Second Chance Act Pay for Success Initiative

Office of Justice Programs Response Center:
OJP.ResponseCenter@usdoj.gov
800.851.3420

System for award management (SAM):
866.606.8220
Federal service desk

Grants.gov contact center:
800.518.4726
support@grants.gov
Self-service knowledge base

JustGrants Service Desk:
833.872.5175
JustGrants.Support@usdoj.gov

The Second Chance Act Pay for Success Program offers grants to provide transitional services and programs to improve reentry and reduce recidivism among individuals leaving incarceration.

Funding categories:

Category 1: Enhance or establish performance-based and outcomes-based contracts to provide individualized reentry services for individuals leaving incarceration who are identified through a validated risk tool as being at moderate to high risk to reoffend in the community

Category 2: Enhance or establish performance-based and outcomes-based contracts to provide reentry housing to individuals leaving incarceration

All projects must:

• Include performance-based and outcomes-based reentry service contract elements, such as data and report collection, outcome reviews between governments and service providers, on- and offsite monitoring, outcomes validation, and incentivizing payment approvals and results
• Ensure government staff and service providers have adequate training in performance- based and outcomes-based procurement, reentry services, data collection, and outcomes validation
• Manage the performance-based and outcomes-based contract, including data and report collection, outcome reviews between governments and service providers, on- and offsite monitoring, outcomes validation, and incentive payment approvals

Rural communities have been awarded funding in the past.

Category 1 and Category 2 eligible applicants include:

• State governments
• City and township governments
• County and special district governments
• Federally recognized Tribal governments
• Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities
• Other units of local government

Award ceiling: $1,250,000 for Category 1 and $1,000,000 for Category 2
Project period: 54 months
Estimated number of awards: 1 for Category 1 and 5 for Category 2
Estimated total program funding: $6,250,000

Links to the full announcement, application instructions, and the online application process are available through grants.gov.

Applicants should submit an SF-424 and an SF-LLL in grants.gov by April 27, 2026.

Submit the full application, including attachments, in the JustGrants grants management system by May 4, 2026.