Grant Selection & Performance Task Force

Present: Ed Barrett, Jeni TiltonFlood, Matt L’Italien, Stacie Haines, Jonathan Barczyk, Robert Meinders  
Staff Present: Maryalice Crofton, Michael Ashmore, Jamie McFaul

The regular monthly work session started at 8:30 am using previously posted web meeting.

The sole agenda item was discussion of the research findings outlined in the report “Exploring Barriers and Challenges Facing Award Recipients in the Maine AmeriCorps Small Organization Grants Program.” This task force will consider the grantee selection side of things; Excellence and Expertise will tackle the training pre and post award.

In preparation for this discussion, Ed had staff send task force members the most recent Rural AmeriCorps call for proposals, the annual risk assessment tool, and the full report from Dr. Zollitsch.

Discussion opened with a focus on the finding that the current practice of using only submitted documents and public information is not adequate. Those materials often portray an overly rosy capacity, understanding, and support for the grant in the applicant agency.

Some observations made in discussion were

  • Some of the recommendations in the report are not possible to implement in a government competition.
  • There is a different risk in pairing up new applicants with existing ones for a blunt assessment of the work load. New applicants are obviously competitors and there is an incentive to limit competition. Another risk is that grantees habits are not necessarily compliant (still learning, may not have kept up with constant federal changes) and having them share those habits causes other problems.
  • A significant finding relates to traits in leadership and staffing. It is clear the narrative section has to be checked through interaction with applicant staff. Leadership approaches and program staffing levels are make or break elements in success, according to the report.
  • Applicants can appear fiscally sound and adequately staffed on paper but that is not sufficient to determine capacity to implement AmeriCorps as currently required under federal rules.
  • It is obvious that success planning or processes in applicant organizations plays a role in “failures.” Need to explore this during selection.
  • Even though Commission program development staff person walks agencies through AmeriCorps requirements and expected proposal contents (uses last RFP released), applicants don’t grasp the time and attention to detail that implementation will require.

As task force members transitioned to discussion of how to change Commission processes, it was noted some changes could be done immediately for the competition that opens in February 2021. Others will take longer to develop so won’t go live until 2022.

Immediate changes:

  • Add interview to technical assessment process conducted by Task Force. This will add time to the workload but is expected to ensure grant resources are awarded only to organizations ready to implement.
  • Eliminate the AmeriCorps Readiness survey from additional documents submitted and move assessment of the elements covered into interview. In particular, interviews need to explore these elements in a structured manner that guards against bias or unequal consideration:
    • leadership style, organizational management style
    • problem solving skills and crisis management capacity;
    • succession planning and processes (particularly important in small organizations because the typical way for an individual to advance in a career is to change agencies)
    • the degree to which the proposed AmeriCorps program fits the applicant’s strategic plan, advances its mission, etc.
  • Make some changes in the application content to both inform peer or task force reviewers and highlight for applicant the effort they must commit.
    • Move implementation timeline out of narrative and into additional document. Commission provides list of tasks required and applicant indicates who will be responsible, amount of time devoted, and completion date.
    • Return logic model to required part of proposal. It is now completed after selection.
  • Add eligibility criteria to applicant section. Only organizations that attend all bidders conferences can apply. (Note: Intent is that applicants participate in BCs that cover full content; if series is repeated, an organization would not have to attend repeat presentations.)
  • Modify bidders conference content to add drafting logic model. It currently covers proposal and operations basics related to program design and proposal contents.

Changes for 2022:

  • Develop and post videos of interviews with small organization program directors. Discussion would center around what was required to stand up the program after grant was awarded. What worked and what did not. Goal is to deal with finding that the applicants thought they understood requirements but, upon reflection, did not understand the magnitude of the work.
  • Develop case statements for both successful and failed efforts that are scrubbed of ID but highlight contributing factors for both situations.

A final point was that the task force technical review does not have a point value that is strong enough to reflect accurately the strength or weakness of the elements they consider. Staff will make a recommendation on changes in the total value and distribution among elements when the draft RFP is shared in February for Task Force comment/review.

There being no additional comments or discussion, the task force ended its work session at 9:32 am.