omb rocis SASP CSP Supporting Statement (Updated Nov. 2025) (final)

Supporting Statement for Paperwork Reduction Act Submission
Semi-Annual Progress Report for the SASP-Culturally Specific Grant Program
A. Justification
1.

Statutorily Mandated Need for Information

The Sexual Assault Services Program Grants to Culturally Specific Programs (SASPCSP), which is part of the Sexual Assault Services Program (SASP), was created by the Violence
Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005 (VAWA 2005) and is
the first Federal funding stream solely dedicated to the provision of direct intervention and
related assistance for victims of sexual assault. SASP encompasses four different funding
streams for States and Territories, tribes, state sexual assault coalitions, tribal sexual assault
coalitions, and culturally specific organizations. Overall, the purpose of SASP is to provide
intervention, advocacy, accompaniment (e.g., accompanying victims to court, medical facilities,
police departments, etc.), support services, and related assistance for adult, youth, and child
victims of sexual assault, family and household members of victims, and those collaterally
affected by the sexual assault.
Survivors of sexual assault from culturally specific communities frequently face unique
challenges when seeking assistance, such as linguistic and cultural barriers. Sexual assault
advocates report that survivors are more inclined to seek services from organizations that are
familiar with their culture, language, and background and that there is no “one size fits all”
solution to adequately address these critical needs. Culturally specific community-based
organizations are more likely to understand the complex, multi-layered challenges and obstacles
that victims from their communities face when attempting to access services in response to the
sexual assault. In addition, culturally specific community-based organizations have experience
forming relationships and engaging their communities and serve a vital role in providing services
that are relevant for their community.
In order to provide the most appropriate services to such victims, SASP-CSP targets
nonprofit organizations that focus primarily on culturally specific communities and have
experience in the area of sexual assault or who partner with an organization having such
expertise. See 34 U.S.C. § 12511(c)(2). The goal of SASP-CSP is to create, maintain, and expand
sustainable sexual assault services provided by culturally specific organizations, which are
uniquely situated to respond to the needs of sexual assault victims within culturally specific
populations.
Currently, there are different statutory and regulatory reporting requirements that affect
the SASP-CSP grantees. First, VAWA 2000 requires all VAWA grantees to report on the
effectiveness of their programs to the Attorney General who, in turn, must report to Congress.
OVW completes these Congressional reports every two years, providing critical information to

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Congress and the public. 1 Section 1003 of VAWA 2000 states that:
(a) REPORT BY GRANT RECIPIENTS.- The Attorney General or Secretary of
Health and Human Services, as applicable, shall require grantees under any
program authorized or reauthorized by this division or an amendment made by
this division to report on the effectiveness of the activities carried out with
amounts made available to carry out that program, including number of persons
served, if applicable, numbers of persons seeking services who could not be
served and such other information as the Attorney General or Secretary may
prescribe.
(b) REPORT TO CONGRESS.- The Attorney General or Secretary of
Health and Human Services, as applicable, shall report biennially to the
Committees on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and the
Senate on the grant programs described in subsection (a), including the
information contained in any report under that subsection.
34 U.S.C. 10238.
OVW must also comply with the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993
(GPRA) (Pub. L. 103-62), which was enacted to increase Congressional and Administrative
focus on the results from government programs and activities. Information collected on the semiannual progress report regarding performance measures, including output measures, that OVW
has developed for the different types of SASP-CSP grantees will enable OVW to meet its
reporting obligations under GPRA.
2.

Use of Information

OVW uses data from the information collection2 in different ways. OVW uses the
information collected from SASP-CSP grantees to monitor their grant-funded activities and
qualitatively assess those activities. SASP-CSP grantees collect information that addresses the
following grant-funded activities (different sections on the reporting form): staff, statutory
purpose areas, training, community coordinated responses, policies, product development,
system improvement and victim services. Narrative questions at the end of these different
sections enable grantees to give more detailed qualitative information about their grant-funded
activities. In addition, SASP-CSP grantees must answer narrative questions on the status of the
grant goals and objectives, what services or resources do you provide that are specifically
tailored to reach the culturally specific population, significant areas of remaining need, with
1 See The 2024 Biennial Report to Congress on the Effectiveness of the Grant Funds under the Violence Against
Women Act, December 13, 2024.
2 Under a cooperative agreement between OVW and the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public
Service, data collected from OVW grantees on all of OVW’s progress report forms is transmitted to the Muskie
School for analysis. For the analysis of the data, standard descriptive statistics (frequency, sum, percentage, mean,
etc.) are used to describe the characteristics of the grantees and report basic findings.

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regard to improving services to victims/survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating
violence, and stalking, increasing victim/survivor safety, and enhancing community response
(including offender accountability for both batterers and sex offenders), and what has SASP-CSP
funding allowed the grantee to do that it could not do prior to receiving the funding. There are
also optional narrative questions addressing additional information on the SASP-CSP grant and
asking grantees to provide qualitative information regarding the effectiveness of the grant.
In addition to the proposed information collection, OVW will continue to use a number
of other techniques to assess the performance of SASP-CSP grantees. These may include OVW
staff attendance at site visits, grant-funded training and technical assistance events, staff review
of products prior to dissemination, and ongoing consultation with OVW staff.
OVW will aggregate data from all SASP-CSP grantees’ progress reports to assess the
performance of SASP-CSP as a whole and to respond to Congressional, Department of Justice,
and other inquiries about how SASP-CSP funds are being used. In addition, information
collected from SASP-CSP grantees will support the following OVW measures:
Number of victims receiving requested services;
Percentage of victims requesting services who received them;
Number of protection orders issued;
Number of policies developed/revised;
Number of communities with improved CCR; and
Number of victims requesting services who received them.
Information collected from SASP-CSP grantees will enable OVW to respond to statutory
requirements to report on the effectiveness of grant-funded activities. The structure of the
Congressional report on the OVW grant programs (cited in the previous section) includes
sections that describe all OVW grant programs, the Measuring Effectiveness Initiative, the
effectiveness of different interventions that are funded by OVW grant programs, and specific
topics of interest. The Report also contains specific chapters with more detailed information on
each OVW grant program. Much of the data collected helps OVW monitor the grants to ensure
that SASP-CSP funds are being used for the purposes authorized by law and provides important
information about the quantity of authorized activities (e.g., number of trainings, number of
victims served, etc.) supported by the funds. OVW primarily relies on two sources of
information to make sure that our grantees are effective. First, OVW collects data from grantees
about what they do with VAWA funding; second, to support our assessment, OVW examines the
body of existing research that evaluates responses to violence against women. Further
information about the effectiveness of interventions supported by SASP-CSP funds is contained
in the 2018 Biennial Report to Congress on the Effectiveness of Grant Programs Under the
Violence Against Women Act.
The data that OVW collects on the semi-annual progress reporting forms is currently not
used in connection with an evaluation of the SASP-CSP.
3.

Use of Information Technology
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The collection of information will involve the use of automated, electronic, mechanical or
other technological collection techniques or other forms of information technology. OVW
grantees are required to submit semi-annual progress reports through the Just Grants System.
4.

Duplication of Information Request

There is no other mechanism by which OVW collects information about grant funded
activities, including number of victims served, victims seeking services who could not be served
or persons trained.
5.

Impact on Small Entities

There is no impact on small entities as the collection of this type of information is
routinely kept by most grantees receiving funds under SASP-CSP.
6.

Consequences to Federal Programs or Policy

Through VAWA 2000, Congress has mandated that SASP-CSP grantees report to the
Attorney General on the effectiveness of their activities funded under VAWA. If OVW was not
able to collect the information necessary to complete these reports on behalf of the Attorney
General, not only would it be failing to meet a statutorily required reporting mandate, but also
the existence of this important and necessary grant program could be jeopardized.
7.

Special Circumstances

OVW uses the minimum race/ethnicity categories. Victims who receive OVW-funded
services are not required to report demographic information and can self-report their racial or
ethnic identity. OVW collects grantee-reported demographic data for aggregate purposes only
and does not consider the data to be scientific, statistically rigorous, or representative. This is
because the data is reported by the grantee and not independently verified. Given the limited
scope of the data, OVW believes that adding additional categories would burden grantees, and
ultimately victims, and would not deepen or enhance the utility of the data.
8.

Federal Register Publication

OVW has consulted with persons outside the agency who have advised that the data
proposed to be collected is available, the annual collection of such data is not burdensome, the
form is clear, and that the information is routinely kept by most grantees receiving funds under
the SASP-CSP. OVW has solicited public comment on this form in accordance with the
requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act. A 60-day notice was published in the Federal
Register on August 21, 2025 (Federal Register, Volume 90, page 40861) and a 30-day notice was
published in the Federal Register on November 20, 2025 (Federal Register, Volume 90, page
52441). OVW did not receive any public comments.
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9.

Payment or Gift to Respondents
There will be no payments or gifts to respondents.

10.

Confidentiality

Although this information is needed for a public report to Congress, it will not involve
any personal information about victims that could identify them as specific individuals.
However, anecdotal, non-identifying information about the effectiveness of individual programs
may be included in the report. There is no assurance of confidentiality.
11.

Specific Questions

The semi-annual progress report will not contain any questions of a personal, sensitive
nature such as sexual behavior and attitudes, religious beliefs, and other matters that are
commonly considered private.
12.

Hour Burden of the Collection of Information

This semi-annual progress report is not overly burdensome. The data collection tool will
be completed by approximately 23 SASP-CSP grantees twice a year as there are 2 reporting
periods- January 1 through June 30 and July 1 through December 31. There will be semi-annual
responses, and it is estimated that it will take grantees no more than 1 hour to complete the semiannual progress report form. Thus, the annual reporting and recordkeeping hour burden is 46.
SASP-CSP grantees are informed about the reporting requirements during the grant application
process and during the grant award process. Because the semi-annual progress report covers a
six-month period, grantees are not in a position to complete the form until the end of each
reporting period.
13.

Cost Burden of the Collection of Information

OVW does not believe that there is any semi-annual or annual cost burden on
respondents or recordkeepers resulting from the collection of this information, as this
information is collected during the normal course of business.
14.

Annualized Costs to the Federal Government

The annualized costs to the Federal Government resulting from the OVW staff review of
the progress reports submitted by grantees are estimated to be $2,667.
15.

Program Changes or Adjustments

There are no program changes or adjustments for the estimates identified in Section 13
and in Section 14. This is an information collection that is necessary for OVW and its SASP5

CSP grantees to comply with the statutory reporting requirements and the Government
Performance and Results Act of 1993 (Pub. L. 103-62).
16.

Published Results of Information Collections

There will be no complex analytical techniques used in connection with the publication
of information collected under the request. Information will be gathered twice a year at the end
of the reporting periods, January 1 through June 30 and July 1 through December 31. OVW is
statutorily required to submit a report to Congress on the effectiveness of grant-funded activities
on a biennial basis.
17.

Display of the Expiration Date of OMB Approval

OVW will display the Expiration Date of OMB Approval in the upper right-hand corner
of the semi-annual Progress Report.
18.

Exception to the Certification Statement

OVW is not seeking any exception to the certification statement identified in Item 19,
Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions, of OMB Form 83-I.

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