Drug-Free Communities Support Program Grants

The purpose of the DFC Support Program is to establish and strengthen collaborations to support the efforts of community coalitions working to prevent and reduce substance use among youth.

The Drug-Free Communities (DFC) Support Program was created by the Drug-Free Communities Act of 1997 (Public Law 105-20). The Executive Office of the President, Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) are accepting applications for Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Drug-Free Communities (DFC) Support Program grants. The purpose of the DFC Support Program is to establish and strengthen collaboration to support the efforts of community coalitions working to prevent youth substance use. By statute, the DFC Support Program has two goals: 1) Establish and strengthen collaboration among communities, public and private non-profit agencies, as well as federal, state, local, and tribal governments to support the efforts of community coalitions working to prevent and reduce substance abuse among youth (individuals 18 years of age and younger). 2) Reduce substance abuse among youth and, over time, reduce substance abuse among adults by addressing the factors in a community that increase the risk of substance abuse and promoting the factors that minimize the risk of substance abuse.

Community coalitions must demonstrate that the community coalition has worked together for a period of not less than 6 months on substance abuse reduction initiatives. The coalition must: meet the composition requirements; ensure that there is substantial community volunteer effort; ensure that the coalition is a nonprofit, charitable, educational organization, or unit of local government, or is affiliated with an eligible organization or entity; possess a strategy to be self-sustaining; provide a 100-150 percent cash or in-kind match; and agree to participate in an evaluation of the coalition's program.

Community coalitions, children, youth, and adults, those at-risk of substance abuse, and private nonprofit, and public community agencies.

Funds must be used by the programs that are intended to support established community-based coalitions to work with leaders within their communities to identify and address local youth substance use problems and crate sustainable community-level change. No more than 20% of funds may be used for data collection and evaluation.

Phasing: Financial assistance is provided for a 12-month budget period with a period of performance of up to five years subject to the availability of funds and satisfactory progress of the recipient.

Applications will be evaluated on the review criteria described in the Notice of Funding Opportunity Announcements (NOFOs). In general, the review and selection process of complete and responsive applications to the NOFO consists of determination of the scientific and technical merit by objective or peer review, availability of funds, and relevance of program priorities and the priorities of CDC.

After review and approval, a Notice of Award (NoA) will be prepared and processed, along with appropriate notification to the public.

From 1 to 4 months.

Cooperative agreement period of performance is 1 to 5 years. After initial awards, and subject to availability of funds, projects may be continued non-competitively contingent upon satisfactory progress by the recipient (as documented in required reports) and the determination that continued funding is in the best interest of the Federal government.