Competitive Cooperative Agreement Solicitation Combating Opioid Overdose through Community-Level Intervention | 2018 ONDCP COOCLI

Opportunity Information: Apply for 2018 ONDCP COOCLI

The Competitive Cooperative Agreement Solicitation: Combating Opioid Overdose through Community-Level Intervention is a discretionary federal funding opportunity from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) within the Executive Office of the President. It is designed to help communities respond to the opioid overdose epidemic by supporting practical, community-based interventions and by strengthening coordination between public health and public safety systems. The program is framed around the urgency of rising overdose deaths nationwide, citing CDC data showing more than 63,000 overdose deaths in 2016, with more than 42,000 involving opioids, and it situates the work in the broader federal response that included the 2017 declaration of the opioid crisis as a national Public Health Emergency.

ONDCP anticipated making a single cooperative agreement award for a one-year project period beginning around September 2018, with an award ceiling of $3,500,000 and one expected award. Because this is a cooperative agreement rather than a standard grant, the intent is a more hands-on, collaborative relationship with the federal government during performance. The funded organization (referred to as the non-federal entity, or NFE) is expected to work closely with ONDCP and align efforts with related work underway at ONDCP and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A key element is coordination with the federally designated High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program and the CDC-linked Heroin Response Strategy initiative, reflecting the solicitation's emphasis on linking data, prevention, enforcement, and response capacities rather than treating them as separate tracks.

The core purpose of the award is twofold. First, the recipient must undertake research activities that involve implementing and evaluating community-level overdose reduction efforts, especially in regions experiencing some of the highest rates of fatal and non-fatal opioid overdoses. Second, the recipient must actively support and promote partnerships between law enforcement and public health agencies, based on the premise that overdose prevention and harm reduction work better when public safety and public health are coordinated, share information appropriately, and operate toward common outcomes. The solicitation also recognizes that many overdose response efforts are decentralized across state and local systems, so a major expectation is that the award will help coordinate and strengthen these often fragmented responses.

ONDCP lays out several specific performance areas that the recipient must deliver. One is to research and analyze a range of existing community-based interventions and identify evidence-based or proven strategies that reduce opioid-related overdose deaths. Another is to use those evidence-based approaches to implement, expand, or enhance community programs aimed at reducing overdoses, with particular focus on high-burden areas. The solicitation notes a strong preference for proposals that distribute resources broadly through subawards, prioritizing applicants that will make funding available to at least eight communities. In addition to implementation, the recipient must evaluate the selected community interventions to determine how effective they are at reducing overdoses and other opioid-related harms, again emphasizing measurement and results in the most heavily impacted regions.

Beyond program roll-out and evaluation, the opportunity heavily emphasizes cross-sector collaboration and field support. The recipient is expected to support and promote operational collaboration between public health and public safety agencies so that local overdose reduction activities are aligned and communities receive a comprehensive, coordinated response. The award also includes an explicit technical assistance role: the recipient must help prospective subaward recipients with implementation, evaluation design, and reporting. In practice, that means the NFE is positioned as both an implementing research partner and a capacity-builder, helping multiple communities adopt proven approaches, collect usable data, and communicate outcomes in a consistent way.

Eligible applicants are limited to public nonprofit institutions and organizations, including public and state-controlled institutions of higher education and hospitals, as well as other nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) status, and private institutions of higher education. The funding instrument is a cooperative agreement under CFDA 95.007, and the activity categories span health as well as law, justice, and legal services, reflecting the solicitation's combined public health and public safety strategy. The posting indicates a creation date of September 14, 2018, with an original closing date of September 21, 2018, underscoring that it was a rapid-turnaround competition intended to quickly support on-the-ground overdose response efforts.

• The Office of National Drug Control Policy in the health, law, justice and legal services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Competitive Cooperative Agreement Solicitation Combating Opioid Overdose through Community-Level Intervention" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 95.007.
• This funding opportunity was created on Sep 14, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Sep 21, 2018. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $3,500,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

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