FY 2021 Tribal Civil and Criminal Legal Assistance Program Grant Funding Webinar

NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Bureau of Justice Assistance Tribal Civil and Criminal Legal Assistance Program FY 2021 Competitive Grant Announcement webinar. I'm Nikki Campbell and I'm the executive director of the National American Indian Court Judges Association. We are TA providers under the TCCLA Program, and I will be assisting and moderating this afternoon during the webinar. And so let's go ahead and begin. It is 1:30, and it looks like we have a good amount of attendees in the room. And, again, welcome, everyone. And if you've attended a NAICJA webinar before, you know that we really, really love to hear from you guys and to see everybody participate, particularly in the chat box. So this afternoon, why don't you go ahead and you can see the chat function here in Webex is going to be right off to hopefully your right hand side. Why don't you just go ahead and say a quick hello, introduce yourself, introduce your tribe, or introduce your organization, and your role with the organization. We'd love to see who's all here. And we all like to say hello to everyone.
So, again, I'm Nikki and I am working remotely in the Denver area with my staff, who's also working remotely. Elton and Ansley are both introducing themselves in the chat right now. So if you have any questions or any issues along the way, why don't you go ahead and just place your questions or your issues right there in the chat or reach out to Elton and Ansley, and we'll go ahead and make sure that you have some assistance. Throughout the presentation, we're going to go ahead and reserve a majority of our questions for breaks at the end of each section. So if you at any point during the presentation of any particular session and area have a question, go ahead and put it in the chat box, and Elton and Ansley will make sure to note that, and pass that along to the presenters. And so that being said, I'm going to go ahead and introduce those two presenters, since we do have some limited time and a lot of really fantastic content that we want to present to you. So first of all, we have Norena Henry. She's a Senior Policy Advisor for Tribal Affairs for the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice. And then we have Geislia Barnes, the State Policy Advisor for the Bureau of Justice Assistance at the U.S. Department Justice. And so Geislia and Norena are going to be walking us through this entire process and talking a little bit about the TCCLA Program and what the TCCLA Program offers not only for tribal communities, but also for just generally related to tribal policy development and what's happening nationwide.
All right. And so here is our brief agenda. So we're going to go through the TCCLA Program overview first, and then we're going to turn it over to Norena Henry with the application overview, and then turn it over to Geislia to talk a little bit more about the resources and JustGrants program. For those of you who are already grantees of federal programs, you're well aware that there had been some changes on the back end and with the feds, and fortunately we have Geislia here who can talk a little bit about the JustGrants program and just generally about the process.
So with that being said, let's go ahead and start. All right. So I'm going to go ahead and save the larger overview of the TCCLA Program to—and hand that out to Norena in a couple of slides because she's going to go over the entire application overview. But generally, the TCCLA Program is the Tribal Civil and Criminal Legal Assistance Program. And generally, the goals are to enhance the operation of tribal justice systems and then, of course, to provide training and technical assistance to those tribal justice systems. And so as Norena's going to talk about a little bit later, there are two particular category areas within the TCCLA Program and we have Category 1, which is the Civil Legal Assistance Services and then Category 2, which is the Criminal Legal Assistance Services. For the Civil Legal Assistance Services, we do have a primary award that has been given out to Montana Legal Services, and Montana Legal Services then is able to provide subawards to Indian legal services that provide services to many tribes across the country. For example, under the Civil Program, we do have Nevada Legal Services. They provide services related to tribal advocate training in all parts of the state. And then they've also worked on creating things like comprehensive self-help forms for family law cases, pro-state cases. We do have Michigan Indian Legal Services and several of their tribal courts have been assisting with healing—tribal healing to wellness courts, peacemaking and diversion programs, and they also provide direct services, legal services, to native communities. Underneath the Civil Legal Aid, we also have Idaho Legal Services, Colorado Legal Services, California Indian Legal Services, and Anishinabe Legal Services, excuse me. And those are just a few examples of some tribal legal services that provide direct services to our tribal community members, not only for individuals but they also have been providing it on a broader level, for example California Indian Legal Services also provides training and technical assistance and legal advice on matters of jurisdiction, police communication system access, practices and procedures, and then current and relevant case law for tribes in California.
Under the criminal programs, we have examples related to direct services and client representation. So Alaska Legal Services has been assisting with capacity building for tribal justice systems. They're currently listed under the criminal programs even though they—there isn't the jurisdiction, per se, but what they've been doing is advising tribal justice systems on due process compliance. They've been working on tribal court proceeding, assisting in developing tribal court policies and procedures, tribal court forms, and then they've also been working with tribal and state cross-jurisdictional cooperation. So that's kind of how they're following into that criminal side. We do have Dakota Plains Legal Services, Idaho Legal Services, Nevada Legal Services, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah that also fall as subgrantees under there. And all of those legal service providers are providing some sort of direct representation to clients or to tribes to help them build their capacity.
And then the final category that's—is not up for solicitation this year is Category 3, and that is the Training and Technical Assistance portion of it and the support for the entire TCCLA Program. And right now, there are two awards, APPA and NAICJA. And NAICJA is here to help—number one, we are assisting with justice capacity building, and number two, we are also working with all of the tribal grantees and the NILS grantees to develop resources to help not only those grantees but hopefully tribal legal programs across the country and across the Indian country. So we do provide overall training and technical assistance, as you can see there.
A couple of good things that we currently have in development are our Holistic Defense Curriculum Development, and pilot project. And so, you know, we could talk for days about that particular project, but it is more or less a wraparound service and development of collaborative legal approaches to help individuals and tribal communities and in addressing those collateral consequences that are a result from—that result from being justice system involved. So, whether that's for the individual or the family, that is what that holistic defense project is addressing. And so we will have a pilot project, but then we're also in the works with some curriculum developments and corresponding training related to that project. And then, hopefully, you know, we have fingers crossed that this one's going to come out shortly, but we do have [Tribal Legal Advocacy Training] coming out shortly and that is going to be a web-based training and it is some interactive modules that can be self-paced by any of the individuals taking it. And so we really designed this so that it's for anybody who is new to Indian country or practicing in Indian country or new to practicing in tribal courts. But it's covering a wide range of criminal advocacy topics, child welfare. We should have a few corresponding webinars and of course some complimentary podcasts as well. So please keep an eye out for those announcements and we should have those released hopefully within the next couple quarters this year. And then lastly, APPA has a Tribal Law and Order Act Implementation of Enhanced Sentencing Authority Curriculum and Development Project. Norena can speak a little bit more to it. But we do know that they've been working on the in-person curriculum piece. And then there's also a web piece to this as well. And I will go ahead and defer to Norena to talk a little bit more about those pieces of TA.
NORENA A. HENRY: Thank you, Nikki. This is really an exciting project, the Implementation of the Enhanced Sentencing Authority authorized by the Tribal Law and Order Act. BJA provided resources to develop a curriculum for Indian tribes and we have developed this collaborative approach to developing the curriculum where we had gotten three different panels. One was a tribal-government-specific panel. The next one
was the federal panel. And the third one was the tribal training and technical assistance panel. And one of the reasons why we brought all of these groups together is that each one of them had some working knowledge on implementation of this new authorization. And we wanted to capture all of that good information and put it toward this curriculum. We also worked in partnership with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They were part of the federal group. And the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and other federal agencies in order to help really develop and to share with us what they were hearing from tribes as well. And so we've gotten—we've developed a curriculum that has an instructor's guide, participant's guide, and a—I think it's seven modules, and that's for the in-person training. And we have gone through to pilot the training and gotten comments. And we are now in the process of finalizing that curriculum, that in-person curriculum, and it's currently with BJA. That curriculum, once it's released, of course it's an in-person curriculum and we are going to use that curriculum to do some online training and we'll be providing that training publicly and that will be self-paced as well. So we're real excited about this training work that we're doing and we hope that in the early summer, information will be provided on our accomplishments and next steps. And in the future, we will provide guidance to tribes who are interested to access this training—this training resource. We will share more information with you about that. So Nikki, back to you.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you, Norena. Let's go ahead and move on to the next slide. All right. So with that, that was a very short section. Does anybody have any questions that they would like to ask related to the current training and technical assistance, the current training and developments access to, you know, any past trainings? If you have any questions, again, go ahead and put it right down here in the chat and we'll go ahead and address those. If not, let's go ahead and move on to the other section of our agenda, which is the application overview.
NORENA A. HENRY: Thank you, Nikki. This is Norena Henry again. Thank you so much. I wanted to take a moment just to introduce myself and let you all know that I am Navajo from Navajo Reservation and from the Navajo tribe. My plan is to launch [SPEAKING IN NATIVE LANGUAGE]. I am of the Water Edge People born from the Many Hogans. My maternal grandfather's people are the Tangle People and my paternal grandfather's people are the Salt People. And I serve as the Senior Policy Advisor here in the Bureau of Justice Assistance. And I also manage the Tribal Civil Criminal Legal Assistance Program. Sorry. I just have to do the introduction. Okay. Important. The application deadline. I think you have seen in the application that there are two deadlines. The first is in Grants.gov and that deadline is April 7 of 2021. And the second is in JustGrants and that is April 21. These are important time zones that you want to keep in mind. Definitely register and get your information into Grants.gov. And I recommend you do this ahead of time. The application submission for April 21, I also
recommend that you submit that early because there will be a lot of other applicants submitting their applications not only from the TCCLA—for the TCCLA Program, but for other programs that BJA administers. Wanted to let you know that there is going to be a recording of the solicitation webinars and it will be made available on the BJA website. I've posted there on the slide the URL address. If you go to the BJA website and type in the search spot, TCCLA Program, it'll take you right to the microsite that has all of this information and other information.
So, where do we find the TCCLA solicitation? This is one slide I wanted to put in here because I often want to know, where can I find that solicitation? Well, I have provided that URL. And again, it is at the BJA website. And if you go to the Funding Opportunities for 2021, it will be posted right in that section. If you go to the BJA TCCLA Program site, you will be able to access this solicitation. So, there's several different ways.
Next, the program goal. Now, the goal of the TCCLA Program is to build and enhance capacity and improve the delivery of civil and criminal legal assistance—civil and criminal legal services to individuals and tribes, as well as to develop policies that improve access to tribal justice systems. Program objectives for Category 1, Civil Legal Assistance Services. The amount of quality of civil legal assistance services for tribal members pursuant to federal poverty guidelines, federally recognized Indian tribes, and tribal justice systems. It also the amount of quality of other legal assistance services to support tribes enhancing their capacity, operations, or legal structure. Category 2, Criminal Legal Assistance Services, very similar. The amount and quality of criminal legal assistance services for tribal members pursuant to federal poverty guidelines, federally recognized Indian tribes, and tribal justice systems, the amount and qualities of other legal assistance services to support tribes, enhancing their capacity, operations, or legal structure.
Now, the eligibility is really important. I think you have seen on the application “eligible applicants,” and then there's the word that says "other." And that really is the other eligible applicants. We're currently in a new system which is the JustGrants. And for many of us this is new, including posting our applications and our solicitation products into JustGrants. And wanted to make sure that everyone knew what the eligibility is for the TCCLA Program. It is nonprofit, having a 501(c)(3) tax status with the Internal Revenue Service other than of higher education. I'm sorry. There's a little box that I cannot read. Sorry about that. The second one is other eligible applicants. And this is for Categories 1 and 2, is eligible applicants are nonprofit entities as defined by 26 U.S.C. Section 501(c)(3) including tribal nonprofit, tribal enterprises, and educational institution, public, private and tribal colleges and universities, which provide legal assistance services for Indian tribes, tribal justice systems, or members of Indian tribes pursuant to federal poverty guideline. So, the federal poverty guidelines are updated
every year by the U.S Department of Health and Human Services. And I've provided a URL address. Now, here's the important point is that the 501(c)(3) tax status of a nonprofit is required per the authorization. A lot of requests come in to apply for this program and I want to make sure that this is understood in terms of the eligibility.
Now, the grant categories. This solicitation features two categories this year. One is Category 1, Civil Legal Assistance Services, and Category 2, Criminal Legal Assistance Services. Now, the allowable uses of funds for Category 1, Civil Legal Assistance Services, is one or more awards will be awarded, okay, one or more awards with a grant maximum is $600,000, 24-month performance period. That is important when you are applying in your application. Now, the allowable use of funds for direct legal services, all award recipients are expected to provide a range of civil legal assistance services that may include guardian ad litem appointments, court-appointed special advocates, and development and enhancement of tribal court policies, procedures, and code. We also know that Indian tribes also ask for other things. More project-based activities. Grantees may partner with Indian tribes to provide legal or technical assistance, such as development of tribal law or intergovernmental agreements for establishing a tribal civil legal assistance process.
Now, for Category 2, Criminal Legal Assistance Services, again, one or more awards will be made with a grant maximum of $600,000 over a 24-month performance period. So, the allowable usage for the resources or recipients are expected to provide a range of criminal defense counsel services that may include adult criminal action, juvenile delinquency action, guardian ad litem appointments arising out of criminal delinquency act, or development and enhancement of tribal court policies and procedures and codes.
We also know that a lot of tribes want other things, and it really falls into the project-based category—not category but title. And grantees may partner with Indian tribes to provide legal or technical assistance such as development of criminal codes or intergovernmental agreement, establishing a public defense office or a law enforcement training. I wanted to put the slide in here because there's some specific information we have seen over the years with the TCCLA Program. You know, the core focus of this program is to provide direct legal services, and funding can also support other needs of eligible tribes, providing conflict counsel for tribes exercising enhanced sentencing authority or special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction authorized through the Violence Against Women Act of 2013 and supporting veterans' legal clinics for Native Americans. We have found that Indian legal services programs, some of our grantees in the past have provided these services. And it—they have been extraordinary. We've heard back from our grantees that these were just successful efforts. Now, the grant requirements. Initially, annually, and final written summary of projects and deliverables.
We want to know about the work you are doing and we want to learn about what you've done and also where appropriate, share that information with people in different ways to report throughout our agency and the department, but also posting information on our website. We sometimes do deep-dive stories and post it to the BJA website. So there are lots of things that we want to share. I think Nikki gave a really wonderful overview of the grantees and subgrantees, and some of their work. We have done a lot of, like, intergovernmental diversion programs in Alaska and California. We also see a lot of tribes setting up their own Public Defense Office. We have had our grantees work with the tribes, so I'm setting up a healing to wellness court. There are just so many things that are incredible to hear about and see the work. And we'd also love to hear the impacts of what happened. So this is an avenue for grantees to really share their information with us. Grantees are also going to be required to, you know, submit semi-annual progress reports. And this is another way where we find out, you know, what is the need out there, you know, for those grantees and subgrantees submitting information. And for a few years there, we had a lot of subgrantees and grantees asking for training on very specific topics. And we had shared the information with our TA provider and got some of the training sessions lined up. And I think that was a good response from our agency, but also putting, setting funding aside for personnel to provide, to take advantage of the resources to train on other areas. Oh, my, I have a delivery truck outside. I apologize for the music. And the third section is the quarterly financial report. And those are grantees that will submit those reports.
So the grantee requirements. Describe the communication and coordination plan to inform individuals, tribal communities, and tribal government of available resources. And then within that plan, describe the strategy to obtain signed tribal agreements. This can be letter of agreement, memorandum of agreement, memorandum of understanding that the applicant has the requisite authorization from the tribe to implement the proposed projects on tribal lands. Describe how the agreement will be collected and managed for auditing purposes and BJA grant management activity. A communication and coordination plan is very important in this work. Nonprofits are not part of the tribal government, and when the tribal nonprofit is working and providing resources, I think it's a good decent activity to go and coordinate and communicate with people in the tribal government to let them know what kind of resources you have and expertise. I think those are all important. And I highly recommend that people take this up and really develop that plan because it could really be a huge bridge not only in the work that you're doing, but in other ways you can see a definite impact in other areas. We have seen with the Anishinabe Indian Legal Services and some of the joint-jurisdictional courts and joint-jurisdictional diversion programs that we have seen. They did a lot of coordination, a lot of communication through their activities. So we have examples of places that you can visit with or talk with over the phone about those applicants and their work.
So a signed tribal agreement, many nonprofits who work in Indian country, I think are well aware of engaging tribal courts, the chief judge or tribal leader in a smaller tribal court setting, about the resources they have and insurance consultation and really agree to develop a plan and, you know, shake hands, but also sign an agreement of some sort. And I think that is incredible effort between the two entities and for the work that we're doing here certainly are requesting the tribes—I mean the grantees move forward to entering to some type of agreement with the tribe. A lot of the grantees in the past translated that work as going to tribal council. And I do understand that some tribal councils meet once a year, twice a year, three times a year. There is someone in the tribe that is running the president's process or tribal council, and I think what you will have to do is really take a look at tribal law. My recommendation is talk with the chief judge and seek guidance from the chief judge on getting the agreement signed. And I think in that way, it will be very helpful. It will be helpful for us. The agreement will be held with the grantee and we, BJA, may request a copy of the agreement for our grant management purposes. So just wanted to let you know this is an important requirement. If you have any questions on this, I can certainly answer any questions that you have.
Now going onto the next slide, is the next grantee requirement and that's the advisory committee, you know, regularly convenes tribal leadership, legal services, organizations, legal aid, public defenders with the goal of fostering collaboration, cooperation program, and success while minimizing duplication of effort. The advisory committee is, I think, a wonderful tool in the work that we do at BJA. In the TCCLA Program, it can serve as a committee to review deliverables. It can also be a, you know, group that conducts the peer review on publications or training that a grantee is developing. So, be creative in the way you'll use your advisory committee, get them involved. Let them know what you're doing and I think it will just lend a whole lot more support to the work that you're doing.
Okay. The subcommittee recommendation—subgrantees. TCCLA has had a lot of subgrantees since it began—since its life—over its life, it has a lot of subgrantees. And if subgrantees are a part of your award, BJA recommends to develop an individual implementation plan to guide and track the progress on its project's objectives, preparation for future data calls, and success stories. And the purpose of this report is to share findings, lessons learned with BJA and TTA providers to assist with program improvement and to identify other TTA—Training and Technical Assistance needs. This is one thing I really enjoy is listening and reading the stories from the subgrantees, it is a lot of just incredible information and, you know, I do share with my colleagues on the tribal team in BJA, I do share with my supervisor and other people who will listen. And I talk often about the success of our grantees and this incredible work that these grantees are doing. And so, again, I recommend that subgrantees use this as a megaphone to talk about their work, and they should be very proud of the work that they are doing
because it is—it's incredible when you start reading these stories, and what we hope to do with BJA in the future is post deep-dive story of some of the subgrantees and past grantees on the BJA website so that other people can learn about them.
So, the basic minimum requirement. There's a strange term when I first came to BJA, I was just like, "What is that?" Well, it's that wonderful, you know, space where you get to take a look at all these applications that come in and identify which ones meet the basic minimum requirement that you're requesting in an application and those that do move forward to peer review. So, what are those in this—for this particular solicitation? Proposal Abstract, Proposal Narrative, the Budget Detail Worksheet, the Budget Narrative. Fourth one is, again, very important, the Internal Revenue Service determination letter recognizing the 501(c)(3) tax status. There's just a reminder here about the project timeline, do not forget include your project timeline in your application. Here's the important note. Applications that do not contain all elements designated by BJA as critical to the solicitation will not be submitted to peer review. I want to bring to your attention that bright, big, large square there is important.
Now, the Proposal Abstract. And this is a 400-word paragraph or paragraphs. And what we hope to do is have the applicants include information that has the title of the overall project. The tribal legal service activity name, I'm going to give you an example there. Primary services, activities, products, deliverables. You know, what do you propose will be the deliverables? The amount of funding requested—again, be aware, we do have a ceiling for the funding. Service area. The number of tribes in the service area, number of tribes that will receive services. This is important. Questions do come forward about how would the tribe pick to receive the services? And these questions not only come from internally within BJA, but also from different organizations, people just want to know. The next thing is the target population proposed to receive services. Maybe a little bit redundant there, but I think once you start developing that information, it'll help in specifying more the target population. The next one is current capacity and increased capacity of funding and data collection mechanisms. A lot of information—so 400 words is the limit.
Okay. So Proposal Narrative. Now, this is really where you get to shine and really tell your story and connect your proposal with just your design. So, I want to make sure that you understand the following instructions. And I cannot emphasize this more. Please, double-space your program narrative, standard 12-point font, Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins, and it should not exceed 15 pages. It should not exceed 15 pages. Helpful hint, a table can be single space and cannot be—and can be put in an attachment. It is not a required component of the Program Narrative. I know that when I write, I get so excited. I put all of this information in there. And, you know, I like charts and everything, and I put them in there, too. And I go back and I do my editing—I do my
editing, and, you know, five times, maybe six times to finally get that, you know, two- or three-page document that I'm looking for. So I just want to share all this information, but when I start to focus, I really start taking a look at what is required, and generally go back to the requirement. So outlines here for you is also on the application. So the sections, Proposal Narrative. This is very important to keep in mind. You might even want to make a copy of this particular slide posted up, next to your desk when you're working. So the description of the issue, that's 20 percent. Project design and implementation, 30 percent. Capabilities and competencies, 30 percent. Plan for collecting data required for the solicitation's performance, 10 percent. Budget, 10 percent. And that's both for Category 1 and 2.
So the Budget and the Budget Narrative. The Budget Narrative should relate directly to the project design. Again, I say this. The Budget Narrative should relate directly to the project design. I cannot emphasize that more. Here's why. There should be no expenses in the budget that are not referenced in the Program Narrative. For example, do not ask for a laptop when not mentioned in the Program Narrative. Personnel costs should relate to the key personnel for the project. Subrecipients should be categorized as either subawards or procurement contracts and also be clearly stated in the project Program Narrative. Please refer to OJP guidance on this topic. URL is provided there.
Now, the Budget should include adequate funding to fully implement the project, but not more than the amount listed in the solicitation of the available funding amount. The Budget Narrative should leave no questions for a reviewer about the purpose of the requested funds. I think that's an important statement. If any of you have served as a peer reviewer, sometimes you get these wonderful applications that are—that hit all of the points and there's no guessing. And then you have this wonderful proposal that there's a couple of things missing, and the peer reviewers really are talking about it, and trying to figure out, you know, what it is. And I've been in that situation before as a peer reviewer, I highly recommend that you go through and try to make sure that you're very clear and you leave no questions for a reviewer about the purpose of your requested funds.
And the last one is the total federal request entered into the Standard Form 424 should match the total federal request in the application budget for the entire project period. The whole lot. So, more. Itemized budget for each year of the grant. Particular programs, there is no match required. Applicants should budget up to three team members to attend up to two conferences or training sessions per year to support ongoing capacity and success in implementation. Now, if an applicant has five or more subgrantees, it is encouraged to set aside training funds for staff to attend local, national training activities. And I know in this COVID era, we certainly are doing a lot more online training sessions. And I know in those rural remote and rural communities a lot of
people want that online training session. So, finally leave it to the applicant to include the training activities there. Prior approval, planning, and reporting of conference, meeting, training costs is required.
Okay. The IRS Determination Letter. We want a copy. We want a copy of that IRS Determination Letter, recognizing the applicant’s 501(c)(3) tax exempt status. Please include it in your application package. This letter determines the eligibility and further review of the application package. Can't put it any more simple. Okay.
The Timeline of Project Plan. We in BJA love this Project Plan, project timeline, it helps us in working with you as grantees. The timeline outlines the goals and objective, it summarizes major tasks and activities, deliverables, the expected date of completion, and who's responsible for each activity. Indicate number of program participants to be served quarterly. Include solicitation requirements and expectations. I think that's also a very good thing to keep in mind. What I recommend you do for the last month is take the solicitation in a PDF format and go up to your find search box, and type in there "require, requirement" and you will find all of those areas and sections for requirements and write them down. Your next search, "expectation," and find out what those expectations are. They will really help you to write your Program Narrative, but it also will help in the timeline that you develop.
The Additional Attachments. Do not forget the additional attachment. And here's a tip. Make sure you triple check your checklist and make sure you have everything. This is incredibly important. Make sure that your project timeline is included, letters of support, memorandums of understanding. Position descriptions, resumes of key personnel. Request for Justification of Employee Compensation Waiver if applicable. Information to Complete the Application in Grants.gov. Standard application information for the Standard Form 424, information form for Grants.gov. Now, Tribal Agreements and Resolutions. We covered a little bit of this, but I wanted to just emphasize that nonprofits will be required to project communication and coordination plan. And within that plan, the grantees will be required to engage with tribal leadership, tribal judicial leadership, to implement the project on tribal lands. Again, memorialize your agreement. We are going to try something different this time with the tribal agreement for tribal resolution. Before we had—BJA had requested that the applicants send us in those draft agreements or resolutions, and we kept them on file. What we are going to do this time around is really put that responsibility on the applicants to not only reach out and engage tribal leadership and get your signed agreement, but also keep that on file for audit purposes, and to address any issues that surface between the tribal nonprofit. And be aware, BJA may request copies of the MOAs, MOUs, tribal resolutions, agreements for grant management purposes. That's the different part of the tribal agreement and tribal resolution.
Other required documents. There is a Financial Management and System of Internal Controls Questionnaire, Applicant Disclosure and Justification, DOJ High-Risk Status, Disclosure of Lobbying Activities, Applicant Disclosure of Duplication in Cost Items, DOJ Certified Standard Assurance, DOJ Certifications Regarding Lobbying Disbarment, Suspensions, and other Responsibility Matters, and Drug-Free Workplace Requirement, Applicant Disclosure of Pending Application, Applicant Disclosure and Justification, DOJ High-Risk Grantees, if applicable, and Research and Evaluation Independence and Integrity.
So, some of the common mistakes that we see with applications, it does not respond to all of the requested information. Failed to submit all required documents, Abstract, Narrative, Budget, the IRS Determination Letter, failed to draw a connection between the statement of the problem and the program design. It does not provide the requested information and relevant sections where peer reviewers could easily locate it. Inconsistencies identified within proposal, different writers by section, did not provide specific measurable target for performance measures. Some tips for you all. Check all of the resources linked in the RFP, use scoring criteria as a general guide for how many pages to devote to each section. Don't wait until the deadline to apply. Go back and review the budget after completing the narrative. Focus on attachments, project timeline. We also call it time and task plan. And I cannot emphasize this last one enough, PDF everything. PDF everything. It just is smart. If unsuccessful in your effort, always ask the agency to provide comments. Comments are incredibly useful because these peer reviewers are very honest, and they provide you comments and recommendations. I know when I served as peer review, I gave very large amount of information, and I hope that helped the applicant. The other point is keep prior proposals and comments, and keep in mind that they also have different review panel reviewers each time. So that is important. Ask the agency what other services can be provided, such as training and technical assistance, capacity building, scholarships for conferences and training.
BJA offers these wonderful educational training sessions, online training sessions, you know, that share with you kind of what's coming down the pipeline, in terms of funding opportunities. It talks about helping to gather your data, helping to pull together an application, and all of these educational webinar sessions can be found on the BJA website, look for the funding opportunity and for funding—current funding opportunities when you go into the BJA website and it'll take you to a list of webinar sessions that are currently planned and those who—which have already been held, and you want to go into the past webinar sessions. And in there, you will see them lined up by date, and you will start to see some of those webinar sessions that are like, "Hey, this will help me." And dive right into it. They are very helpful. Ask agency for copies of successful applications and please do not be shy about this, there are some wonderful successful
applications that we have and we do talk with the grantee and they have provided their approval to share these successful applications. So, don't be afraid.
The other thing, serve as peer reviewer. Go in and learn as much as you can and—about peer review so that you get an idea of how these peer review sessions operate and really can walk away with that perspective when you start to develop your program narrative, I think that's just incredibly important. When I first came to BJA, I think Office of Justice Programs, I volunteered to read applications and went for the Office on Violence Against Women when their office used to be in the Office of Justice Programs. And worked very closely with that office, especially on its tribal activities, and I learned a lot about OVW and the tribal government programs they have. So definitely I encourage you all to serve as peer reviewers, and if you need some information about how to do that, I did not include that in this PowerPoint presentation but I currently have the information, I can send that to you. Okay. We are at the Question & Answer Session. Nikki?
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: All right, Norena, I do have one question that came through the chat and someone had stated that I just want to clarify for eligibility that it has to be a 501(c)(3) separate from the tribe. Not only the tribe itself, correct? And this individual wants to know the rational for 501(c)(3) requirement for eligibility versus the tribe.
NORENA A. HENRY: The 501(c)(3) is stated specifically in the authorization, we've had many a tribe come in and share with us that they are nonprofit and we understand that, however when we looked at the authorization, it clearly reads nonprofit with a 501(3)—(c)(3) status. Does that help you?
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: Thank you, Norena. Another question that came in is where would we ask for past successful applications?
NORENA A. HENRY: That is a wonderful question. What we can do is we can take your name, and your contact information, and both Geislia and myself can talk among ourselves and identify which ones to send you.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: All right. Fantastic. And Norena, we will have your contact information listed at one point during this, correct?
NORENA A. HENRY: You know, I think we—I will put it in the chat box.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: Yeah, absolutely, that would be fantastic. And then we do have one last question here, it says if there—they asked, well, actually now I have two. A couple questions, so if there is limited—is there a limited submission
requirement? So does that mean they can submit for both Category 1 and Category 2? Or does it have to be one or the other?
NORENA A. HENRY: No, you can submit to both. You can submit to both. You can submit to both, you can submit an application to both Category 1 and Category 2, but they're two separate applications.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: Yeah. Understood. So yes, there are—you can apply to both categories, Category 1 and Category 2, and there is not a limited submission requirement here. And then, sorry, Norena, the last—the last thing I had was actually a comment about somebody who was interested in applying. And, you know, for all of you who are on the chat, NAICJA does have some general webinar sessions related to not only TCCLA, but we also have our resident grants person in-house as well, Elton Naswood. So, you know, of course we would love to assist in any way possible, feel free to reach out to any of the NAICJA staff here either on the webinar or you can also email us as well. Norena, that's all the questions that we have for—oh, we do have one that just came in. Two actually. If the final budget is less than the SF-424 submitted in Grants.gov, will this cause a submission issue?
NORENA A. HENRY: No. Not—no, it will not. What it will do is we will ask you to correct.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: Uh-hmm.
NORENA A. HENRY: Correct. Basic minimum requirements are what you get that—the basic minimum requirement are—is a threshold that you have for your application to be reviewed and once it's reviewed, more than likely a peer reviewer will catch that, and/or Geislia when she looks at the budget information and other things, Geislia may also catch it and that will be one request that an applicant will be asked to address.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: All right. Fantastic, thank you, Norena. Geislia, did you have anything to add to that particular question?
GEISLIA BARNES: For that particular question, you have to get to peer review to even get to my end, to catch it, if it doesn't make it through peer review and it is sent to me to be processed, I will reach out to the grantee and ask them to make the proper correction on the budget. The 424 has to match the budget that's submitted.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you, Geislia. And then the last question that just came in, Norena, was they are wondering if there's a limit on the number of awards and also what is the total of all awards?
NORENA A. HENRY: A limit on the awards. We currently have a maximum of $600,000 that an applicant can apply for. In the past we've had applicants come in for, like, $57,000. Another applicant who came in for like $110,000. And these are, you know, nonprofits out there, very specific project that they wanted to move forward with and found this resource and so you have some of those smaller nonprofits who are working on a smaller project, and I hope that helps you, and then we have other grantees who request up to the maximum $600,000.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you, Norena. Those are all the questions we have for this particular section. So I think we can move on.
NORENA A. HENRY: Okay. Great. Nikki?
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: Right. Now moving on, we are going onto Section 3, which is JustGrants, and I believe we are going to have Geislia present on this particular section. So go ahead and take it away, Geislia.
GEISLIA BARNES: Hi, my name is Geislia Barnes, and I'm a State Policy Advisor with BJA, I currently handle seven different programs and TCCLA being one of the seven programs. I also manage the state of Idaho, South Dakota, and the territory of American Samoa. So getting to JustGrants, JustGrants is a system that we just implemented in October the 15 of 2020, this system is offering a streamlined end-to-end process to enable the grantees and applicants to move seamlessly "Through the full grant management life cycle." And the reason I say quote and quote is because the—by JustGrants being new, we have discovered several hiccups that if there ever come a time where you're having a problem submitting your application, please contact JustGrants or contact Norena and we will have that information, a couple of slides down. This gives the grantee and the award recipient new ways to manage their own entity information and that of the users of this system, and what we mean by your own entity information is your entity represent—administrator will be the individual that will go onto JustGrants and set up the authorized authority person and your authorized representative is usually the president or—of the organization, the president or chairperson of a tribe, depending on your structure. So, it's usually the highest-ranking person within your organization, your city, or your tribe. Also, the entity administrator will set up the person that's going to be your program manager and that's the person that's going to actually manage the grant, and thirdly, your entity administrator will set up your financial representative. We've discovered in JustGrants that the financial representative is not always—can you go back one second, Nikki? The financial representative is not always the true financial person, we request that you put in your actual financial individual that works in your accounting office, we're finding there's a lot of issues with the financial status reports that's being reported, the proper information is
not being reported. So if you could just keep in mind, if you are awarded one of our awards, that your authorized representative, your point of contact, and your financial representative needs to be the individuals that's going to actually fit those roles.
Okay, next slide. Okay. For your application submission, please identify the forms needed to submit the application, Norena went through a lot of this earlier in the presentation, complete the web-based budget form, we do have a budget worksheet that is provided, in order for you to submit your budget and—it will ensure that you submit your budget and the item in your budget is submitted in the proper category. Complete the application, including certifying all information, and then hit the submit button for your application.
Okay. The JustGrants support. They have tutorials where you could sign up for new training alerts, they have tutorials that's been pre-recorded that will assist you with the process of applying for BJA in OJP Grants, you could learn more about the JustGrants management and financial assistance, we do have the JustGrants website that's listed below, you could go on this website, it would be able to—they have the tutorials that will assist you, if you have any questions, you can contact the JustGrants help desk also. Next slide. And for all technical support or any questions, any issues with submitting your applications, listed here is the JustGrants email address and also at 833—not a 800 but a 833 number, which is still toll-free, and we have the office hours listed on the slide, so if you have any questions submitting your application through JustGrants, just contact the help desk, and that's it for this session.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: All right.
GEISLIA BARNES: So I see that someone did put the web link in the chat, so are there any questions?
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: Yeah. And again, if you have any questions right now, related to JustGrants or submitting your grants, feel free to put them in the chat. If you are a current grantee, you know that JustGrants is fairly new so we all have, you know, a plethora of questions, especially as we're moving through it. And so, you know, those training links that were—the training link that was posted earlier, that's going to have a lot of resources there as well. We do have—oh, no, that's Elton. So, that being said, Geislia, let's go ahead and move on to the resources page, because we don't really have a whole bunch of questions coming in right now. But like we said, if you have any questions related to the previous section, please feel free to place them in the chat box. You know, at the end of this we'll also make sure that you have Norena and Geislia's contact information and those additional links related to JustGrants and training on this as well.
So, here we are, we do have some additional resources and so these are just links right now but we'll go ahead and make sure that in any follow-up emails that we'll go ahead and make sure that we have the entire URL here. But we do have the BJA TCCLA Program website. And on that particular website you're going to be able to find things like the program overview, the categories, Norena had mentioned the authorizing legislation. So, there's going to be all of those resources there. You're also going to be able to see past grantees and some promising practices and also some resources that have been developed under the TCCLA Program there. There is the link to the FY 2021 TCCLA solicitation, and if anybody has that particular link out of the hosts, could you please go ahead and just poke—paste that right here in the chat box for everybody? That is where you're going to find the requirements for the entire process. So it's going to include everything that Norena has presented about with related—with regard to the program requirements and the application requirements. But also about the technical aspects of submitting that particular grant. So, you know, if you are interested and you are eligible to require—to apply for this particular grant please visit and download that solicitation and read it very carefully, word for word.
There will be the TCCLA TTA Resource page that we have hosted and, of course, we are again—we're NAICJA, the National American Indian Court Judges Association. Elton and Ansley, can you go ahead and post our websites here in the chat box as well? And we have been TA providers for—I would want to say about 9 years now. So we have a good amount of resources on our TCCLA page that includes webinars, publications, and other videos there for your reference. Please go ahead and visit and poke around and look at those particular resources, and if you have any questions about those or if you have any TA requests regardless of whether or not you're a grantee, feel free to reach out to us and we are available to talk to you. And then, of course, there's the Enhanced Sentencing Authority TTA Project that the American Probation and Parole Association hosts.
And I am looking and it looks like we do have a question that has come up. So does the main applicant need to be a 501(c)(3) or can a 501(c)(3) apply as a user under the tribe? Norena or Geislia, do either of you want to take on that question?
NORENA A. HENRY: Can you repeat the question again?
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: The question is, does the main applicant need to be a 501(c)(3) or can the 501(c)(3) apply as a user under the tribe?
NORENA A. HENRY: The applicant has to be a 501(c)(3).
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: Okay. All right. So, to whom ever answered this—asked this question. It—whoever applies has to be the 501(c)(3). So the way that we
kind of seen this over the years with some of the grantees is, you know, either the tribe can have its own nonprofits or it would be a nonprofit, you know, a legal organization who provides services to the tribe, but they would be the prime applicant because they have to be 501(c)(3) to be eligible.
GEISLIA BARNES: Nikki, this is Geislia, just—
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: Geislia. Uh-hmm.
GEISLIA BARNES: —to add a little bit to that. If the applicant applies and they applied just because they have the 501(c)(3) and they passed all the funds to the tribe as a sole subgrantee, the applicant is still responsible for the reporting and the money, and they're responsible to make sure whatever's in that application is actually what is done. So they're still—they’re responsible, even if they’re, I want to say, a place holder, because that's what that question sounds like.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: Yes, and then as a follow-up, there was another question that says, "Can an Indian—can the Indian tribe apply directly?" And it's—as Norena and Geislia stated earlier, it depends, you know, if that tribe has a 501(c)(3), then yes. But the prime eligibility, as Norena mentioned, is that the applicant has to be a 501(c)(3). So if the tribe has a 501(c)(3), then yes, we have seen past grantees—for example, Tulalip Tribes has a 501(c)(3). So they were able to apply and were a grantee several years ago through its tribal nonprofit—through its tribal 501(c)(3). And I believe Yurok also applied and has a tribal 501(c)(3) and so they were also a grantee a few years ago.
NORENA A. HENRY: Thank you, Nikki.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: We do have another question that just came in, Norena, just to clarify, we have a grants department and the nonprofit we want to partner with but they do not have the capacity to apply for any federal grant. So we want to assist them to provide services in our community. We were just wondering how this partnership might work on paper. Norena, can you speak to that—
NORENA A. HENRY: Nikki, can you—can you repeat the question?
GEISLIA BARNES: You said the tribe had a grant department but the nonprofit does not have the capability to manage the grant?
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: To write the grants.
GEISLIA BARNES: They're not going to be able to get that award because they have to submit the financial capabilities questionnaire. And if they're not going to be able to pass
the financial ability questionnaire, they're not going to—we're not going to be able to—they're not going to be able to get the funding because they—whoever the name is on the grant, that's who we will actually monitor and then we'll have to have a financial system.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: And that the tribe would be a subrecipient like you had mentioned before. I think it's—
GEISLIA BARNES: Right, the tribe is a subrecipient, yeah.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: Yeah, Geislia, I think they were saying that that nonprofit doesn't have a grant writer. So they don't have capacity to apply for grants. So they were trying to work on a partnership. And so within the chats, Angela—Angelica, excuse me, Deborah Dahl did mention and reply and say an MOU or an MOA. Just in generally in the grants world, a lot of those types of relationships do happen between tribes and organizations, and so that might be the type of partnership that you might develop on paper. So, you know, if the tribe were to be the one who has the capacity and the time right now to write the grants and to work with the 501(c)(3), that would be written out and delineated on the MOA or the MOU and then that nonprofit would be the one to submit. But as Geislia mentioned, there are some financial requirements there that include the financial capability, the competency paper and check that you have to include with your grant. So long as, you know, that nonprofit that you want to partner with can, you know, successfully fill that out and pass that form on. You know, you shouldn't—hopefully, you know, that type of relationship would work. And then, sorry, I'm just looking through the chat as well and so there was just a little bit of discussion about the 501(c)(3) tribal relationship in that particular example. Angelica, if you now—you have any additional questions, feel free to reach out to us and we can maybe chat about this and what that might look like on paper.
Does anybody else have any additional questions about either the grant itself, about the TCCLA Program, about applying for this particular grant, feel free to place that in the chat or to reach out to Elton or Ansley. Norena and Geislia, we have a question that's coming that says, "Do we have to—do we have to match on this grant?"
GEISLIA BARNES: No.
NORENA A. HENRY: No match.
GEISLIA BARNES: Yeah, there's no—
NORENA A. HENRY: No matches required. No.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: Okay. No match requirements. Do we have any other questions? Somebody did ask for the solicitation number on Grants.gov. So Eric, a little further up there was a link to the actual solicitation, and normally within that solicitation you should be able to find that particular number, the solicitation number. But Norena and Geislia, if anybody has that number available let's just go ahead and place that in the chat as well. But likely mentioned further up in the chats we had put the link for the full solicitation, so if you go there that's—there we go. Thank you. There—somebody put a solicitation number in the chat. So we can go ahead and keep an eye out for that. If we have the—Elton and Ansley, if you could also maybe keep an eye out for that, that would be great.
Do we have any other questions related to this particular grant, to the solicitation, to applying? If not we are out at our time. Norena, do you have any particular additional closing comments that you would like to make? This particular webinar has been really informative, and it's actually just been jam-packed full of information that's really important. So again I do encourage you all to find that solicitation right here, this FY 2021 TCCLA Solicitation, please download it and please really look at every single one of the requirements. Make that checklist of each of those documents that you need to upload, you know, go ahead and start working on, you know, your—the various elements of it and getting any of the supporting documentation that you might need, whether those are letters of supports. You should probably try to do that now, just speaking from experience and going through the process of uploading documents for federal grants and those proposals. It is a good amount of work and you're going to want to just make sure that you're very organized and that as you're going through the solicitation that you're taking those notes and that you're making those solicitations and that, you know, you were really visualizing and mapping out how you want to, number one, design your project, but then number two, how you're going to implement that and just make it really, really clear and keep cross-referencing with that solicitation to make sure that you are hitting all of those requirements that the BJA has asked for within, you know, the document itself. Anything else, Norena and Geislia?
NORENA A. HENRY: Yes.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: Anything that you would love to pass along to our attendees?
NORENA A. HENRY: Well, I want to share publicly with people, thank you for attending our webinar session. I also want to thank many of the persons in our agency who have helped us with planning and implementing the webinar session. But I'm not going to list them all by name but more by organization and we have our BJA tribal court and tribal team members, the National American Indian Court Judges Association, our BJA
Program Office. And thank you, Geislia, for helping us and our telecom team out of our Office of Chief Information Officer, our BJA communications team, it is a fantastic job getting all of that information out the door. And our OJP Informational Technology Service Desk, our BJA National Training and Technical Assistance Center. Again, thank you for all of your help in training and coaching provided towards planning and implementing this webinar session. And again thank you for everyone for attending.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: Absolutely.
NORENA A. HENRY: The recording will be posted at the BJA TCCLA page. I'm not exactly sure when, but I would recommend that if you need to refer to it, it will—it will be up there. I just think it's going to take a couple of days or more to get this posted on the BJA website. And if you need my address, it is Norena, it is Norena.Henry@usdoj. And that's N as in Nancy, O as in Oscar, E as in Edward, N as in Nancy, A as in apple, dot, Henry, H as in Hank, E as in Edward, N as in Nancy, R as in Robert, Y as in yellow, at, O as in Oscar, J as in Julie, P as in Paul, .usdoj.gov.
NIKKI BORCHARDT CAMPBELL: Thank you, Norena. And Elton did put your email and Geislia's email in the chat box. So Norena's contact and Geislia's contact are right there for you all to go ahead and copy and paste. Elton's going to quickly put up our emails as well. Geislia, if you don't have anything else to add, we'll go ahead and, you know, end our webinar. Thank you all so much for joining us. We absolutely, number one, value you and your work and your time and specifically because of, you know, this grant, we value, you know, Norena and Geislia for taking the time to—thank you so much for taking the time to walk through this particular solicitation. Sometimes these can be really intimidating. So we really [thank] both of you for walking through this particular solicitation with us all and for taking the time to be able to take questions from everyone, and this solicitation of course is open.
And so all of you guys who are interested and who are eligible to apply, like we mentioned, please visit that link, download the solicitation, and pass along any other questions, and also know that my staff and I are here as resources as well. Elton has put our emails in the chat box. Again, I'm Nikki Campbell. I'm Paiute and Utes and I'm the executive director of NAICJA. Ansley Sherman is our program attorney and Elton Naswood is our program coordinator who helps and assists with all of our justice capacity building activities at NAICJA and of course with the TCCLA Program. That being said, thank you all for joining us and we hope that you are well and please take care and we hope that we can see you somewhere along the line, down the road at an in-person event when we're all able to travel. So in the meantime, you know, stay safe and stay healthy and let us know if you have any additional questions or need any additional help. All right. Thank you everyone. Bye.