DHS Anti-Terrorism Grants Fund School Programs, Podcasts, Video Game Clubs

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security building in Washington on July 22, 2019. Alastair Pike/AFP via Getty Images

Taxpayers are paying millions to unelected nonprofits that are shaping American culture in the name of preventing attacks from domestic violent extremists.

Using common communication tools such as podcasts, video games, and drama programs for children, left-leaning organizations are being paid to study and guide language, social connections, and politics.

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships manages the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Grant Program, which aims to prevent violence and terrorism through funding, training and increased public awareness.

Grants can go to mental health providers, educators, faith leaders, public health officials, social services, nonprofits, and others in communities across the country.

“Lone offenders and small cells of individuals motivated by a range of violent extremist ideologies, of both domestic and foreign origin, represent the most persistent terrorism-related threat facing the United States,” a DHS grant application invitation says. “Amongst Domestic Violent Extremists (DVEs), racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, including white supremacists, likely will remain the most lethal DVE threats.”

DHS has allocated $20 million to the 2023 round of the TVTP grant program and is accepting applications until April 25.

Last year it spent at least $11 million for programs that are rolling out now in communities across the country.

Here is where some of the 2022 grant money was spent.

Podcasts, Video Games, and the Arts

Muflehun

A grant of $398,000 went to Washington D.C.-based nonprofit Muflehun to develop an eight-episode true-crime podcast called “Tackle!”

According to its website, Muflehun focuses on “preventing extremism,” “accelerating equity,” “increasing stability,” and “converting climate change challenges into opportunities.”

The organization says the project will help give community leaders awareness of the threat of violence and help them recognize antisemitic and anti-Muslim bigotry.

According to Muflehun’s 85-page grant application, the money will be used over two years to research case studies, develop episode outlines, conduct interviews, develop a music score, train co-hosts, record episodes, produce and edit episodes, finalize the podcast, develop a distribution plan, distribute the podcast, and analyze the results.

The short term project goal is to “increase community awareness of the radicalization to violence process” and a long term goal is “prevention of targeted violence and domestic terrorist attacks in the U.S.

Michigan State University

A grant of $878,000 went to Michigan State University to produce, over the course of two-years, a podcast about “Drama Club,” a 12-week improvisational acting club at Rikers Island prison in New York City for incarcerated young adults, ages 18 to 21. University researchers will assess how effective the program is at reducing radicalization and will likely aim to expand Drama Club to more inmates, according to the grant application.

American University

A grant of $750,000 went to American University in Washington for its Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) to partner with a media production company to make short-form online “inoculation videos” to prevent violent extremism, the school’s 102-page application said. Notably, 40 pages of the application were redacted from public view. The program will also “train the trainers” to make such videos.

North America Scholastic Esports Federation

A grant of $750,000 went to the North America Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF), which facilitates clubs for kids who play video games and arranges competitive play.

“The goal of NASEF is to leverage students’ interest in esports to engage them in academic content and pro-social skills, particularly among underserved youth, by focusing not merely on competitive team play but also on the diverse support activities that grassroots and professional communities engage in.”

The money will be used to activate more clubs and keep students engaged in career development and social-emotional learning. It will also collect data to review how well the club structure can prevent extremist views and mitigate radicalization attempts by engaging students in activities that allow for appropriate, civil game play, the application said.

NorCal School of the Arts

A grant of $600,000 went to NorCal School of the Arts in Sacramento, California, for professional development for teachers on theater arts and conflict resolution strategies for the classroom, and a series of classes for students, taught by NorCal teaching artists. Using theater arts, the program will engage students in role playing and nonviolent conflict resolution.

Music in Common

A grant of $968,000 went to Music in Common, a Georgia-based nonprofit that facilitates dialogue, collaborative songwriting, multimedia production, and performance, bringing diverse youth together and empowering them against hate, its website says.

Its Black Legacy Project connects black and white Americans in “shared humanity. In doing so, we support the federal government’s efforts to combat radicalization by building resilience, interrupting the violent messages from organized white supremacy groups and online forums.”

The project will recruit four black and four white musicians to form the Black LP band; hire a tour manager and booking agent; embark on a tour of 50 communities; rehearse music; craft curriculum for the Black LP Experience in each community; facilitate a community conversation; and survey audiences afterward about the impact the event had on their empathy and understanding towards others across racial divides.

Media Literacy

Many funded programs are designed to teach citizens how to assess the media they consume. Some are on the lookout for political violence. All come from left-leaning organizations.

University of Rhode Island

A grant of $701,000 went to the University of Rhode Island to develop a statewide media literacy and civic engagement curriculum that will align with civic education in Rhode Island public schools. It also aims to increase educator confidence in addressing controversial current events topics in the context of media literacy and civic education.

“White supremacists and other like-minded extremists conducted two-thirds of the terrorist plots and attacks in the United States in 2020,“ the university’s grant application says. ”Anarchists, anti-fascists, and other like-minded extremists orchestrated 20 percent of the plots and attacks, though the number of incidents grew from previous years as these extremists targeted law enforcement, military, and government facilities and personnel.”

The application uses data from the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center to make the case for funding. Extremist attacks represent just a tiny proportion of the violence in the United States, the application acknowledges, but adds that it poses a persistent threat to religious and racial minorities, immigrants, LGBT people, women, and the disabled.

Southern Illinois University

A grant of $332,000 went to Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, to fund a spring 2023 survey in 41 counties in southern Illinois to measure risk factors for violence, and then provide interventions “to lower political tensions and reduce support for political violence,” the university’s grant application says.

The risk factors for lone-actor terrorism include single adult males who are unemployed, have a criminal record, or have prior military experience.

The project will conduct a series of training sessions with community groups “that are tailored to prevent local risk factors,” and will also develop a media literacy and online critical thinking program for college students.

Lewis University

A grant of $147,000 went to Lewis University in Illinois, which also based part of its grant application on information provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center. This program will develop an educator’s tool kit for teaching media literacy in grades K–12 in all Illinois counties and provide workshops to train teachers.

Carter Center

A grant of $99,000 went to former President Jimmy Carter’s Carter Center, in partnership with Syracuse University in New York, for media literacy programs in Washington and New York.

Another grant of $557,000 went to the Carter Center for a project partnering with the nonprofit Root Change to establish three “citizen-led social labs” for depolarization and violence prevention in Maricopa County, Arizona; Fulton County, Georgia; and Wake County, North Carolina.

Maricopa County was targeted, the grant application says, because it ranks first on the National Violence Risk Index, “suggesting a particularly high degree of risk for political polarization/low social trust, history of violence and political relevance variables,” the application says. “Arizona is also the state with the highest percentage of QAnon candidates running for office in 2022. While such candidates are not a direct target of this programming, their numbers suggest wider community radicalization.” Using community leaders, the program is to bolster confidence in election results and “debunk misinformation and conspiracy theories.”

LGBT Organizations

OnePULSE Foundation

A grant of $250,000 went to the OnePULSE Foundation in Florida which sprang from the 2016 Pulse night club shooting that killed 49 people. The grant would be used to bolster the foundation’s goal of increasing awareness about “oppressed populations (such as the LGBTQ) around gun violence, terrorism, intolerance and hate.” The foundation would enhance its website and hire staff with the funding.

Out Boulder County

A grant of $143,000 went to Out Boulder County in Colorado for the “LGBTQ Community Violence Prevention Project,” which will increase violence prevention awareness. The nonprofit said it will promote trust in its community by offering 10 training sessions to law enforcement to be better equipped to serve and protect LGBT individuals from violence; coordinate 35 LGBT liaisons among law enforcement agencies; and help law enforcement understand when to engage the liaisons.

A complete list of grant awards can be found online.