Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 6, Number 4, 1 April 1989 — An lnside Look At The ANA Grant Program [ARTICLE]

An lnside Look At The ANA Grant Program

Christine A. Valles Grants Specialist It isn't often that a person who applies for grants has the opportunity to see the applieahon process from the inside, but that is what happened recently when I was asked by the Administration for Native Americans, ANA, to be a grant application reviewer. On February 27th, 1 joined about 100 other reviewers in Washington, D.C. for a week of hard work and lots of reading. Rather than use their own staff to review the proposals they receive, ANA uses people from across the country as proposal reviewers. These reviewers are given the task of reading the 100 to 150 or so proposals that are received with every applieahon deadline. Approximately two weeks after every applieahon deadline, the reviewers gather in Washington, D.C. at the ANA offices to begin their week long task of reading and scoring proposals. Reviewers are selected for their expertise in Native American issues, their familiarity with the ANA philosophy and goals, their familiarity with the ANA proposal requirements and grantwriting in general, and for a variety of other skills that may contribute to their understanding and recognition of good proposals. Because of the wide-ranging nature of applications, ANA selects reviewers with diverse backgrounds and knowledge. 1 was selected after David Dowd, one of the ANA program specialists, asked me to submit my resume for consideration. Not all reviewers are Native American, but for the most part, those that are not either work for, or with a Native American organization. Currently there are four people from Hawaii who serve as ANA reviewers. In addition to myself, the other three reviewers are Christine Van Bergeijk, an eeonomie development planner with Alu Like; Elizabeth Pa Martin, an Hawaiian attorney; and Ron Cettie, a private consultant who provides technieal assistance to Hawaiian organizations applying for ANA grants. The proposal review process began on a Monday afternoon when all the reviewers gathered for a weleome and overview by ANA Commissioner William Engles and his staff. Following the overview, reviewers were assigned to panels. Eaeh panel, consisting of four reviewers, was assigned seven or eight proposals. Eaeh panel was also assigned an ANA staff person as a liaison who could answer questions about the acceptability of budget items, interpretation of ANA guidelines, and review procedures. The ANA staff person would not answer questions pertaining to the applicant or about the quality of the proposal. Proposals are scored on five criteria. For every criterion, a reviewer gives a score and lists strengths and weakness. These strengths and weaknesses must justify the score. Later when the panelists discuss the scores, these strengths and weaknesses take on an important role because they ean convince other panel members to raise or lower their own score. ANA makes every attempt to assure a fair and consistent review of eaeh proposal, beginning long before the review process starts. They start out by giving every applicant the five criteria that are used to score proposals and the total point value for eaeh criterion. These criteria are published in the applieahon packet that eaeh applicant receives. The five criteria, worth a total of 100 points are:

1. Long-range Goals and Available Resources - worth 15 points. A good applieahon presents long-range goals within the context of the community's comprehensive social and eeonomie goals. These goals should be clearly stated in the proposal and be related to the specific project being proposed. To score high points on this criterion, the applicant must explain how the long-range goals were determined and they must show that the goals were determined with input from an entire

community. ANA wants to fund projects that are developed out of a community planning effort, not just the desire of a few people to get a grant. ANA believes that the loeal community and its leaders are responsible for determining their own goals, setting priorities, and planning and implementing projects aimed at achieving those goals. The applicant must also explain what resources it will contribute toward the project. These resources ean be human, natural or financial in nature. For example, an applicant may be able to contribute people to work on a project, an office or office equipment, land, or money as their share of the project costs. Applicants for ANA funds must provide 20% of the total project budget as their matching share.

2. Capabilities and Qualifications - worth 10 points. Applications must include either resumes or position descriptions for all the positions in a project. This would include paid staff, consultants, project advisors, and even volunteers if they have a major responsibility in the project. Reviewers look for resumes or position descriptions showing that the people involved with project are qualified to carry-out the project activities. There should also be a clear indication that there is one qualified person who is responsible for the overall management of the project.

3. Project Objectives and Activities - worth 45 points. One look at the number of points this criteria is worth and you ean tell, this is the heart of an ANA proposal. The reviewer will look to see that the applieahon proposes specific project objectives and activities. The ANA applieahon guidelines include examples of how to state project objectives. The applieahon packet also includes an "objective work plan" form that applicants are to use to present their project objectives and activities. To score high points, the objectives must: • be measurable and quantifiab!e; • be based on a fully described and locally determined balanced strategy for governance and for social and eeonomie development; • clearly address the community's long-range goals; • be able to be accomplished with available or expected resources during the proposed project period; • indicate when the objective and major activities under eaeh objective will be aeeomplished; and • specify who will accomplish the activities under eaeh objective.

4. Results or Benefits Expected - worth 20 points. Obviously, the sign of a good project is that it brings the community one step closer to self-suf-ficiency. In the project objectives and activities section, an applicant says how they will take this step. In the results expected section, a good application will say where this step will end up. A reviewer ean look at the results section and tell if the applicant has clearly thought out and planned the proposed project with the eommunity's long-range goals in mind. Reviewers don't make value judgements about the results. That is, they would not score a proposal low because they don't think the results are worth achieving. The results of the project should be stated in very specific and measurable terms. An example of a measurable result is: "At the end of this project, five people will be employed full time, earning at least $7 an hour." The specific information provided on expected results is the basis upon whieh the success of the project ean be evaluated.

5. Budget - worth 10 points. In addition to completing the budget forms contained in the applieahon, an applicant must provide a written detailed explanation or justification for eaeh budget item. A well-developed budget should demonstrate the relationship between the total budget and the project activities. For example, if

your budget includes salary for three staff people, your activities section should say exactly what the three staff people will be doing throughout the project. As mentioned earlier, ANA will only fund 80% of the total project costs; the applicant must provide at least 20% of the total budget. This matching share ean be money or in-kind services provided directly by the applicant or by another agency on behalf of the applicant. All in-kind services and funds from another agency must be documented in the applieahon by a letter of commitment or some other type of guarantee. It is possible for applicants to get a waiver of the required matching share but this will weaken their application. The larger the applicant's share of the project costs, the greater the perception by reviewers that the applicant has made a strong commitment to the success of the proposed project. After independently scoring the proposals, panelists get together and compare their scores. If there is a big difference between scores the panelists discuss the strengths and weaknesses, explaining to eaeh other how they arrived at their score. By talking through the strengths and weaknesses of eaeh criteria on a proposal, the panelists eome to an agreement about the total score awarded to a proposal. The scores of eaeh panelist are averaged and the result becomes the official panel score for the proposal. The panel then prepares a summary of the total scores of the proposals they have reviewed and a list of all the strengths and weaknesses identified by eaeh panelist for eaeh proposal. These summaries are then turned in to the ANA panel liaison. After all the panels have turned in their scores and summaries, the scores are normalized and proposals are ranked accoding to their total score. The ranked list of all the proposals along with the summary of their strengths and weaknesses is . given to the ANA Commissioner. While the Commissioner is studying the scores and strengths and weaknesses, his staff is doing their own review of the applications of previous grant recipients and those that scored in the top half of the ranking. The ANA staff review takes into consideration their knowledge of the applicant and past experience with grant funds, along with in-house policies and priorities. After their reviews, the Commissioner and the ANA staff gather for a decision-making meeting where they take into consideration the panel scores, the staff recommendations, and the application as a whole. Thus, the score assigned by the panel, though of major importance, is not the only factor considered and does not in itself determine whether an application is funded. Onee the panels have turned in their scores their work is done. We are not informed about the outcome of the review. Unless we specifically ask, we will never know if the proposals we reviewed received funding. Neither will the applicant know who reviewed their proposal. After the review process is complete and grants are awarded, the unsuccessful applicants are sent a copy of their score and the summary of the strengths and weaknesses noted by the panel. These are very helpful to applicants who wish to improve their applications and resubmit them. ANA encourages all unsuccessful applicants to try again. ANA staff are available to help applicants improve their proposals. For assistance, you ean eall David Dowd in Washington, D.C. at (202) 2457714. ANA is particularly interested in helping Hawaiian community groups apply for grants. They are concerned that very few Hawaiian groups are applying for ANA grants. Currently, ANA is planning to provide training and technical assistance to Hawaiians as a way of increasing the number of applications and the quality of those applications. OHA and Alu Like will be working closely with ANA to provide this assistance. If you would like more information about the ANA grant program eall the OHA office on Oahu at 946-2642.