On July 11 the Office of Head Start (OHS) forecasted 45 Head Start (HS) and/or Early Head Start (EHS) grants that will be open for competition. Signs point to a number of these opportunities being part of Designation Renewal System (DRS) Round 6. (It doesn’t look like all forecasted HS/EHS grants are DRS, though. Some appear to be replacement grants.)
Let’s take a closer look at the grants forecasted on July 11. Interested to see the list? Visit grants.gov, select the ‘Search Grants’ tab, and type in “head start.” All of the forecasted or open HS/EHS grant opportunities will appear and you can sort as needed. On the off chance that you find grants.gov as cumbersome to navigate as we do, here is the list of the grants that are slated to go live on October 2, 2017.
Here’s are some of the highlights of what we know so far:
25 states and the US Virgin Islands are represented among the service areas for the forecasted grants. This includes New York (5), Texas (4), Illinois (3), Indiana (3), Michigan (3), Virginia (3), Alabama (2), Arkansas (2), Florida (2), Tennessee (2), Pennsylvania (2), California, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and US Virgin Islands.
Forecasted grants are due to post on October 2, 2017 and the anticipated due date is December 1, 2017. This is fiscal year 2018 funding. The timeline mirrors that of previous rounds of DRS, with a turnaround time of about 8 weeks.
These are competitive grant opportunities. While it seems like many of the forecasted grants are DRS Round 6 there may also be some that are replacement grants or other opportunities. Regardless, all are competitive grant opportunities that take a significant amount of planning time and resource coordination. The good news is that with an anticipated posting date of fall 2017 you have time to prepare!
Stay tuned for more information as we dig deeper into the forecasted grants. Also, keep your eye out for communications from OHS. Typically we see a notification to the field when a DRS cohort is announced