Third Sector New England, Inc.

Third Sector New England, Inc., a woman-owned nonprofit based in Boston, Massachusetts, operates as a federal grant recipient (78% of recent awards) and subcontractor, delivering technical assistance, training, and capacity-building services to USDA, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Health and Human Services across agriculture, violence prevention, community development, and public health programs.

Third Sector New England's customer concentration centers on USDA and HHS. The top five customer agencies by award count account for 51% of recent awards, led by HHS Food and Drug Administration (36 awards), USDA Rural Housing Service/Rural Business Cooperative Services (13 awards), USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (10 awards), the Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women (9 awards), and USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (8 awards). The vendor has engaged 33 distinct federal agencies across recent activity. Awards typically carry modest individual values; the combined potential value across all 148 awards (prime and sub) totals $17 million, though obligated dollars across the portfolio run $45.3 million, reflecting multi-year grant structures and drawdown cycles characteristic of cooperative agreements and project grants.

The vendor's capability portfolio emphasizes federal grant administration and technical assistance delivery to underserved and underrepresented populations. Representative prime-recipient work includes a $500,000 cooperative agreement (CFDA 16.526) from the Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women awarded August 2026 to develop and deliver training and technical assistance to OVW grantees on coordinated community responses to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking by engaging faith organizations and leaders; a $124,997 cooperative agreement from USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (CFDA 10.175) awarded March 2026 to strengthen Michigan farmers market managers as leaders in anti-racist initiatives; and a multi-year $400,000 cooperative agreement (CFDA 16.526) from OVW October 2023 providing on-site and online trainings to victim service organizations on partnering with faith leaders. Earlier prime-recipient work includes a community food systems project grant from USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (September 2022 through September 2026) supporting farm-to-institution relationships across New England, and a project grant from USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (June 2023 through May 2027) delivering technical assistance to Community Food Projects grantees nationally on capacity building, leadership development, and proposal writing.

Activity has remained relatively consistent over the past five years—12 awards in 2022, 12 in 2023, 17 in 2024—with a decline to 3 awards in 2025 and 2 awards in 2026; four awards face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months. As a subcontractor, Third Sector New England delivers work under the National Center on Elder Abuse (prime: University of Southern California), farm financial risk management and crop insurance technical assistance to beginning and historically underserved farmers (multiple sub-awards with University of Delaware), and child care workforce development (multiple sub-awards with Minnesota Department of Human Services). The vendor also serves as a named subrecipient to Boston Public Health Commission on community health worker engagement in COVID-response resilience and serves as co-investigator on an NSF-funded population science and epistemology research project (prime: State University of New York at Albany).

Service Contract Inventory reporting covers only three records across FY2022–FY2025 (all as named subcontractor), reflecting the vendor's primary positioning in federal grant work rather than service contracts above the SCI threshold. The minimal SCI footprint—averaging fewer than one FTE annually—underscores that Third Sector New England operates predominantly as a grant recipient and sub-recipient, not as a federal services contractor. The vendor subcontracts on prime recipient awards, indicating a model that combines direct grant funding with subcontractor engagement to partner organizations rather than building a large in-house federal services delivery team.