VA awards $111.9 million in suicide prevention grants to 191 community organizations
The one-year grants from the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program, announced Sept. 29, become available with the 2027 fiscal year. Nonprofits, tribes and state and local governments are among the recipients.
Washington. The Department of Veterans Affairs said on Sept. 29 that it has awarded $111.9 million in grants to 191 community organizations that provide suicide prevention services to veterans. The money comes from the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program and becomes available at the start of the 2027 fiscal year, on Oct. 1.
The program pays organizations to reach veterans outside VA's own clinics. In the department's figures, 61 percent of veterans who died by suicide in 2023, the most recent year with data, had not received VA health care in the last year of their lives.
Who received the grants
The department's award list names 107 new grantees and 84 renewals. Grants range from $100,000 to $750,000, the most the program allows an organization in a year, and 77 recipients received the full amount, by the Herald's count. Alongside nonprofits, the list includes the Cherokee Nation and other tribes, state veterans agencies in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and elsewhere, and county governments such as Harris County, Texas, and the County of Los Angeles. Grants for California alone total about $10.4 million, more than for any other state.
The funding notice, posted in March, put the money available at about $111.9 million and expected 150 to 160 awards. Current grantees performing satisfactorily could apply to renew at no more than their current award, and new applicants were funded from what remained. A current grant that was not renewed ends Sept. 30.
What the money pays for
Grantees provide outreach to veterans at risk of suicide, mental health screening, case management, peer support, emergency clinical services, and help obtaining VA and other benefits. They can also pay for emergent needs such as transportation, legal services and child care. Most of the services are not clinical, according to the program's page, and they may include faith-based components.
In 2025, about 17,000 veterans, service members and family members received services through Fox grantees, 31 percent more than in 2024, the department said. Grantees connected 2,647 veterans who had not used VA health care before to the department's care.
The funding notice cites Executive Order 14332, Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking. Under it, the department says it will not fund activities that "use racial preference for eligibility criteria or promote gender ideology," or that promote or facilitate violations of immigration laws.
Congress created the program in the Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act of 2019, and it made its first awards in September 2022. Grantees may apply to renew their awards from year to year.
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