On October 12, 2023, 30 Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFO) for Designation Renewal System (DRS) grant opportunities posted on grants.gov. Grant applications are due December 14, 2023. In addition to accessing NOFOs on grants.gov, they are downloadable from the Office of Head Start (OHS) NOFO Locator.
As of the publishing of this blog post, one Head Start/Early Head Start NOFO and two Early Head Start Expansion and Early Head Start – Child Care Partnership (EHS-CCP) NOFOs remain forecasted, but not yet posted. These are for communities in the state of California (Head Start/Early Head Start); Hillsborough County, Florida (EHS Expansion and EHS-CCP); and Dickson, Houston, Humphreys, and Stewart Counties, Tennessee (EHS Expansion and EHS-CCP).
Service areas with grants open for competition, estimated funding amounts, and estimated numbers of awards are listed below.
Alabama – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Choctaw, Dallas, Marengo, Sumter, and Wilcox Counties ($6,623,961.00, 3 awards)
- Lauderdale County ($2,598,342.00, 2 awards)
- Lee and Russell Counties ($7,944,148.00, 3 awards)
Alaska – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Statewide ($9,515,601.00, 3 awards)
Arkansas – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Clark, Hot Spring, Montgomery, Pike and Saline Counties ($4,640,277.00, 2 awards)
- Pope, Yell, Perry, Scott, Logan, Conway, Johnson, Polk, and Franklin Counties ($8,653,319.00, 3 awards)
Colorado – Head Start/Early Head Start
- City of Denver, and County of Denver ($16,517,613.00, 5 awards)
Connecticut – Head Start/Early Head Start
- City of New Haven ($6,730,860.00, 2 awards)
Florida – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Okaloosa County ($3,619,574.00, 2 awards)
- Pinellas County ($18,279,386.00, 5 awards)
Georgia – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Bulloch, Burke, Columbia, Emanuel, Jefferson, Jenkins, Lincoln, McDuffie, Richmond, Screven, and Warren Counties ($14,880,917.00, 4 awards)
Illinois – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Adams, Brown, Cass, Hancock, McDonough, Pike, Schuyler, and Scott Counties ($5,102,223.00, 2 awards)
- Ford, Iroquois, and Vermilion Counties ($5,519,163.00, 2 awards)
- Franklin and Williamson Counties ($945,086.00, 1 award)
- Henderson, Knox and Warren Counties ($3,097,843.00, 2 awards)
Indiana – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Adams, Blackford, Huntington, Jay, Randolph, and Wells Counties ($3,104,314.00, 2 awards)
- Crawford, Harrison, Perry and Spencer Counties ($4,746,878.00, 2 awards)
- Vigo County ($1,425,831.00, 1 award)
- Wayne County ($4,606,023.00, 2 awards)
Kansas – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Atchison, Brown, Doniphan, Jackson, Jefferson, Leavenworth, Marshall, Nemaha, and Pottawatomie Counties ($6,468,899.00, 2 awards)
- McPherson and Marion Counties, Kansas ($1,413,069.00, 1 award)
Kentucky – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Paducah City in McCracken County ($2,575,543.00, 2 awards)
Maine – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Lincoln, Cumberland, and Sagadahoc Counties ($3,465,303.00, 2 awards)
Maryland – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Mary’s County $2,813,509.00, 3 awards)
Massachusetts – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Avon, Brockton, Holbrook, Randolph, and Stoughton Counties ($1,001,082.00, 1 award)
Michigan – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Kent County ($22,105,898.00, 6 awards)
- Livingston County ($2,078,072.00, 1 award)
- Macomb County ($12,303,096.00, 3 awards)
- Washtenaw County ($5,555,495.00, 2 awards)
Minnesota – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Ramsey County ($18,312,969.00, 4 awards)
Missouri – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Butler, Canter, Dent, Reynolds, Ripley, Shannon, and Wayne Counties ($6,667,562.00, 3 awards)
New York – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Bronx County ($18,019,655.00, 4 awards)
- Cortland County ($3,396,648.00, 2 awards)
- Greene County ($2,059,657.00, 1 award)
- Kings County ($4,752,295.00, 2 awards)
- Rochester City in Monroe County ($17,409,013.00, 4 awards)
- South Bronx neighborhoods of Hunts Point and Mott Haven; covering zip codes 10451, 10454, 10455, and 10474 ($1,101,100.00, 1 award)
- The Neighborhoods of Lower East Side, East Village, and Chinatown ($4,889,591.00, 2 awards)
North Carolina – Head Start/Early Head Start
- New Hanover County ($2,461,828.00, 2 awards)
Ohio – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Clark, Madison and Montgomery Counties ($30,842,857.00, 11 awards)
- Franklin County ($29,161,624.00, 5 awards)
- Trumbull County ($7,043,909.00, 2 awards)
Pennsylvania – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Lancaster County ($8,991,005.00, 3 awards)
- York County ($4,606,696.00, 2 awards)
Puerto Rico – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Municipalities of Arroyo, Guayama, Maunabo, Patillas, and Salinas ($13,500,288.00, 4 awards)
- The Municipalities of Aguadilla, Aguada, Rincón, Cayey, Aibonito, Cidra, Dorado, Toa Alta, Fajardo, Ceiba, Naguabo, San Lorenzo, Trujillo Alto, Juncos, Juana Diaz, Peñuelas, Guayanilla, Yauco, Sabana Grande, Cabo Rojo, Guánica, Lajas, San Sebastián, Vega Baja, Morovis, Yabucoa, and Las Piedras ($51,286,918.00, 11 awards)
South Carolina – Early Head Start Expansion and EHS-CCP
- Charleston County ($4,057,133.00, 2 awards)
South Carolina – Early Head Start/Early Head Start
- Aiken and Barnwell Counties ($1,567,898.00, 1 award)
Tennessee – Early Head Start Expansion and EHS-CCP
- Dickson, Houston, Humphreys and Stewart Counties ($2,699,298.00, 2 awards)
Texas – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Erath, Hood, Somvervell, Johnson, and City of Azie ($5,195,057.00, 2 awards)
- Houston and Harris Counties ($25,540,644.00, 5 awards)
- Hunt County ($1,423,697.00, 1 award)
- Nueces County ($14,031,365.00, 3 awards)
Virginia – Early Head Start Expansion and EHS-CCP
- Charles City; Gloucester, King William, King and Queen, Middlesex, Matthews, New Kent, and West Point Counties ($1,438,626.00, 1 award)
Virginia – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Chesterfield County ($1,740,238.00, 1 award)
- Cities of Williamsburg and Poquoson; Counties of James City and York ($1,942,332.00, 1 award)
- City of Petersburg; City of Richmond; Counties of Powhatan and Goochland ($9,319,739.00, 3 awards)
West Virginia – Head Start/Early Head Start
- Mercer and Summers Counties ($5,516,448.00, 2 awards)
Wisconsin – Head Start/Early Head Start
- City of Milwaukee within Milwaukee County ($12,722,388.00, 3 awards)
The 9-week turnaround for grant applications is typical for DRS competitions. Thanksgiving falls toward the end of the timeline, and we encourage you to keep the following tips in mind to support a smooth process and timely submission of your program’s application.
- As soon as possible, finalize timelines for drafting, review, and approval. Confirm that each of these pieces fit with team members’ scheduled time off over the holiday.
- Engage partners early and give plenty of advance notice for letters of support and agreements.
- Ensure grants.gov credentials are up to date, determine grants.gov assignments, and begin data entry early.
- Be aware of scheduled maintenance on grants.gov.
The last point is important as grants.gov goes down for scheduled maintenance every month, and you will not be able to access grants.gov during an outage. There are two scheduled outages during the application timeline – October 21-24, 2023 and November 18-20, 2023.
We understand that DRS can be stressful for programs. Foundations for Families offers a variety of Consulting Services to support programs in DRS. If your program has the capacity to write its own grant application but needs help with the timeline, template, and process, consider Foundations for Families’ DRS Toolkit. Please be in touch to learn more. We would be glad to speak with you about your program’s needs.
Thank you.
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