Department of Homeland Security: FY 2016 Countering Violent Extremism Grants

The FY 2016 CVE Grant Program supports programs, projects and activities that prevent recruitment or radicalization to violence by interrupting those efforts, building community-level resilience to them, and identifying the early signs of radicalization to violence and providing appropriate interventions through civic organizations, law enforcement or other entities. Community resilience in the CVE context means those communities where violent extremists routinely meet disinterest and opposition, recruitment attempts routinely fail, and communities know what tools and support are available to assist individuals that may be on a path towards violence.

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 instructs the Secretary of Homeland Security to “prevent terrorist attacks in the United States.” DHS has made CVE a key element of its strategic vision: the 2014 Quadrennial Homeland Security Review reflected the importance of CVE by identifying CVE as a “Priority Area of Emphasis” within DHS’s Mission 1: Prevent Terrorism and Enhance Security. Furthermore, Goal 1.1 of the FY 2014-2018 DHS Strategic Plan identifies CVE as one of four strategies to prevent terrorist attacks.

Program Objectives
The FY2016 CVE Grant Program seeks to develop new efforts and expand existing efforts at the community level to counter violent extremist recruitment and radicalization to violence by funding activities that enhance the resilience of communities being targeted by violent extremists for recruitment, provide alternatives to individuals who have started down a road to violent extremism, and that create or amplify alternative messages to terrorist/violent extremist recruitment and radicalization efforts. In addition, the CVE Grant Program seeks to develop and support efforts by U.S.-based entities that are broadly countering violent extremists’ on-line recruitment efforts aimed at U.S.-based individuals.

DHS seeks to support innovative and cost effective programs, projects, and activities which establishes or uses existing effectiveness measures. Awardees will collect data on their chosen performance measures so that evaluations of the program can be conducted, either by the organization or independently. Additionally, DHS will assess funded projects for promising practices and make them available in a replicable form for other communities or sectors. DHS is seeking to fund activities in geographically diverse communities across the country and see awards made to multiple different eligible applicant types.

Program Priorities
The FY 2016 CVE Grant Program has five focus areas for eligible activities that current research (See Appendix A) has shown is likely to be the most effective in countering violent extremism:
– Developing resilience;
– Training and engaging with community members;
– Managing intervention activities;
– Challenging the narrative; and
– Building capacity of community-level non-profit organizations active in CVE.”