Funding Court Appointed Special Advocate Programs

Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) programs are eligible to receive Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) funding at the State level. VOCA funds support criminal justice advocacy, emergency legal assistance, information and referral services, personal advocacy, and assistance with filing crime victims compensation claims. VOCA victim assistance grant funds only support services to victims of crime. Not all children represented by Court Appointed Special Advocates are victims of crime.

OVC views child neglect and abandonment as serious crimes that can harm children as severely as physical and sexual abuse. Neglect ranges from parents keeping their children out of school to leaving a child unfed in an empty house. CASA programs may use VOCA funds to support services to child victims of neglect and/or abandonment.

To ensure that VOCA funds benefit only victims of crime, programs receiving VOCA funds are required to maintain documentation such as time and attendance records and VOCA-supported expense records. In one State, VOCA funds support a coordinator of volunteers within a CASA program. The coordinator's responsibility is to supervise and train all CASA volunteers, but the VOCA funds may pay only for the time the coordinator devotes to supervising and/or training those volunteers who provide direct services to child victims of physical and sexual abuse, criminal neglect, and abandonment. Therefore, this CASA program maintains time and attendance records which document the volunteer coordinator's time that is spent supervising and/or training volunteers who work with child victims.

VOCA gives the States maximum discretion to set priorities and to determine which programs within their States will be funded, the level of funding they will receive, the services that will be funded, and the requirements programs must meet to receive funding. Although States do have the authority to establish their own more stringent requirements, all VOCA-funded organizations must meet certain eligibility criteria.

Eligibility for VOCA Funding

1. Be a Public or Nonprofit Organization. The organization must operate as a public or nonprofit organization, or a combination thereof, and provide services to crime victims.

2. Keep a Record of Effective Services. A record of providing effective services to crime victims must be demonstrated.

3. Provide Substantial Financial Support. Existing programs must provide a matching contribution (cash or in-kind) from non-Federal sources of 20 percent of the total cost of each VOCA project. New programs that have not yet demonstrated a record of providing services may be eligible to receive VOCA funding, if they can demonstrate that 25 percent to 50 percent of their financial support (cash and/or in-kind) comes from non-Federal sources. It is important that organizations have a variety of funding sources besides Federal funding in order to ensure their financial stability. Native American tribes/organizations must provide a match contribution (cash and/or in-kind) of 5 percent of the total VOCA project.

4. Use Volunteers. Subrecipient organizations must use volunteers unless the State grantee determines there is a compelling reason to waive this requirement.

5. Promote Community Efforts to Aid Crime Victims. Subrecipients must promote, within the community, coordinated public and private efforts to aid crime victims. Coordination may include serving on State, Federal, local, or Native American task forces, commissions, working groups, coalitions and/or multidisciplinary teams.

6. Help Victims Apply for Compensation Benefits. Provide crime victims with information and assistance when applying for compensation benefits.

For Further Information

Contact the OVC Resource Center for a list of recent awards, announcements of grants, and information about the application process or send an e-mail to askovc@ojp.usdoj.gov.

For copies of this fact sheet, other OVC publications, or information on additional victim-related resources, please contact:

Office for Victims of Crime Resource Center (OVCRC)
Box 6000 Rockville, MD 20849–6000
1–800–627–6872 or 301–519–5500
TTY 1–877–712–9279

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