Training and Technical Assistance

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) funds training and technical assistance activities under Assistance Listing 94.009, with the most recent grant award disbursed on October 9, 2019. This program has not issued a solicitation in over a decade; the most recent opportunity on record was posted in July 2015. The portfolio shows 654 total awards since 1994, but activity has been dormant since 2019, making current pursuit inadvisable unless the agency has restarted the program without public notice.

When active, the program funded state service commissions and alternative AmeriCorps administrative entities to plan and deliver regional training conferences strengthening AmeriCorps programs and Senior Corps projects. Recent awarded activities included building evaluation capacity in state commissions, conducting evidence-based program assessments, and completing criminal history checks for AmeriCorps staff and members. The Arkansas Service Commission received $72,490 in October 2019 to support a compliance specialist position and logic model evaluation, while the Oregon Service Commission received comparable funding for evidence-based applicant development and evaluation training.

The assistance-type portfolio breaks down as 42 percent Formula Grants, 42 percent Cooperative Agreements, and 16 percent Project Grants. All 654 awards originated from CNCS, split between the parent agency (482 awards, $64 million federal dollars obligated) and the Office of Grants Management (172 awards, $21.6 million federal dollars obligated). The program obligated $85.6 million in combined federal dollars across its lifetime. Recent award magnitudes ranged from under $1 thousand to approximately $165 thousand, though most recent awards clustered below $100 thousand after accounting for adjustments and criminal history check initiatives implemented in early 2019.

Award cadence was highly irregular: the portfolio shows four awards in 2015, a spike to 78 in 2016, then collapse to single awards in 2017 and 2018, before a final surge of 115 awards in 2019. No opportunities have been posted since August 2015, and no awards have been reported since October 2019. The seven-year gap since the last disbursement suggests the program is inactive.