Opportunity Information: Apply for HHS 2021 ACF ACYF CF 1903
Family Connection Grants: Building the Evidence for Kinship Navigator Programs is a discretionary federal funding opportunity from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Children s Bureau (ACYF/CB). It is offered as a cooperative agreement, which generally means the federal agency expects to be actively involved with the recipient during implementation rather than simply issuing a hands-off grant. The project period is 36 months, and the overall aim is to strengthen the evidence base for Kinship Navigator (KN) programs by both operating a KN program and conducting a rigorous evaluation that can demonstrate measurable effects.
At its core, the opportunity is about improving support for kinship caregivers, meaning relatives or close family friends who step in to raise children and youth. The funded project is expected to run a Kinship Navigator program that helps these caregivers learn about, locate, and actually use services and supports that meet the needs of the children in their care as well as the caregivers own needs. The program model is intended to function as a navigation hub, connecting families to concrete resources and guiding them through what can be a confusing mix of child welfare, benefits, legal, educational, behavioral health, and community-based services.
A key feature of this grant is that the award decision is tied heavily to evaluation readiness and the ability to produce strong, defensible evidence of impact. The selected grantee must be prepared to implement a rigorous local evaluation designed to generate significant findings on effectiveness. The evaluation must focus on at least one of the specified target outcomes: child safety, child permanency, child well-being or adult well-being, access to services, referral to services, and/or satisfaction with services. In practical terms, applicants need to show they can recruit and serve an appropriate population, collect high-quality data, and use an evaluation design capable of attributing changes in outcomes to the KN program rather than to outside factors.
This opportunity is also tied directly to Title IV-E requirements for Kinship Navigator programs under the Social Security Act. Funded programs must meet the statutory requirements in section 427(a)(1) of the Act and must operate in line with practice standards recognized by the Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse, specifically the promising, supported, or well-supported designations. Applicants are directed to Children s Bureau Program Instruction 18-11 for detailed guidance on what it takes to participate in the Title IV-E KN Program, signaling that compliance and alignment with federal program rules are not optional and will shape both program design and documentation.
The funding structure includes a cost-sharing match that increases over time, reflecting the authorizing legislation in section 427(d) of the Act. For years 1 and 2 of the project, the grantee must contribute at least 25 percent of the total approved project cost from non-federal sources. In year 3, the required non-federal share increases to 50 percent, meaning the federal share declines in the final year. In addition, there is a limit on how the match can be met: no more than 50 percent of the non-federal share may be provided as in-kind contributions, as required by section 427(e). This structure effectively requires applicants to plan for increasing financial responsibility over the grant period and to have reliable funding partners, cash match capacity, or sustainable financing strategies lined up early.
Eligibility is broad across public and private entities that commonly operate or partner on child and family service systems. Eligible applicants include state, county, and city or township governments; federally recognized tribal governments; other tribal organizations; nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status (excluding higher education institutions in those nonprofit categories); and private institutions of higher education. The activity category is Income Security and Social Services, and the CFDA number listed is 93.605, placing it within ACF s portfolio of child welfare and family support initiatives.
The opportunity, identified as HHS 2021 ACF ACYF CF 1903, was posted March 31, 2021, with an application deadline of June 1, 2021 (11:59 p.m. ET for electronic submissions). The award ceiling is $600,000, and only one award was expected, making it a highly competitive, single-recipient investment aimed at producing a clear evaluation story that can inform broader replication and future Title IV-E Kinship Navigator implementation. In summary, this FOA funds one organization to run a compliant, evidence-aligned Kinship Navigator program while producing rigorous local evaluation results focused on specific child and family outcomes, with increasing matching requirements that push the project toward sustainability by year three.Apply for HHS 2021 ACF ACYF CF 1903
- The Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families - ACYF/CB in the income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Family Connection Grants: Building the Evidence for Kinship Navigator Programs" and is now available to receive applicants.
- Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.605.
- This funding opportunity was created on Mar 31, 2021.
- Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 01, 2021 Electronically submitted applications must be submitted no later than 1159 p.m., ET, on the listed application due date.. (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 $600,000.00 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, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), 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.
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