Family, Opportunity, Resilience, Grit, Engagement – Fatherhood (FORGE Fatherhood) | HHS 2025 ACF OFA ZJ 0014

Opportunity Information: Apply for HHS 2025 ACF OFA ZJ 0014

Family, Opportunity, Resilience, Grit, Engagement - Fatherhood (FORGE Fatherhood) is a federal competitive grant opportunity from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA). It will fund projects that promote "responsible fatherhood" as authorized under Section 403(a)(2) of the Social Security Act, using a cooperative agreement model. In practice, that means awardees should expect an active partnership with the federal program office (more federal involvement than a standard grant), with shared expectations around implementation, reporting, and performance improvement.

The program is focused exclusively on adult fathers, meaning participants must be age 18 or older, and they must have children age 24 or younger. The eligible participant pool is intentionally broad and includes both "community fathers" in the general population and fathers who are returning, or have returned, to their families and communities following incarceration. The intent is to support programs that meet fathers where they are, including those facing reentry barriers, unstable employment, relationship strain, and parenting challenges.

ACF is looking to fund a range of project types and service models across three core service categories that are central to responsible fatherhood programming. These categories include activities that promote or sustain healthy marriage and relationships, strengthen responsible parenting, and increase economic stability. While the notice does not spell out specific required interventions in the excerpt provided, these categories typically translate into program services such as relationship and communication skills, co-parenting support, father-child engagement and parenting education, and employment-related services such as job readiness, training pathways, placement support, and strategies to reduce barriers to work. ACF also signals openness to varied scopes and target populations, which suggests both specialized and more general fatherhood initiatives may be competitive if they clearly align to the statutory categories and the adult father eligibility rules.

Eligible applicants include a wide set of public and nonprofit entities. Government applicants can include states, counties, cities or townships, special districts, independent school districts, and public housing authorities (including Indian housing authorities). Tribal eligibility includes federally recognized Native American tribal governments as well as tribal organizations, and the notice explicitly includes state, territorial, and tribal post-secondary educational institutions. On the nonprofit side, both 501(c)(3) organizations and nonprofits without 501(c)(3) status (excluding individuals) may apply, and both public and private nonprofit institutions of higher education are eligible, along with private institutions of higher education more broadly as listed. Faith-based organizations are eligible on the same basis as any other organization, and the funding opportunity emphasizes federal protections that prohibit discrimination in award selection based on an organization’s religious character, affiliation, or exercise, consistent with 45 CFR Part 87 and related federal law.

Two categories are explicitly not eligible and will be disqualified from merit review: individuals (including sole proprietorships) and foreign entities. This matters for project design because it pushes applicants toward organizational capacity, formal governance, and compliance infrastructure appropriate for federal financial and programmatic oversight.

From a funding and competition standpoint, this is a discretionary opportunity (not a formula award) with an anticipated 66 awards and an award ceiling of $1,250,000 per award. The opportunity is associated with CFDA (Assistance Listing) 93.086 and is categorized under Income Security and Social Services. The funding opportunity number is HHS-2025-ACF-OFA-ZJ-0014, and the application closing date is July 29, 2025 (with the posting/creation date listed as July 15, 2025). Applicants considering this opportunity should plan around a relatively short turnaround window and should be prepared to demonstrate a clear theory of change tied to the three statutory activity areas, a credible recruitment plan for eligible fathers (including, if relevant, partnerships that support reentering fathers), and the operational ability to deliver services at scale while meeting cooperative agreement monitoring and reporting expectations.

• The Administration for Children and Families - OFA in the income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Family, Opportunity, Resilience, Grit, Engagement – Fatherhood (FORGE Fatherhood)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.086.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2025-07-15.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-07-29. (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 $1,250,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 66 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), 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, Others.

Apply for HHS 2025 ACF OFA ZJ 0014

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