Office of Community Services

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), a sub-agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, administers federal grant programs supporting child welfare, foster care, child care assistance, family support services, and community social services across states and local jurisdictions. ACF is the civilian agency arm funding child and family welfare infrastructure at the state level and does not conduct contract procurement; its entire transactional footprint is grant-based.

ACF has obligated $140.92 billion in federal grant dollars across 7,177 awards since 2008, distributed to 631 distinct recipients. Recent activity has declined: 1,210 awards in 2021, 822 in 2022, 652 in 2023, 575 in 2024, and 546 so far in 2025. The most recent grant award closed on 2025-10-01.

Grant recipients are highly fragmented by award count but moderately concentrated by federal dollars obligated. Over the last five years, the top five recipients by award count hold only 3 percent of recent awards; by federal dollars obligated, the top five hold 7 percent. State departments dominate the recipient roster: Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs leads by federal dollars at $2.76 billion across 9 awards, followed by Virginia Department of Social Services at $2.03 billion across 17 awards, and Michigan Department of Health and Human Services at $1.89 billion across 12 awards. The remaining 626 recipients are primarily state and county social services and health agencies.

ACF's assistance mix is dominated by formula grants (66 percent of awards) and block grants (26 percent), which flow to states and territories under statutory allocation formulas and are not competitively awarded. Project grants account for 6 percent of awards, and cooperative agreements make up the remaining 2 percent. The formula-and-block structure means that most ACF funding reaches recipients through non-competitive, statutory mechanisms rather than open solicitation, and that opportunities for new entrants or non-state applicants are limited to the smaller Project Grant and Cooperative Agreement pools.

No recent grant opportunities are recorded against ACF or its descendant offices in the source data provided.