Promise Neighborhoods: Vying for Implementation Grants of Up to $30 Mil

This morning, the U.S. Department of Education released applications for the second round of Promise Neighborhoods grants, the fledgling competitive grant program designed to replicate the famous Harlem Children’s Zone in communities across the country.

The program was funded at $30 million for fiscal year 2011.  The department says it plans to award four to six implementation grants to help grantees begin building their programs. The department envisions providing implementation grants of $4 to $6 million per year over the course of three to five years, for a total of $12 to $30 million per winner.

The department also plans to award 10 new planning grants of up to $500,000.

Twenty-one communities were awarded planning grants last fall in the first round of Promise Neighborhoods grants. Presumably, some or all of the heftier implementation grants will go to these communities—though the Department of Education has not indicated how many of the implementation grantees will come from that original pool of 21.

One outlying question, however, is whether there will still be money to hand out in five years. Though this is the second year in a row that the Promise Neighborhoods program has received funds, there is no guarantee that Congress will continue to fund the program for the next five years, especially given the current talk of federal budget austerity. To generate the grants that the department envisions, Congress would have to continue approving funding of at least $16 million to $36 million each year.  

Already, expectations have been scaled back: This year’s $30 million is a small chunk of money compared to the $210 million President Obama originally requested from Congress.

Applications can be found here, and are due September 6^th.

CORRECTION 7/7 10:00 a.m.: Presumably, some of the implementation grants will be awarded to last year’s planning grant grantees. But unlike what we wrote in an earlier version of this post, clearly not all of the planning grantees could win implementation grants, given that the department has signaled it will only be awarding four to six.