OVC FY25 Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) Victim Assistance and Victim Compensation Formula Grants Pre-Application Video

TINA DIMACHKIEH: Hello and welcome to the OVC Fiscal Year 2025 Victims of Crime Act Victim Assistance and Victim Compensation Formula Grants Pre-Application Webinar.

I'm Tina Dimachkieh, a Grant Management Specialist with the State Victim Resource Division, and I'm here with my colleague Alina Gomez, who's also a Grant Management Specialist with the SVRD Division.

I'm happy to share that the FY25 VOCA Formula Grant Programs Notices of Funding Opportunity have officially been posted, and the 30-day application window has opened.

During this recorded webinar, we will talk about OVCs mission, the NOFO, including the funding opportunity focus, eligibility and required documents. Then we will talk about the application process and resources.

It will be helpful if you are following along with the NOFO and taking notes to help when you are submitting your application by the deadline.

The Office for Victims of Crime, which is part of the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs (OJP), administers the Crime Victims Fund, which is financed by fines and penalties paid by convicted federal offenders and not from tax dollars.

OVC channels that money towards victim compensation and assistance throughout the United States.

This funding supports formula programs to states, territories, and tribes, as well as many OVC discretionary grant programs for victims of crime.

To begin, we will talk about the Victim Assistance Formula Grant Program. Before we dig into the NOFO, please mark your calendars with these dates. The Grants.gov deadline for this NOFO is August 15, 2025, 11:59 PM Eastern, where you will need to submit the SF-424, and the JustGrants deadline where the full application itself is submitted is August 20, 2025 at 8:59 PM Eastern, with awards expected to be made by September 30, 2025. Please note that this applies both to Victim Assistance and Compensation applications.

Applicants should submit the SF-424 as early as possible and recommended not later than 48 hours before the Grants.gov deadline. If you fail to submit the SF-424 in Grants.gov by the deadline, you will be unable to submit the application in JustGrants.

Once the first part of the application has been successfully submitted in Grants.gov, the Grants.gov workspace status will change from In Progress to Submitted.

You will also receive a series of four Grants.gov email notifications. If you need to update information in the SF-424 after it has been submitted in Grants.gov, you can update the information as part of the JustGrants submission.

These are the types of organizations that are eligible to apply for this 2025 Notice for Funding Opportunity. As you see on the screen here, all recipients and subrecipients, including any for profit organizations must forgo any profit or management fees. Please note that this funding opportunity is only for registered state administering agencies appointed by the State Governor.

Under this NOFO, OVC will award each eligible state and territory victim assistance program an annual grant to support eligible crime victim assistance programs in that state or territory.

As you see on the slide here, under this program the states provide subgrants to local community-based organizations and public agencies that provide services directly to crime victims such as crisis counseling, telephone and on site information and referrals, criminal justice support and advocacy, shelter, therapy and additional assistance.

There is one main goal under the OVC VOCA Victim Assistance Formula Grant Program and that is to improve the treatment of victims of crime by providing victims with the assistance, support and services necessary to aid their restoration and healing after a criminal act.

Objectives of the OVC VOCA Victim Assistance Formula Grant Program are the following.

Objective one: support state and territory crime victim assistance programs and objective two: provide subgrants to local community-based organizations and public agencies that provide services to crime victims.

So how will these awards contribute to the program goals and objectives at the state level? States and territories shall use funds to support eligible crime victim assistance programs that provide support services to crime victims retaining up to 5% of their total grant for administrative and training purposes.

Recipients under this funding opportunity do not need to submit any deliverables other than the standard post award requirements and administration. Recipients also will not be submitting a budget under this application.

Please look to the NOFO for the information about Unallowable Use of Funds as related to the slide here.

Elements that Victim Assistance Applications must include are listed here.

The first element is the OJP Financial Management and Grant Management Training Certificates. These Training Certificates are required for the Grant Award Administrator and Financial Manager for this Formula Grant Application. Both must complete the training within 120 days after the date of award acceptance or must have already completed it within the three years prior to the submission of this application.

The second element is a Statement Regarding Use of Administrative and Training Funds. A general statement about how applicants intend to use the 5% of the award amount allowed for Administration and Training.

The third element is the Civil Rights Compliance Reporting. This is a statement that lists the name of the civil rights contact person who is responsible for ensuring that all applicable civil rights requirements are met and who will act as a liaison in civil rights matters with OJP.

The next element is the monitoring of subrecipients. This is a Subaward Monitoring plan for FY 2025, including an explanation of whether your agency met its monitoring goals for FY24. If your agency did not meet or is not currently meeting its monitoring goals, please be sure to explain why in the document.

The next element is the Statement Regarding Plan to Subgrant Funds. This is a statement that contains the following: a copy of the documented methodology for selecting subrecipients that will apply to FY25 VOCA Assistance Funding and a copy of any completed strategic plan applicable to FY25 VOCA Assistance Funding. Also, a document that describes, to the extent not already addressed in the items above, the following: efforts to assess victim services needs in the states or territory, how subawards will be made, including the extent to which new awards will be made and the extent to which awards to existing subgrantees will be modified.

If a planning process is underway or anticipated regarding the delivery of victim assistance, please describe that process in this section of the application.

Also lastly, what should be included in the Statement Regarding Plan to Subgrant Funds is how the state or territory will ensure that Subrecipients meet the VOCA Organizational Capacity Requirements.

On this slide, here we provide some information on the Federal Award itself.

All states and territories receive an annual VOCA Victim Assistance Grant, resulting in 56 total awards that will be awarded at the end of this fiscal year.

This year's total amount anticipated to be awarded represents a 63% increase from FY24. For FY25, the amount available to OVC for obligation from the Crime Victims Fund is $1.9 billion. Of this amount, $1.2 is allocated by the VOCA Formula to Victim Assistance Grants as you see on the screen here. Each state, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico receive a base amount of $500,000. The territories of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and American Samoa each receive a base amount of $200,000. 

Additional funds are distributed to the states and territories based on population according to the U.S. Census Bureau. OVC may, in certain cases, provide additional funding in future years to awards made under this NOFO through continuation awards. OJP will consider, among other factors, OJP strategic priorities, a recipient’s overall management of the award, and progress of award funded work when making continuation award decisions, and the sirens in the background are not part of this recording.

All awards are subject to the availability of appropriated funds and to any modifications or additional requirements that may be imposed by law. Please note that the start date of these awards is October 1, 2024, so be sure to include that in your application when completing the documentation.

ALINA GOMEZ: With that, I will turn it over to my colleague, Alina Gomez to speak to the Compensation Formula Grant NOFO as well as additional resources.

Thank you, Tina. So, we're going to dive into the Victims Compensation Formula Grant. Again, here is the link to the NOFO as well as the deadline dates.

Again, Grants.gov is due before JustGrants and please note that all times are Eastern Standard Time. We recommend that you submit early up to 72, 48 hours at least so that if there's any time any corrections that need to be made to any errors, there's plenty of time to make those adjustments before the deadline.

Eligibility is Victim Compensation Programs and again, all recipients must forgo any profit or management fee.

Program Descriptions.

The state and territory victim compensation programs funded by the VOCA Victims Compensation Formula Grant awards supplement state and territory efforts to offset victims’ financial burdens resulting from a crime. 

The Goals and Objectives. 

The objective one is to support state and territory Crime Victim Compensation Programs and objective two is to reimburse crime victims for expenses resulting from criminal violence.

Similarly to the victim assistance, please note that Unallowable Use of Funds, which are also listed in the program description section of the NOFO. 

Elements of the Victims Compensation Application must include again the OJP Financial Management Grant Administrating Program Certifications that Tina described earlier, as well as a Statement Regarding Use of Administration Training Funds. And for compensation, we need the State Law Governing the Crime Victim Compensation Program.

Here is the Federal Award Information. Again, it's 54 awards for compensation with a slight increase, about 1.7 increase from FY24. 

For both awards, the grants are all, the awards will be grants and there will be the legal instrument of financial assistance. The awarding agency maintains an oversight and monitoring role without substantial involvement with the awarding agency. Again, you can click the link for OJP Grant Application Research Resource Guide for more information.

The Proposal Narrative for both victims assistance and victims compensation is required. Please include up to a 10-page Program Narrative in your application. Adhere to the proposal narrative formatting requirements. If the proposal narrative fails to comply with the length related restrictions, OVC may consider such noncompliance in Peer Review and Final Award decision.

Both applications should also include all the listed required documents. Look closely at the list for additional application components and be sure to submit all that are applicable to your agency. There is an application checklist that you should review before you submit, and we'll go over that in the Resource section.

So again, Application Submission Overview. Applicants have two application submission deadlines, Grants.gov first and then JustGrants. It's OK to enter programmatic data in Grants.gov and update later in JustGrants, and a JustGrants submissions should include all items as defined in the NOFO.

There are Additional Resources here on this slide for your application process, including the DOJ Application Submission Checklist that I referred to earlier, the Application Attachments, and the Award Attachments. 

If you are looking for more information about OVC, please consult the OVC website. Again, the link is here in the webinar. The OJP also has a Grant Application Resource Guide that you should review while completing your applications. 

Before you can do anything though, you have to make sure that you're registered in SAM.gov, which is the systems for award management. This is a vital step to registration and renewal and renewal can take up to 10 business days to complete, so make sure you start early.

Once you're all set in SAM.gov, Grants.gov is your first stop in starting the application. Under the Applicants tab, you will find training and information on applying, the Grants.gov system and the funding opportunities process. 

There's also JustGrants Training Resources including organized by topics and videos and a job aid reference guide. Please visit the link here. 

JustGrants will also be having weekly office hours every Wednesday, 2:30 to 4:30 Eastern Time to review the application process. You can click on any of the dates here and it'll take you to the registration for that day or check the website for additional updates.

The DOJ Grants Financial Guide is also available with your listing here at the Top 10 Topics that are often reviewed when putting together your application.

Now, here is important contact information.

If you have any technical assistance with submitting the full application in JustGrants, please contact the JustGrants Support Center at the number or email provided below [833-872-5175 or [email protected]].

For technical assistance with Programmatic Requirements and to report a technical issue that prevented application submission, please contact OJP Response Center again at the numbers listed below or the email [800-851-3420, 202-353-5556, or [email protected]].

We'd like to thank you for your time today and thank you for your continued partnership with OVC.