Cooperative agreement to a USA nonprofit organization, community group, IHE, for-profit, or faith-based organization to conduct activities that assist law enforcement agencies in recruiting and retaining excellent personnel. Applicants are advised that required registrations may take several weeks to complete. The selected organization will develop publications, podcasts, and other tools and resources, and will provide technical assistance to help agencies improve their hiring capacity.

Community Policing Development (CPD) Innovations in Recruitment and Hiring Program

The recruitment and selection of the best law enforcement candidates who represent a diversity of backgrounds, knowledge, and experiences is essential to building trust, collaboration, and transparency with the community. However, the ability of law enforcement agencies to recruit and select eligible candidates presents a challenge in a climate where policing is not seen by some as an appealing career. With retention of officers at an all-time low, and retirements on the rise, it is important for agencies to understand how to implement best practices most effectively regarding the recruitment and selection of officers.

Through this Innovations in Recruitment and Hiring Program, the COPS Office will provide funding to an organization to develop recruitment and hiring resources (videos, toolkits, publications, podcasts, etc.) that can be shared with the broader law enforcement field and provide technical assistance to help law enforcement agencies, in particular those funded through the COPS Hiring Program (CHP), implement improvements to increase their capacity to attract and select the best candidates and develop creative and engaging opportunities to market policing positions and expand the pool of potential applicants for their agencies.

The primary goal of this project is to help agencies improve their officer recruitment and selection efforts. The successful applicant will compile a catalog of innovative practices around recruitment and selection and develop tools and resources on overcoming common challenges to their implementation in agencies of varying size and hiring needs. Applicants should consider how agencies should select and tailor their current policies to the proposed best practices to meet their local needs, in addition to overcoming challenges to their implementation.

The selected applicant will also be expected to serve as a technical assistance resource to recent CHP awardees. This assistance could include responding to direct information requests, providing tailored resource products, hosting webinars and other informational sessions for awardees, or facilitating a community of practice with the active awardees.