Last month, Youth Services Insider reported on the absence of 2025 grant announcements coming out of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). There are only a few weeks left in the fiscal year, and it usually takes months to go through the process from when opportunities are published that includes an open application period and review process for all potential grantees before they receive grant notifications.
This was cause for concern to many in the field because it was not clear if the money might just vanish on October 1 if OJJDP didn’t put out a call for grant proposals. But according to an email YSI received, the agency’s view is that it has a full extra year to hold grant competitions and announce winners.
The funds appropriated for fiscal 2025 “are available for obligation” in fiscal 2026 as well, according to an email from OJJDP spokesperson Tannyr Watkins. The department “will make awards on a rolling basis, some of which will be awarded after September 30.”
That is surely welcome news to the states, after-school programs, mentoring providers and other entities that compete for OJJDP funds every year, though it does suggest that there might be a fairly long lag time before a lot of the funds are actually distributed. It also sets up an odd fiscal 2026 when, assuming there is juvenile justice money to appropriate next year, the agency will probably finish up fiscal 2025 grant making just in time to start all over again.
OJJDP has put up one grant announcement in the past week, but it’s one that will not require competition: the only eligible entity listed is the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
