WASHINGTON, D.C. –– The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) announced this week the availability of about $125 million in funds for Community-Based Job Training grants.

“These grants will help workers across the country prepare for good jobs," Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said. "Funding community colleges and career centers ensures that we will reach a broad base of individuals in need.”

Community-Based Job Training grants will be awarded through a competitive process to support workforce training for high-growth and high-demand industries through the national system of community, technical and tribal colleges. In order to be eligible for consideration for the grants, an applicant must fulfill one of several requirements.

First, the organization must be an individual community or technical college, such as a public community college, a nonprofit community college, a tribally controlled college or a tribally controlled university.

Second, the organization must be a community college district or a state community college system, or a One-Stop Career Center in partnership with its local workforce investment board that specifies one or more community or technical colleges where education and training activities will occur. Organizations which are an entity proposing to serve an educationally under-served community without access to community or technical colleges that meets requirements outlined in the solicitation for grant applications are also eligible.

It is anticipated that awards will range from $1 million to $3 million each. The exception is that applications including three or more community, technical or tribal colleges will be considered consortium applications and may request awards ranging from $1 million to $5 million. Additionally, the ETA expects to allot up to $50 million of the total designated funds to organizations that have never received a Community-Based Job Training grant.

To view the full solicitation online, visit/www.doleta.gov/grants/find_grants.cfm.

For additional assistance in applying for these grants, interested parties should review ETA’s online suite of resources for grant applicants. These tools introduce potential grantees to ETA grants and provide examples to guide applicants through the process. The site also includes “Grant Applications 101,” an interactive, self-paced tutorial. The toolkit is available at www.workforce3one.org/page/grants_toolkit.