NIJ FY17 Evaluation of OVC's Vision 21: Law Enforcement and the Communities They Serve: Supporting Collective Healing in the Wake of Harm | NIJ 2017 12620

Opportunity Information: Apply for NIJ 2017 12620

The NIJ FY17 grant opportunity titled "Evaluation of OVC's Vision 21: Law Enforcement and the Communities They Serve: Supporting Collective Healing in the Wake of Harm" is a U.S. Department of Justice funding solicitation focused on building a strong evaluation blueprint for a victim-centered, community-facing law enforcement initiative. Issued by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) in partnership with the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), the opportunity aims to fund evaluation research connected to OVC's Vision 21 framework, specifically the "Collective Healing" effort, which is intended to support communities and law enforcement in addressing and recovering from harm.

The solicitation is structured as a competitive, discretionary award and will fund one project through a cooperative agreement, meaning the funding agency expects to remain actively involved in the work rather than simply providing funds and stepping back. The core purpose is not to run or expand the Collective Healing program itself, but to support a one-year planning phase that produces comprehensive evaluation options for assessing the initiative's pilot sites. In practical terms, the selected recipient is expected to design and propose rigorous ways to evaluate what the pilot sites are doing, how implementation varies across locations, what outcomes should be measured, what data sources are feasible and credible, and what evaluation designs could realistically be carried out if a larger, full evaluation is funded later.

The grant emphasizes that this first year is an evaluation planning effort, intended to lay the groundwork for a potential future, targeted, larger-scale evaluation of the Collective Healing program. In other words, the deliverable from this award is a well-developed evaluation plan (or set of evaluation plan options) that NIJ and OVC could use to decide how to study the initiative going forward. This typically includes clarifying program goals and theory of change, identifying measurable outcomes for victims, communities, and law enforcement practices, determining process and fidelity measures, mapping data collection strategies (qualitative and quantitative), addressing ethical and privacy considerations (especially given victim-related data), and establishing feasible timelines and cost estimates for multiple evaluation approaches.

Funding is capped at $500,000 (the award ceiling), and NIJ anticipated making a single award (expected awards: 1). The opportunity was created on March 15, 2017, with an original application deadline of May 15, 2017. The funding activity category is Law, Justice and Legal Services, and the associated CFDA number is 16.560. The opportunity number is NIJ 2017 12620, which applicants would use to locate the solicitation and ensure their submission is tied to the correct program.

Eligibility is broad and includes a wide mix of potential applicants who can credibly conduct evaluation planning and research. Eligible applicants include state, county, and city or township governments; public and state-controlled colleges and universities; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized tribal governments; nonprofit organizations (including both 501(c)(3) and non-501(c)(3) entities, as long as they are not institutions of higher education in those categories); individuals; for-profit organizations (including those other than small businesses); and small businesses. This breadth reflects NIJ's focus on research capacity rather than limiting the work to a single sector, while still requiring applicants to demonstrate the expertise, access, and infrastructure needed to design a high-quality evaluation plan for pilot sites operating in real-world law enforcement and community environments.

Overall, the opportunity is best understood as a research and evaluation design grant: NIJ and OVC sought one strong partner to spend a year working through how the Collective Healing pilot sites should be evaluated, what success should look like, and what methodological choices would provide the most useful and defensible evidence. The end goal is to reduce uncertainty before investing in a larger outcome or impact evaluation, ensuring that any future evaluation is grounded in clear program logic, realistic measurement strategies, and sound research methods suited to sensitive victim and community healing contexts.

• The Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice in the law, justice and legal services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "NIJ FY17 Evaluation of OVC's Vision 21: Law Enforcement and the Communities They Serve: Supporting Collective Healing in the Wake of Harm" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 16.560.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 15, 2017.
• Applicants must submit their applications by May 15, 2017. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $500,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, Individuals, For profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses.

Apply for NIJ 2017 12620

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