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Federal Youth Funding Agencies

The federal agencies that bring you youth.gov also provide funding to address youth issues. Below are descriptions of the agencies' major funding programs. We have provided links to funding information where available.

Funding Agencies:

Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS)

The Corporation is the nation's largest grantmaker supporting service and volunteering. The Corporation provides opportunities for young Americans to express their patriotism while addressing critical community needs.

Funding Opportunities

Selected Programs and Initiatives

  • AmeriCorps State and AmeriCorps National support a broad range of local service programs that engage thousands of Americans in intensive service to meet critical community needs.
  • AmeriCorps VISTA provides full-time members to community organizations and public agencies to create and expand programs that build capacity and ultimately bring low-income individuals and communities out of poverty.
  • AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps is a full-time residential program for men and women, ages 18-24, that strengthens communities while developing leaders through direct, team-based national and community service.
  • Learn and Serve America. Learn and Serve America enables students to contribute to their community while building academic and civic skills. Learn and Serve America provides direct and indirect support to K-12 schools, community groups and higher education institutions to facilitate service-learning projects through grants, training and technical assistance, and research.
  • Social Innovation Fund. This fund helps effective nonprofits replicate their services in low-income communities.

Clearinghouses and Technical Assistance

  • National Service Learning Clearinghouse. Learn and Serve America's National Service-Learning Clearinghouse supports the service-learning community in higher education, K-12, community-based organizations, tribal programs, and all others interested in strengthening schools and communities using service-learning techniques and methodologies.
  • Resource Center. The Resource Center is the knowledge management training and technical assistance provider to the Corporation. It connects service programs with targeted training and information.
  • Tribal Technical Assistance. The Corporation provides training and technical assistance to a network of Tribal service programs.
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U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)

USDA fosters positive youth development, supports rural and community development efforts and promotes healthy eating and nutrition. The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) advances knowledge for agriculture, the environment, human health and well-being, and communities by supporting research, education, and extension programs in the Land-Grant University System and other partner organizations. NIFA funds research, education, and extension at the state and local levels and provides program leadership in these areas. The Food and Nutrition Service administers the food and nutrition assistance programs within USDA. FNS provides children and needy families with better access to food and a more healthful diet through its programs and nutrition education efforts. Rural Development works to eliminate substandard housing from rural America by helping citizens buy, build, or rent decent housing. The division funds the growth and creation of rural businesses and cooperatives. Other Rural Development programs help communities build or improve utilities and facilities such as schools, health clinics, and fire stations.

Funding Opportunities

Selected Programs and Initiatives

  • 4-H Youth Development Program. Using research-based programming around positive youth development, 4-H youth get the hands-on real world experience they need to become leaders.
  • Child and Adult Care Food Program. This program provides nutritious meals and snacks to children in child care centers, at-risk afterschool programs, emergency shelters, and nonresidential adult day care centers.
  • Children, Youth and Families at Risk Program. CYFAR supports comprehensive, intensive, community-based programs developed with active citizen participation in all phases. CYFAR promotes building resiliency and protective factors in youth, families, and communities.
  • Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program. This program helps people acquire the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and changed behavior necessary for nutritionally sound diets, and to contribute to their personal development and the improvement of the total family diet and nutritional well-being.
  • National School Lunch Program. This meal program des nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children each school day in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions.
  • Community Facilities Direct Loan & Grant Program. This program provides affordable funding to develop essential community facilities in rural areas.
  • Summer Food Service Program. This program provides nutritious foods during the summer months, filling the gap when children don’t have access to free and reduced lunch through their schools.
  • Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Once known as “food stamps,” this program provides low-income households with electronic benefits they can use like cash at most grocery stores. Click here to find a SNAP office to fill out an application.

Clearinghouses and Technical Assistance

  • Children, Youth, and Families Education and Research Network (CYFERnet). CYFERnet is a national network of land grant university faculty and county Extension educators working to provide resources to community educational programs for children, youth, and families. CYFERnet works across all land-grant universities to solicit and review publications, quality research information and program materials for Children, Youth, and Families at Risk (CYFAR) staff and others implementing programs.
  • SNAP Outreach and Nutrition and Education Materials. Outreach materials are designed to educate low income people about the nutrition benefits of SNAP and encourage participation. Materials include posters, brochures, and flyers, among other items. Many are available in Spanish. All are free.
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U.S. Department of Commerce

The Department of Commerce has a broad mandate to advance economic growth and jobs and opportunities for the American people. It has cross cuttingresponsibilities in the areas of trade, technology, entrepreneurship, economic development, environmental stewardship and statistical research and analysis. It also houses the Census Bureau.

Selected Programs and Initiatives

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U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)

The mission of the Department of Defense is to provide the military forces needed to deter war and to protect the security of our country.

Selected Programs and Initiatives

  • National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program. This program is a voluntary, preventive program designed to give at-risk youth a second chance. It accomplishes this by helping 16- to 18-year-old high school drop-outs improve their life skills, education levels and employment potential. The 17-month program includes a five-and-a-half month residential phase.

Clearinghouses and Technical Assistance

  • Military Youth on the Move. This website provides resources and support to children and youth who move due to a parent’s deployment.
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U.S. Department of Education (ED)

The mission of the Department of Education is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.

Funding Opportunities

Selected Programs and Initiatives

  • Emergency Management for Higher Education. The Emergency Management for Higher Education (EMHE) grant program supports institutions of higher education (IHE) projects designed to develop, or review and improve, and fully integrate campus-based all-hazards emergency management planning efforts.
  • Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP). This program is designed to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education, through providing services at high-poverty middle and high schools, and awarding college scholarships to low-income students.
  • Promise Neighborhoods. The program is intended to significantly improve the educational and developmental outcomes of all children in our most distressed communities, including rural and tribal communities, and to transform those communities through a "place-based" approach, which leverages investments by focusing resources in targeted places, drawing on the compounding effect of well-coordinated actions.
  • McKinney-Vento Education for Homeless Children and Youth Program. These grants help schools ensure that homeless children, including preschoolers and youths, have equal access to free and appropriate public education.
  • Safe and Drug-Free Schools. Safe and Drug Free Schools provides financial assistance for drug and violence prevention activities and programs that promote the health and well-being of students.
  • 21st Century Community Learning Centers. This program supports the creation of community learning centers that provide academic enrichment opportunities during non-school hours for children, particularly students who attend high-poverty and low-performing schools.
  • Safe and Supportive Schools. This program helps State educational agencies (SEAs) support statewide measurement of, and targeted programmatic interventions to improve, conditions for learning in order to help schools improve safety and reduce substance use.
  • Project SERV. This program funds short-term and long-term education-related services for local educational agencies (LEAs) and institutions of higher education (IHEs) to help them recover from a violent or traumatic event in which the learning environment has been disrupted.
  • Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Programs. This program provides funding to local educational agencies (LEAs) to establish or expand elementary and secondary school counseling programs.
  • Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools. This grant program supports efforts by local educational agencies (LEAs) to create, strengthen, and improve emergency management plans at the district and school-building levels, including training school personnel on emergency management procedures; communicating with parents about emergency plans and procedures; and coordinating with local law enforcement, public safety or emergency management, public health, and mental health agencies and local government.

Clearinghouses and Technical Assistance

  • Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention. The Center is ED's primary provider of services in alcohol and other drug abuse and violence prevention in higher education founded upon state-of-the-art knowledge and research-based strategies.
  • Parent Information Centers. Parent Centers serve families of children of all ages with all disabilities; physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, and emotional. They provide training and information to parents of infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities and to professionals who work with them.
  • Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools Technical Assistance Center. The Center provides emergency management resources, training, and publications, and helps schools with improving and strengthening their emergency management plans.
  • Order ED Publications. ED Pubs offers more than 6,000 titles. Items include brochures, CD–ROMs, grant applications, newsletters, posters, research reports, videotapes and financial aid products.
  • National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement. This technical assistance center serves as a resource for information, training materials, consultation and technical assistance for school systems, professional training programs, professional organizations, governmental and non-governmental agencies, communities, children's groups and projects in the areas of crisis and loss.
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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

A number of divisions and offices within HHS support the health, public health, and human services needs of children and youth and their families, including the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Indian Health Service (IHS), and Office of Adolescent Health(OAH).

Funding Opportunities

Selected Programs and Initiatives

  • Assets for Independence. These projects help participants save earned income in special-purpose, matched savings accounts called Individual Development Accounts (IDAs). Every dollar in savings deposited into an IDA by participants is matched (from $1 to $8 combined Federal and nonfederal funds) by the AFI project, promoting savings and enabling participants to acquire a lasting asset, such as postsecondary education.
  • Chafee Foster Care Independence Program (CFCIP). This program seeks to ensure that young people involved in the foster care system receive services and support to help them make a successful transition to self-sufficiency and adulthood.
  • Mentoring Children of Prisoners. Through this program, community based organizations provide mentors to children and youth with incarcerated parents.
  • Runaway and Homeless Youth. Transitional Living Programs help homeless youth ages 16-21 make a successful transition to self-sufficient living through long-term residential services and wraparound supports. Basic Center Programs provide youth up to age 18 with emergency shelter, food, clothing, counseling and referrals for health care.
  • Safe Schools/Healthy Students. The SS/HS Initiative is a unique Federal grant-making program designed to prevent violence and substance abuse among our Nation's youth, schools, and communities. The initiative provides schools and communities with enhanced school and community-based services in an effort to strengthen healthy child development, thus reducing violent behavior and substance use.
  • Systems of Care. This program supports coordinated networks of community-based services and supports that are organized to meet the challenges of children and youth with serious mental health needs and their families. Families and youth work in partnership with public and private organizations to design mental health services and supports that are effective, that build on the strengths of individuals, and that address each person’s cultural and linguistic needs.

Clearinghouses and Technical Assistance

  • Adolescent and School Health. This resource provides fact sheets and surveillance data summaries (including state-by-state data) on teen pregnancy and HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
  • Healthy Schools, Healthy Youth! This website provides a wealth of information, tools, and publications on adolescent school health, broader health topics (e.g., obesity, physical activity, injury and violence, alcohol and drug use, tobacco use), as well as data, statistics, and surveillance activities related to these health topics.
  • National Adolescent Health Information Center. This resource provides adolescent health information and research to assist in the integration, synthesis, coordination and dissemination of adolescent health-related information.
  • National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention. This Center provides technical assistance and training to school districts and communities to enable grantees to plan, implement, evaluate, and sustain activities that foster resilience, promote mental health, and prevent youth violence and mental and behavioral disorders.
  • National Center for Trauma-Informed Care. This center builds awareness of trauma-informed care and promoting the implementation of trauma-informed practices in programs and services.
  • National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth. This clearinghouse contains information about programs in the areas of youth development, family violence prevention, mentoring children of prisoners, and abstinence education.
  • MentalHealth.gov. This online resource provides information about mental health.
  • Homelessness and Housing. This webpage developed by SAMHSA serves as a resource for both researchers and practitioners for information regarding multiple aspects of homelessness, including both physical (i.e. violence and finding housing) and psychological needs (i.e. trauma and stress).
  • National Resource Center for Youth Services (NRCYS). This center provides training and technical assistance to public and private youth serving organizations across the nation.
  • Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC).This resource provides a public health approach to preventing premature deaths due to suicide in the United States.
  • STRYVE. STRYVE, or Striving To Reduce Youth Violence Everywhere, is a national initiative led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to prevent youth violence before it starts. STRYVE seeks to increase awareness that youth violence can and should be prevented and to promote the use of prevention strategies based on the best available evidence.
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U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

Youth are a large proportion of the residents of public housing developments. Divisions of HUD like Public and Indian Housing and Community Planning and Development provide a variety of supports to support children and youth, as well as their families.

Funding Opportunities

Selected Programs and Initiatives

  • Choice Neighborhoods. This initiative will transform distressed neighborhoods and public and assisted projects into viable and sustainable mixed-income neighborhoods by linking housing improvements with appropriate services, schools, public assets, transportation, and access to jobs. A strong emphasis will be placed on local community planning for access to high-quality educational opportunities, including early childhood education.
  • Resident Opportunities and Self Sufficiency (ROSS). ROSS links public housing residents with supportive services, resident empowerment activities, and assistance in becoming economically self-sufficient.
  • Neighborhood Networks. In addition to its support for adults, this program provides youth with educational afterschool activities and mentoring programs.
  • VASH Vouchers. Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Vouchers aim to reduce the number of homeless veterans.

Clearinghouses and Technical Assistance

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U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI)

The U.S. Department of the Interior supports youth through a number of agencies and offices – including the Office on Youth in the Great Outdoors, the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Selected Programs and Initiatives

  • Bureau of Indian Education Primary and Secondary Schools. BIE oversees a total of 183 elementary and secondary schools, located on 64 reservations in 23 states. Of these, 59 are BIE-operated and 124 are Tribally-operated under BIE contracts or grants. The Bureau also funds or operates off-reservation boarding schools and peripheral dormitories near reservations for students attending public schools.
  • Conservation Corps Network. The Network provides opportunities for young adults from diverse backgrounds to work on conservation projects such as maintenance and construction, habitat management, and visitor services. Corps members learn about potential career pathways and enjoy mentoring, training, and leadership development opportunities.
  • Public Land Corps (ages 16-25). Through the Public Land Corps, youth help to restore, protect, and rehabilitate national parks through work projects, while learning about environmental issues and the national parks. Individuals are recruited and supervised by one of the many non-profit organizations partnering with the National Park Service.
  • Youth Conservation Corps (ages 15-18). Through the Youth Conservation Corps, youth work to protect the natural, cultural, and historical resources of your national parks through rewarding work projects.

Clearinghouses and Technical Assistance

  • Operation Safe and Secure Schools. The Operation Safe and Secure Schools’ Team (OSASS) continues to work diligently in providing the safest learning environment possible for all Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) students and staff. Throughout the year, OSASS has provided training to schools throughout the country. The Team has visited many of our school sites to conduct safety procedure reviews, provide technical assistance, and update or complete many national policies directed toward the improvement of the safety at our schools.
  • Online Training Courses. The Bureau of Indian Education has developed a series of staff development online courses covering topics related to school safety, security, and substance abuse prevention.
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U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)

Several agencies within the Department of Justice focus on issues related to youth, including the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Office on Violence Against Women (OWV), and National Institute of Justice (NIJ). OJJDP provides national leadership, coordination, and resources to prevent and respond to juvenile delinquency and victimization, and helps to improve the juvenile justice system's ability to protect public safety, hold offenders accountable, and provide treatment and rehabilitative services tailored to juveniles and their families. OVW is responsible for coordination with other departments, agencies, and offices regarding all activities authorized or undertaken under the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 and the Violence Against Women Act of 2000. NIJ is the research, development and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Funding Opportunities

Selected Programs and Initiatives

  • Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The Council is an independent organization in the executive branch that coordinates federal juvenile delinquency prevention programs, federal programs and activities that detain or care for unaccompanied juveniles, and federal programs relating to missing and exploited children.
  • Gang Reduction Program. As part of DOJ's Anti-Gang Initiative, OJJDP’s Gang Reduction Program is designed to reduce gang activity in targeted neighborhoods by incorporating a broad spectrum of research-based interventions to address the range of personal, family, and community factors that contribute to juvenile delinquency and gang activity.
  • Girls Study Group. The Girls Study Group assists OJJDP in understanding risk and protective factors associated with female juvenile offending and the consequences for youth involved in such offending. It also identifies effective strategies for communities to use in their efforts to prevent and reduce female involvement in delinquency and violence.
  • Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program. This program helps state and local law enforcement agencies develop an effective response to cyber enticement and child pornography cases, including forensic and investigative components, training and technical assistance, victim services, and community education.
  • Juvenile Accountability Block Grants Program. This program seeks to reduce juvenile offending through both offender-focused and system-focused activities that promote accountability.
  • Tribal Youth Program. This program helps tribal communities prevent juvenile delinquency, reduce violent crime, and improve tribal juvenile justice systems.

Clearinghouses and Technical Assistance

  • CCIToolsforFeds.org. This toolkit provides federal staff who work with Comprehensive Community Initiatives (CCIs) with information about designing evaluations, technical assistance, collaborative processes, and other resources to supports CCIs. The information it contains will also be valuable to technical-assistance providers, evaluators, private funders, and community groups.
  • National Training and Technical Assistance Center. This Center promotes the use of evidence-based practices by providing practitioners with innovative training and technical assistance to meet the diverse needs of youth in the juvenile justice system, to reduce juvenile delinquency and crime, and to ensure the safe and equal treatment of all youth in the juvenile justice system.
  • National Gang Center. This website features the latest research about gangs; descriptions of evidence-based, anti-gang programs; and links to tools, databases, and other resources to assist in developing and implementing effective community-based gang prevention, intervention, and suppression strategies. Youth gang information is also provided on this website.
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U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)

Several agencies within the Department of Labor support youth employment and training efforts. The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) administers federal government job training and worker dislocation programs, federal grants to states for public employment service programs, and unemployment insurance benefits. These services are primarily provided through state and local workforce development systems. As part of their overall mission, the Office of Disability Employment Policy supports workforce development strategies for youth with disabilities.

Funding Opportunities

Selected Programs and Initiatives

  • High Growth Youth Offender Initiative. This initiative provides occupational training, on-the-job training, apprenticeships, internships, and other work-based learning to help former offenders gain the skills necessary to enter high-growth high-demand industries. Projects will focus on addressing the workforce needs of growing industries that provide employment opportunities and potential for advancement.
  • Job Corps. Job Corps is a free education and training program that helps young people 16 and older learn a career, earn a high school diploma or GED, and find and keep a good job.
  • Persistently Dangerous Schools. This limited grant program aimed to enhance education and career opportunities in troubled high schools. Six school districts were eligible to apply based on being self identified as “persistently dangerous” by the U.S. Department of Education due to high levels of persistently high levels of violence.
  • School District Youth Offender Initiative. This program supported the development of strategies for reducing youth involvement in gangs using a workforce development approach.
  • Youth Build. YouthBuild provides job training and educational opportunities for at-risk youth ages 16-24 while constructing or rehabilitating affordable housing for low-income or homeless families in their own neighborhoods. Youth split their time between the construction site and the classroom, where they earn their GED or high school diploma, learn to be community leaders, and prepare for college and other postsecondary training opportunities.

Clearinghouses and Technical Assistance

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U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)

The mission of the Department of Transportation is to serve the United States by ensuring a fast, safe, efficient, accessible and convenient transportation system that meets our vital national interests and enhances the quality of life of the American people, today and into the future. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration works to promote motor vehicle and highway safety by working to reduce impaired and distracted driving, as well as support driver education efforts.

Selected Programs and Initiatives

  • Community How-To Guide on Underage Drinking Prevention. This resource helps communities plan and implement a comprehensive underage drinking prevention program.
  • Distracted Driving. This website raises awareness about the risks of distracted driving, including texting while driving.
  • Parental Responsibility Toolkit. This site provides marketing and earned media tools for the Parental Responsibility Toolkit. NHTSA has developed a three-tiered strategy to prevent motor-vehicle-related deaths and injuries of teens by increasing seat belt use, implementing graduated driver licensing laws, and reducing teens' access to alcohol and drugs through parental responsibility and parents setting house rules.
  • Teen Drivers. This campaign seeks to promote teen driver safety by promoting seat belt use, the adoption of graduated driver licensing policies, the reduction of underage drinking, and increased parental involvement.