation services for residents; referrals and connections to resources to help meet concrete needs; and healthcare services.