Grants for Victim Services Programs 2026: Funders

If you're running a general crime victim agency, this guide is for you: multi-crime victim service centers, county victim assistance programs, homicide survivor groups, victim rights legal centers and the nonprofit partners of prosecutor or sheriff victim units. Programs built around one kind of crime have their own guides. Shelters and advocates for battered partners should read grants for domestic violence programs, rape crisis programs should see grants for sexual assault centers, and groups serving abused children or trafficked people should start with grants for child advocacy centers or grants for human trafficking survivor programs.

Victim services source review, Grantsights, November 1, 2026: Grantsights checked the VOCA statute at 34 U.S.C. 20103 (opens in a new tab) and 34 U.S.C. 20102 (opens in a new tab), the VOCA victim assistance rule at 28 CFR Part 94, subpart B (opens in a new tab), and the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) page of current funding opportunities (opens in a new tab) against foundation filings that name crime victim agencies. Where official sources stop: none of them tells you how big your state's next subgrant round will be or when it opens. Your state administering agency sets both.

How Grants for Victim Services Programs Fit an Agency's Budget

A $5,000 median foundation gift won't carry an advocate's salary, and the filings show most victim agencies don't try to make it. The usual budget stacks a large public subgrant on top of many small private checks, with local government money in between.

Grantsights' honest view: for a county-level victim agency, the VOCA subgrant is usually the anchor, and foundation money matters most for the things VOCA can't pay for. The rule bars VOCA money from fundraising, lobbying and most executive salaries, and it requires a match. Private gifts fill exactly those holes.

Who Funds Victim Services Programs: What 990-PF Filings Show

Grantsights analysis of 990-PF filings pulled November 1, 2026 found that MADD offices account for more than half of the 494 grants and about $1.13 million of the $4,957,516 total. That's why this guide reports both counts. With MADD left out, 146 foundations made 239 grants worth $3,827,581, and 13 states had 3 or more of those funders. According to IRS guidance about Form 990-PF (opens in a new tab), private foundations use the return to report their charitable distributions and activities, so every grant here traces back to a public filing.

The top of that table is lopsided. According to the filings, the Scaife foundation's four gifts to Crime Victims Treatment Center in New York, including $208,491 and $110,431 in 2024 besides the two above, came to $1.5 million, roughly 39% of everything given to non-MADD victim groups in the pull. Strip those out and the picture is a few hundred family foundations writing checks between $1,000 and $25,000. For example, Victim Services of Big Spring received $100,000 from the Broughton Foundation Trust in 2023, a rare six-figure gift to a small-city Texas agency.

Not every recipient is a nonprofit. The Lozier Foundation gave $50,000 in 2023 to the Douglas County Attorney's Office in Omaha for victim witness safety plans, which shows that some family foundations will fund a prosecutor's victim unit directly. If your unit sits inside government, a friends group or a partner nonprofit is usually the cleaner way to receive private gifts.

Victim services funders by state

These counts leave MADD out and follow the state on each 990-PF grant record.

Ohio and Pennsylvania lead mostly because a few county agencies there have long donor lists, as the examples below show. California had only a few small gifts in the pull, nearly all to MADD offices, so California agencies should lean on the statewide human services numbers further down.

5 Victim Agencies and the Foundations That Back Them

Network of Victim Assistance in Bucks County, Pennsylvania drew 15 grants worth $168,375 from 7 foundations between 2021 and 2025 in the November 1, 2026 pull. Each of the 5 agencies below shows a different way to build that kind of donor base.

1. A suburban county center with steady repeat gifts. The Independence Foundation gave Network of Victim Assistance $10,000 a year for general support in 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025. The Norman Raab Foundation added $25,000 in both 2023 and 2024 for education work, and Penn Community Bank Foundation gave $15,000 in 2023 and $16,500 in 2024. None of these is large, but together they look like a payroll line.
2. Round-the-clock crisis response in Ohio. One organization in Ohio, the Victim Assistance Program in Akron, received $25,000 from the Babcox Family Foundation in each of 2023, 2024 and 2025 for its 24/7 crisis intervention program. The Thomas and Lisa Mandel Family Foundation gave $10,000 in 2023 and $15,000 in 2024, and the Tuscora Park Health and Wellness Foundation gave $12,000 a year in 2023 and 2024 for victim advocacy, naming the Barberton program in its 2024 filing.
3. Gun violence recovery in Atlanta. Atlanta Victim Assistance received 13 grants worth $147,000 from 8 foundations. The Annie E. Casey Foundation gave $30,000 in 2023 to support healing and recovery for young adult victims of gun violence, and the Aprio Foundation gave $10,000 in each of 2023, 2024 and 2025.
4. Homicide survivors in Arizona. Homicide Survivors Inc. in Tucson got $50,000 from the HS Lopez Family Foundation in 2023 for emergency financial assistance and operating costs, then $25,000 in 2024. The Kautz Family Foundation gave $30,000 and $25,000 in 2024, and the Lucille E. Williams Foundation gave $10,000 in 2023 for executive leadership support.
5. A county center that won bigger gifts later. The Crime Victims' Center of Chester County, Pennsylvania got $10,000 from the Gordon Charter Foundation in 2023 for direct services, then $15,000 from the same funder and $25,000 from the Werner Family Foundation in 2025 for general operating costs.

Families who lose someone to homicide often need grief groups long after the court case ends. If your agency runs them, grants for grief support programs covers the bereavement funders who pay for that work.

Why the Human Services List for Victim Services Programs

Of the 494 grants to named victim groups, almost all carried no cause tag, and only a handful of foundations filed theirs as human services, too few for a list built just for victim agencies. Grantsights chose human services because it's where the domestic violence, sexual assault and child advocacy guides point, and those agencies share funders with general victim programs. The free preview on the Grantsights human services funder list shows human services funders across your state, not funders picked for victim work, so read each one's past grants for crisis, safety or justice gifts before you write.

These rows count every human services grant on 990-PF returns in Grantsights analysis of filings pulled October 29, 2026, not only victim services gifts. Notice the medians: they match the $5,000 median for named victim groups almost exactly, which tells you a victim agency is asking the same family foundations as every food pantry and shelter in town. One state's complete funder list costs $29, a full year covering every cause in every state costs $99, and you can get your money back on either within 30 days.

What the VOCA Statute Doesn't Tell You About Subgrants

The VOCA statute sets 6 conditions a program must meet before a state can fund it, and the regulation turns several of them into hard numbers, starting with a 20% match. According to the text of 34 U.S.C. 20103(b) in the 2024 edition of the U.S. Code, an eligible program must be run by a public agency or nonprofit, show a record of effective services plus outside financial support (or substantial outside support), use volunteers unless the state waives that, promote coordinated public and private efforts to help victims, assist victims in seeking compensation, and not turn away victims who disagree with how the state is prosecuting their case.

Here's what that list leaves out, and where to find it:

1. "Substantial outside support" has a number. Per the regulation at 28 CFR 94.112 (opens in a new tab), a program meets that test when at least 25% of its funding in the award year or the year before comes from sources other than the Crime Victims Fund. Foundation gifts count, and non-federal money can do double duty toward your match.
2. The match is 20%, in cash or in kind. Under 28 CFR 94.118 (opens in a new tab), subrecipients must contribute not less than 20% of each project's total cost, unless they're a tribe, a project in a territory (Puerto Rico excepted) or hold an approved waiver. Volunteer hours, donated space and non-VOCA victim services all count, but they must be documented like paid staff time.
3. Two documents describe waivers differently. The eCFR text, current as of October 29, 2026, says match waivers come from the OVC Director. The statute, as printed in the 2024 U.S. Code, says each state's chief executive may waive a matching requirement and must publish a policy explaining how a program asks for one. Ask your state agency for its written match waiver policy before you budget a match you can't raise.
4. Volunteers are required unless waived. Per the rule at 28 CFR 94.113 (opens in a new tab), programs must use volunteers to the extent the state requires, and a waiver takes written proof of your efforts to recruit them or of why you can't.
5. Some costs are off limits. The rule at 28 CFR 94.122 (opens in a new tab) bars VOCA money from lobbying, research beyond project evaluation, fundraising, capital improvements, direct reimbursement of victims, most medical care and, except where the subpart allows it, the salaries and expenses of executive directors, board members and other administrators.

That last list is the strongest argument you have with a foundation. A program officer who asks why you need private money can be told, accurately, that federal victim dollars generally can't pay your director, your fundraising or your building. The DOJ side of this money, including allocations and national notices, is covered in DOJ crime victim assistance grants, so this guide won't repeat its figures.

Crime Victim Compensation Pays Victims, Not Your Agency

According to the text of 34 U.S.C. 20102, OVC grants each eligible state compensation program 75% of the amounts it awarded in the previous fiscal year, other than property damage awards, and the program may spend no more than 5% of that grant on training and administration. The state program then pays victims and survivors directly for medical costs (including mental health counseling), lost wages and funeral expenses caused by violent crime, drunk driving and domestic violence included.

A common mistake is listing compensation as agency income in a grant budget. It isn't. Your agency's job is to help clients claim it: the VOCA statute makes assisting victims in seeking compensation a condition of victim assistance funding, and the regulation describes that help as finding eligible victims, filling out forms, gathering documents, tracking claim status and speaking up for the victim with the compensation program. Count the claims you help file and the dollars your clients receive. Foundations understand that number quickly, because it shows money reaching families that your own budget never touched.

The rule at 28 CFR 94.112 also lets a state give victim assistance money to its compensation program, but only for direct services that go beyond processing claims, such as crisis intervention and referrals. That's why one recipient in the hand-checked sample was a state compensation fund.

OVC's National Grants as of November 2026

According to DOJ's Office for Victims of Crime, whose current funding page Grantsights read on November 1, 2026, just 1 notice is listed: the FY 2026 Specialized Human Trafficking Assistance: Task Forces and Legal Services program, with a Grants.gov deadline of December 1, 2026 and a JustGrants deadline 7 days later, on December 8. It's a trafficking program, not a general victim services grant, so most county victim agencies aren't the right applicant. The page also says the Office of Justice Programs expects to announce Fiscal Year 2025 human trafficking awards in the coming weeks.

For a general victim agency, the honest read is that national OVC money isn't a reliable route this year. Check the page each quarter, and watch your state agency for its next VOCA subgrant round, since that's where local programs compete. OVC's state support map (opens in a new tab) lets you pick your state and see its work with OVC. Agencies that also run civil legal help for victims should compare the federal legal aid routes in best grants for legal aid nonprofits.

Common Mistakes in Victim Services Grant Requests

These 5 mistakes have nothing to do with the quality of your advocacy, and each is easy to fix before a funder whose gifts center on $5,000 reads your request.

• Hiding the VOCA dependence. Funders know VOCA swings from year to year. A red flag for them is a budget that's 80% one public grant with no plan for a cut. Say what share VOCA pays and what you'd protect first if it shrank.
• Underestimating the match. Agencies often underestimate how much volunteer time they must log to meet a 20% in-kind match. Track volunteer hours with timesheets from day one.
• Asking a family foundation for a federal-size amount. The non-MADD median was $5,000. Read a funder's past gifts first; how to read a 990-PF shows where to find them.
• Describing services without counts. Report victims served, court hearings attended, safety plans written, compensation claims filed and hotline calls answered.
• No legal home for a government unit. A prosecutor's or sheriff's victim unit may need a partner nonprofit or fiscal sponsor to take private gifts. What is a fiscal sponsor explains how that works.

A Victim Services Program's Funding Calendar

This 12-month plan pairs your state's VOCA cycle with foundation asks. Your state agency sets the real subgrant dates, so confirm them before you plan around this table, which is illustrative, not data.

Agencies that want an operating-support strategy beyond victim funders should read grants for nonprofit operating costs. The Grantsights grant database tracks open federal and state notices, including justice and safety programs your partners might apply for.

Related Guides for Victim Services Programs

The line between a general victim agency and a specialized one matters to funders, and 4 other Grantsights guides cover the specialized side. A center that mostly serves partner abuse survivors belongs with grants for domestic violence programs, and one whose caseload is mainly sexual violence fits grants for sexual assault centers. Agencies that run forensic interviews for children should read grants for child advocacy centers, and those working with trafficked people should see grants for human trafficking survivor programs.

On the federal side, DOJ crime victim assistance grants explains how OVC and the Office on Violence Against Women split their notices. If your advocates staff a crisis line or mobile response, crisis intervention grants covers the 988 and mobile crisis money that sometimes pays for shared phone and outreach work.

FAQ: Common Questions

How many foundations give grants to victim services programs? 301 foundations made 494 grants to named victim groups in the November 1, 2026 pull; 146 without MADD.

Can a nonprofit apply for VOCA money directly? No. It applies to its state administering agency's subgrant round.

How big is a typical foundation grant to a victim services program? The median was $5,000 with MADD left out.

What match does a VOCA subgrant require? At least 20% of project cost, in cash or in kind, unless waived.

Why does Grantsights point victim services programs to the human services list? Most gifts had no cause tag, and human services matches the related victim guides.

Does state crime victim compensation fund our agency? No. It pays victims directly; your agency helps them apply.

Sources

• GovInfo: 34 U.S.C. 20103, Crime victim assistance (2024 edition) (opens in a new tab)
• GovInfo: 34 U.S.C. 20102, Crime victim compensation (2024 edition) (opens in a new tab)
• eCFR: 28 CFR Part 94, subpart B, VOCA Victim Assistance Program (opens in a new tab)
• eCFR: 28 CFR 94.112, Types of eligible organizations and organizational capacity (opens in a new tab)
• eCFR: 28 CFR 94.113, Use of volunteers, community efforts, compensation assistance (opens in a new tab)
• eCFR: 28 CFR 94.118, Project match requirements (opens in a new tab)
• eCFR: 28 CFR 94.122, Expressly unallowable sub-recipient costs (opens in a new tab)
• Office for Victims of Crime: Current Funding Opportunities (opens in a new tab)
• Office for Victims of Crime: OVC Support to States (opens in a new tab)
• IRS: About Form 990-PF (opens in a new tab)