FY23 Critical Topics -Community Policing Development Solicitation | O COPS 2023 171549

Opportunity Information: Apply for O COPS 2023 171549

The FY23 Critical Topics - Community Policing Development (CPD) Solicitation is a Department of Justice COPS Office funding opportunity designed to strengthen community policing by helping law enforcement agencies expand practical, proven strategies that improve public safety and community trust. Community policing, as framed in the solicitation, is not a single program but an overall approach that relies on partnerships and problem-solving to address the conditions that drive crime, disorder, and fear of crime. CPD funding is aimed less at adding personnel and more at building the field's capacity through guidance, testing innovative ideas, documenting what works, and producing resources that agencies can actually use. The COPS Office also emphasizes alignment with civil rights and racial equity, access to justice, victim support, community safety, and trust-building in police-community relationships.

This opportunity is offered as a discretionary cooperative agreement (meaning the awardee should expect substantial involvement and collaboration with the COPS Office during the project). It is authorized under federal policing and public safety statutes, including the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (as amended) and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Awards depend on available appropriations and may be subject to additional legal requirements. Applicants are expected to produce publishable-quality deliverables, following the COPS Office Editorial and Style Manual, and projects proposing work with specific agencies are strongly encouraged to include letters of support from those agencies.

The overarching program goal is to generate "knowledge products" and practical guidance that reflect what the COPS Office calls the principles of good guidance. In plain terms, the COPS Office wants outputs that are quality-driven and action-oriented (clear recommendations that reduce inconsistency in performance), evidence-based (aligned with the best available research, ideally informed by systematic review), accessible (plain language and manageable length for practitioners), and memorable (easy for officers and leaders to apply quickly under real-world conditions). Applicants are also encouraged to consider the agency's performance measures when shaping project goals and activities.

The solicitation is organized around a "Critical Topics" focus, intended to respond to pressing national needs in policing. It funds projects that convene stakeholders and produce resources like guides, reports, toolkits, best-practice documents, trainings, and other products that can be shared broadly across state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement. The three funded subcategories are (1) Emerging Issues Forums, (2) Innovations in Recruitment, Retention and Workforce Diversification, and (3) Tolerance, Anti-bias and Diversity Training. Applicants may apply to more than one subcategory, but they must submit a separate application for each.

The first subcategory, Emerging Issues Forums, supports one award up to $300,000. The funded organization must plan and run two to four convenings (virtual or in-person) that bring together thought leaders in law enforcement to discuss emerging issues affecting the field. The purpose is not only discussion but also the production of field-facing resources summarizing promising practices. The applicant is expected to demonstrate experience managing and facilitating high-level forums, propose credible topic ideas, identify potential subject matter experts, and describe the full process from pre-meeting research and preparation through facilitation and post-forum synthesis. Deliverables are expected to include items such as brief reports, summaries, guidebooks, toolkits, or similar resources grounded in forum discussions, interviews, and relevant literature. The COPS Office notes that these products may ultimately be published by the COPS Office at no cost to the awardee, with support for editing, design, and distribution. Projects are considered out of scope if they do not actually center on convenings plus shareable deliverables, or if the applicant is outside the eligible organization types listed (institutions of higher education, for-profit organizations, nonprofit organizations, community groups, and faith-based organizations).

The second subcategory, Innovations in Recruitment, Retention and Workforce Diversification, provides one award up to $400,000. This track is driven by widely reported staffing pressures in policing, including reduced hiring, increased resignations, and rising retirements, and it frames workforce challenges as a trust and legitimacy issue as well as an operational one. The funded organization must develop resources that agencies can use to improve recruitment, retention, and diversification, with deliverables that could include toolkits, videos, publications, podcasts, and similar products. A major component is technical assistance: the awardee is expected to support recent COPS Hiring Program (CHP) awardees through direct responses to requests, tailored resource development, webinars, informational sessions, or by facilitating a community of practice. The solicitation expects the awardee to compile a catalog of innovative practices, address common implementation barriers for agencies of different sizes, and provide guidance on how agencies can tailor best practices to local context. Proposed activities may include selecting sample agencies (from CHP awardees) to participate, updating job descriptions and recruitment criteria, improving application systems, strengthening retention strategies, and advancing diversification efforts. Applicants must also describe how they will track and gauge the impact of the resources they provide. As with other tracks, projects that do not produce shareable resources and/or do not provide technical assistance are out of scope, and eligibility is limited to the same general organization types noted above.

The third subcategory, Tolerance, Anti-bias and Diversity Training, is the largest and most operationally intensive component, with four awards available up to $700,000 each. The COPS Office is looking for organizations that can deliver a national-level training effort aimed at improving police-community interactions through tolerance, diversity, and anti-bias instruction, explicitly tied to building trust and strengthening collaborative problem-solving. The training scope is broad and includes cultural sensitivity and competency related to race and ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity, and also effective interaction with people with disabilities, people with mental illnesses, and English language learners. A key requirement is scale: the provider must be able to reach at least 5,000 law enforcement personnel nationwide, with at least 25 trained through in-person courses available to officers from across the country and the remaining reach achieved through an online version of the course. The applicant is expected to already have an existing state- or nationally certified in-person curriculum and a track record of delivering training that produces measurable behavior change, not just knowledge gain.

For this training category, applicants must propose two linked deliverables: first, delivery of the established in-person curriculum; second, development of a new online version of that same training for deployment through the COPS Training Portal. The proposal should explain how the online course will complement the classroom experience, identify learning objectives, trainer qualifications, current certifications, and the current evaluation approach used with students. The applicant must also explain how knowledge gain and behavior change will be measured in both formats, and how the online training will be prepared for the Portal, including working with the Portal team on development, beta testing, release, and eventual certification of the online course.

Across all subcategories, the emphasis is on producing practitioner-ready outputs that can be disseminated nationally and used by agencies to improve performance and consistency. Deliverables are expected to be clear, evidence-informed, and immediately useful in the field, and applicants should be ready to work closely with the COPS Office throughout the project due to the cooperative agreement structure. Programmatic questions are directed to the COPS Office Response Center (800-421-6770) or AskCopsRC@usdoj.gov during business hours.

Key administrative details included in the posting are that the opportunity is titled "FY23 Critical Topics - Community Policing Development Solicitation" (Funding Opportunity Number: O-COPS-2023-171549), listed under CFDA 16.710, administered by the DOJ Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, and was originally posted March 30, 2023 with an original closing date of May 15, 2023. The award ceiling depends on subcategory (up to $300,000, $400,000, or $700,000), with six expected awards in total (one forum award, one recruitment/retention award, and four training awards).

• The Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services in the law, justice and legal services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "FY23 Critical Topics -Community Policing Development Solicitation" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 16.710.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 30, 2023.
• Applicants must submit their applications by May 15, 2023. (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 $700,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 6 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for O COPS 2023 171549

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