Promoting Access with a Language Services Assistance Symbol | MP CPI 25 004

Opportunity Information: Apply for MP CPI 25 004

The Promoting Access with a Language Services Assistance Symbol grant opportunity is a discretionary federal funding program from the Office of Minority Health (OMH), housed within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health. It is being offered for FY 2025 under Section 1707 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300u-6) and is focused on practical, real-world demonstration projects. The central idea is to test and evaluate a universal symbol that signals to patients and clients that language assistance services are available in a health setting. OMH began developing this universal symbol during FY 2024, and the FY 2025 funding is meant to support organizations in piloting the symbol, measuring whether it works, and generating evidence that can be used to expand and sustain the approach after the grant ends.

The problem the program is trying to address is straightforward: people with limited English proficiency (LEP) and people with disabilities often face major communication barriers when they seek health care or social services, and those barriers can directly contribute to worse health outcomes. OMH defines language assistance services broadly, covering oral interpretation, written translation, and signed language services needed to support effective communication. In many health environments, even when these services exist, patients may not realize they can ask for them, may not know how to request them, or may feel uncertain about whether help is available. The universal symbol is intended to reduce that friction by making the availability of assistance immediately visible and easy to understand, regardless of the language a person speaks.

Funded projects are expected to do more than simply post or display the symbol. They are meant to demonstrate the symbol's effectiveness, which implies designing an implementation plan and an evaluation strategy that can show whether awareness increases and whether more people actually request language assistance after the symbol is introduced. OMH also ties this work to Healthy People 2030 health communication objectives, meaning applicants should be prepared to connect their activities and measures to broader national goals around improving communication in health care. In practice, strong projects would likely look at outcomes such as patient awareness of services, frequency of requests for interpreters or translated materials, staff responsiveness, patient experience measures, and potentially downstream effects like understanding of care instructions or follow-up adherence, depending on what is feasible in the demonstration period.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of public and nonprofit entities located in a "State" as defined for this program. That definition includes the District of Columbia and several U.S. territories and affiliated jurisdictions, not just the 50 states. Eligible applicants specifically include private nonprofits and public entities, and the opportunity calls out faith-based organizations, community-based organizations, and American Indian/Alaska Native/Native American organizations as eligible. The structured eligibility list also includes various government levels and public institutions, such as state, county, city or township governments, special districts, independent school districts, public and state-controlled higher education institutions, federally recognized tribal governments, tribal organizations, and public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, as well as nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status (excluding higher education institutions in those nonprofit categories). The funding is associated with CFDA number 93.137 and is categorized under the Health funding activity area.

Operationally, applications must be submitted through Grants.gov, and applicants must have an active SAM.gov registration at the time of submission. Because SAM and Grants.gov registrations can take time, OMH encourages organizations to start those processes early to avoid missing the deadline for administrative reasons. The opportunity closing date listed is April 2, 2025. The grant mechanism is a standard grant award, and OMH typically structures funding in 12-month budget periods, though it notes it may approve shorter periods of performance if administrative or funding constraints require it.

In terms of scale, OMH expects to make about five awards under this opportunity, with an award ceiling of $600,000. While the notice does not spell out an exact award floor in the text provided, the ceiling and the small expected number of awards suggest a competitive program aimed at relatively robust pilots that include both implementation and evaluation. For projects that span multiple years, recipients must submit a non-competing continuation application for each subsequent budget period. Continued funding is not automatic; it depends on the availability of funds, the recipient showing satisfactory progress, responsible stewardship of federal dollars, and whether continued support remains in the government's best interest. OMH also indicates that future year amounts are generally expected to remain consistent with the initial award level, although they can be adjusted if the recipient carries forward unused funds from the prior period.

A recurring theme in the announcement is sustainability. Even though these are time-limited demonstration projects, OMH expects recipients to think ahead about how the symbol and related practices could be maintained beyond the OMH-funded period. That could involve incorporating the symbol into standard intake workflows, signage and wayfinding systems, patient portal content, discharge paperwork, interpreter request pathways, staff training, and partnership agreements with language service vendors or community organizations. The underlying goal is not just to test whether a symbol is recognizable, but to show that it can reliably trigger real behavior change (people requesting services and systems delivering them) and to position the approach for broader adoption across health settings.

• The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Promoting Access with a Language Services Assistance Symbol" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.137.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-07-31.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-04-02. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $600,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 5 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education.

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