Grant Opportunities for Gun Violence Prevention

California Violence Intervention and Prevention Program (CalVIP): Pursuant to the Break the Cycle of Violence Act, the CalVIP Grant Program is administered by California's Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC). CalVIP is California's leading source of state investment in community gun violence intervention initiatives. CalVIP grants are available to community-based organizations and to city, county, or tribal agencies (who are generally required to pass through at least half of the grant to community partners and/or offices of violence prevention). CalVIP-funded initiatives must be primarily focused on providing intervention services to individuals at highest risk in communities with the greatest need:

• CalVIP-funded initiatives must be primarily focused on providing violence intervention services to individuals identified as highest risk of victimization or involvement in community gun violence in the near future.
• CalVIP-funded initiatives must serve communities that are identified as disproportionately impacted by community gun violence based on specified homicide and firearm assault data. (The CalVIP grant Request for Proposals includes a list of the cities, counties, and tribal governments that are eligible to apply for this grant cycle; community-based organizations are eligible to apply for funding to serve the residents of these eligible communities).

Note that new legislative changes to this program eliminate previous grant matching requirements and other administrative barriers identified by grantees.

BSCC released a request for proposals for the next CalVIP grant cycle (Cohort 5) on this webpage on February 13, 2025. Application proposals are due by August 18, 2025, for a grant period beginning January 1, 2026.

CalVIP Service Contracts/Supplemental Grants to Build Capacity in the CVI Field: California law directs the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) to set aside a portion of funds allocated for the California Violence Intervention and Prevention (CalVIP) Grant Program each year for the purpose of funding grants or service contracts to build and sustain the community violence intervention field and workforce.

Based on recommendations made by the CalVIP Executive Steering Committee, BSCC has developed plans to release multiple requests for proposals for these funds in 2025, including plans to award funding to programs that:

• Train, certify, and provide professional development to frontline violence intervention professionals;
• Provide technical assistance to help CalVIP programs comply with mandated data and fiscal management requirements; and
• Provide technical assistance, training, and strategic planning support to foster the growth and effectiveness of community violence intervention programs, including programs that are not yet ready to receive CalVIP grants.

The CalVIP Executive Steering Committee also recommended allocating a portion of this funding for mental health and wellness services for frontline violence intervention workers: successful CalVIP grantees approved for funding in Cohort 5 may elect to accept an additional stipend as part of the CalVIP grant process to provide mental health, trauma recovery, peer support, and related services and activities for employees and partners who engaged in frontline violence intervention services. More information about this funding allocation is available in the CalVIP Grant Request for Proposals release on BSCC's CalVIP webpage.

BSCC will likely release multiple requests for proposals for these purposes in 2025.

California's Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) is currently accepting applications from city and county agencies for the Byrne State Crisis Intervention Program (Byrne SCIP) Grant. Under this grant, BSCC will award approximately $11 million to support programs and initiatives that have a direct connection to the goal of reducing gun violence or improving firearm relinquishment procedures. To achieve those goals, grant proposals must also have a direct connection to crisis intervention activities focused primarily on identifying risk and proactively intervening to prevent harm. Applicants may implement new or expanded activities, strategies, or programs across one or more program purpose areas outlined in the request for proposals. These include, but are not limited to:

1. Programs to enhance utilization and implementation of court protection and restraining order processes that include firearm access restrictions for individuals found to have engaged in violent, abusive, or dangerous conduct (such as Gun Violence Restraining Orders and Domestic Violence Restraining Orders);
2. Programs to identify and connect individuals who may be a danger to themselves or others with mental health care or other community services.
3. Law enforcement programs to enhance service of court protection and restraining orders, enhance firearm relinquishment procedures, safely store and track firearms relinquished by prohibited persons and the public, support community gun violence problem analysis and response, and support crisis intervention or co-responder activities.

BSCC release a request for proposals on this webpage on February 13, 2025, for the next round of Byrne SCIP grants, which will make approximately $11 million available to city and county agencies over a two-year grant period. Applications will be due on April 7, 2025, for a grant period set to begin on August 1.

Flexible Assistance for Survivors Pilot Grant Program: The Legislature allocated one-time funding to the Governor's Office of Emergency Services (OES) to administer this pilot competitive grant program to support survivors of violent crime. The program provides grants to nonprofit community-based organizations that provide direct services to survivors of violence and who propose plans to direct that funding through flexible cash assistance to support those survivors and their family members in recovery.

This program released its first request for proposals in October 2024 and is expected to announce grant awards on April 30, 2025.

Innovative Response to Marginalized Victims of Crime (KI) Grant Program: This small California grant program administered by the Governor's Office of Emergency Services (OES) allocates a limited amount of funding from Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) Assistance funds to support programs that utilize innovative methods to provide direct support services to crime survivors from underserved populations, including survivors of gang or community violence.

In recent years, this grant has only had sufficient funding to support grants for programs that were already grant recipients.

California's Medi-Cal Violence Prevention (Community Health Worker) Services Program: In 2022, California adopted legislation directing the Department of Health Care Services to establish a violence preventive services benefit, which the Department has rolled out as part of its larger Community Health Worker Services program. This new California program creates an administratively challenging but ongoing funding opportunity for community-based organizations, hospitals, and certain other organizations and licensed health care providers to contract with their county's local Medi-Cal Managed Care Plans to receive ongoing reimbursement at a contracted provider rate for providing violence prevention counseling services to certain Medi-Cal-insured individuals whose health and wellness would benefit from such services.

To be eligible for coverage and reimbursement, these services must be recommended by a licensed health care provider, such as a licensed counselor, social worker, nurse, physician, etc., and must be provided to a Medi-Cal-insured client who is a survivor of community violence, has been chronically exposed to community violence, or who is otherwise identified by the licensed provider as high risk for violent injury from community violence.

To be eligible for coverage and reimbursement, these services must also be provided by violence prevention professionals who have been trained and certified by certain approved training programs. Currently, two training programs have been designated as approved training programs for violence prevention professionals for the purposes of this program—the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention (HAVI) and the Urban Peace Institute (UPI)—meaning that violence prevention professionals trained and certified by one of these entities are eligible to provide covered services under this program. See the Department of Health Care Services' Community Health Worker services webpage and All-Plan Letter for more information.

This program is currently available and ongoing for eligible programs that successfully contract with county Medi-Cal Managed Care Plans to provide violence prevention professional services to eligible Medi-Cal-insured clients.

The federal Community-Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI) launched in 2021 and has been administered by the US Department of Justice. Similar to California's state-level CalVIP Grant Program, the federal CVIPI program is the largest federal grant program supporting community-based organizations and state, local, or tribal governments implementing community violence intervention initiatives focused on providing intervention services to interrupt cycles of violence among individuals at highest risk. Across three grant cycles in Fiscal Years 2022, 2023, and 2024, eight community-based organizations and five local governments in California received CVIPI grant awards.

US DOJ released a request for proposals for the FY 2025 CVIPI Grant on January 15, 2025 and announced that proposals would be due in April 2025 for a grant period set to begin October 1, 2025. Federal law has allocated funding for the CVIPI program. However, after the presidential transition, the request for proposals and related information about the CVIPI program was removed from US DOJ's webpage and CVIPI was identified as one of over 2,000 federal grant programs apparently under review by the Office of Management and Budget.

This federal assistance program provides annual funding directly to eligible local governments for public safety purposes. Local governments identified as eligible for Local JAG Awards submit a proposal requesting funds for qualified purposes. In FY 2024, this program allocated about $10.2 million among 105 cities and counties in California. In recent years, US DOJ encouraged local governments to utilize JAG funds to build sustained partnerships with community-based organizations to support community violence intervention initiatives in communities impacted by gun violence.

Eligible local governments apply for Local JAG assistance awards every year.

In addition to direct allocations to local governments, the federal Byrne JAG program also separately provides annual formula funding to states to award subgrants for eligible criminal justice and public safety purposes. In California, the Board for State and Community Corrections (BSCC) is the state administering agency for these funds and has awarded subgrants on a competitive basis to county agencies every four years, pursuant to a multi-year strategic plan. BSCC updated this multi-year strategic plan in 2022 and prioritizes programs that focus, among other things, on crime prevention, violence reduction, trauma-informed and culturally competent care, and collaborations with community-based service providers. BSCC announced the most recent cycle of Byrne JAG grant awards in 2023, which allocated approximately $47 million across 25 county agencies.

BSCC is set to release the request for proposals for the next round of Byrne JAG grants available from California's state-level JAG assistance award in 2027.