RFP: Causal Research on Community Safety and the Criminal Justice System Grant

RFP: Causal Research on Community Safety and the Criminal Justice System Grant

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Arnold Ventures
Amount: Up to US $500,000
Last Updated: January 05, 2026

Summary

The Arnold Ventures RFP invites proposals for causal research on community safety and the criminal justice system. This initiative aims to generate evidence that informs effective policies to enhance safety and fairness in justice. Applicants should propose robust research designs capable of isolating treatment effects, focusing on real-world outcomes in the U.S. Preference is given to interventions with potential for policy adoption and led by early-career researchers or those without previous funding from Arnold Ventures.

Overview

Our Approach to Giving Our giving is focused on evidence-based solutions to some of the biggest challenges in Criminal Justice, Health Care, Infrastructure, Public Finance, Higher Education, Journalism, Affordable Housing, Climate and Energy, and Democracy. We support organizations aligned with our core areas. We source the majority of our proposals through direct outreach and periodically, we do issue formal Requests for Proposals. We do not currently accept unsolicited grant proposals. Funding decisions are made by the board and staff throughout the year based on a variety of criteria, with the ultimate goal of advancing our strategies. Causal Research on Community Safety and the Criminal Justice System Overview Arnold Ventures (AV) is a nonpartisan philanthropy whose core mission is to invest in evidence-based solutions that maximize opportunity and minimize injustice. AV focuses on correcting system failures in the United States through evidence-based solutions. AVs’ Criminal Justice Initiative seeks to generate new evidence to inform policies that will make communities safer and make the criminal justice system more fair and effective. This Request for Proposals (RFP) from the Criminal Justice Initiative (CJI) seeks letters of interest to conduct causal research projects of policies, practices, and interventions related to community safety and the criminal justice system. Looking for a research idea? Check out this list of recently-passed policies in the crime/ criminal justice space.

Eligibility

We've imported the main document for this grant to give you an overview. You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. To be eligible to submit through this funding opportunity, research projects must adhere to the following criteria: Propose a strong causal research design, which can reliably and validly isolate the treatment effect of a policy, practice, or intervention. Examples of such research designs include difference-in-differences, regression discontinuity, instrumental variable, and randomization.The policy, practice, or intervention being tested is in the United States. Outcomes include measures of real-world behaviors (such as crime rates or criminal justice involvement), as opposed to measures collected in a controlled lab setting or measures of perceptions