MINUTES

2017-2018 AmeriCorps Grant Application

Review Committee

June 9, 2016

9:00 AM – 3:00 PM

Review committee members: David Clark (Chairperson), Richard Gonzalez, Kristin Mead, Paul Leggett, Jacob Johnson, Becky Lloyd, Kevin Fayles, Terry Foust, Sherry Baker, Stephen LeFevre, Debbie Hardy, Kate Hulme, Teren Taniuchi,

Staff: LaDawn Stoddard, Greg Bates, Corynn Benoit, Ruqia Qasim, Mary Buehler

Welcome/Overview:by LaDawn Stoddard, introduction of committee members. LaDawn Stoddard reviewed conflict of interest forms, and answered some questions in regards to the grant applicants.

Greg Bates and Corynn Benoit discussed their performance measures, and budget scoring decisions for each grant application.

Review Work Groups: The lead reviewer for each application presented a brief overview of the application/proposed program and summarized their work group’s discussion and consensus score.

BYU Family, Home and Social Science

Application Lead Reviewer – Debbie Hardy

Score: 80

Enrolls members recruited from their Social Work Grad program to increase client capacity of health clinics providing care for mental health and substance abuse.

Strengths:

This was a very well-written application. It covered all the required elements and gave additional information where appropriate. The premise of the application addresses a huge need in the community and is a successful utilization of the AmeriCorps members who are students in Social Work. The review committee appreciated how it was laid out and that it made it easy to find the information necessary to complete the review.

Weaknesses:

There could have been greater detail in some areas, i.e., statistics about more than children to identify the need, would have been helpful given the goal was to serve more than just children. But this did not detract from an excellent application.

United Way

Application Lead Reviewer – Becky Lloyd

Score: 39

United Way is interested in expanding their cradle-to-career support infrastructure through the development of a math tutoring program in Canyons, Davis, Granite and Park City School District. Their interest in an AmeriCorps planning grant is for executing a community needs assessment to indent gaps in the current support system for students falling behind in math proficiency.

Strengths:The application is well-written in many areas; is well focused on a demonstrated need; proposed by a very capable organization.

Weaknesses:Not consistent in the listed school districts – usually only referring to Granite School District, though initially referenced five districts. This disparity created unclear messaging in the application. Application is short on details, whether that is due to limits on the size of the application or not, would have liked to have seen a bit more to encourage understanding of the program.

Boys & Girls Club of Utah County

Application Lead Reviewer: Alan Griffin

Score: 68

Increase awareness of STEM education/activates to economically-disadvantaged students in Utah schools. Facilitate mentoring relationships to create interest in Science.

Strengths:Strong case for how AmeriCorps members are needed so that school staff doesn't have to take on the task of coordinating STEM activities

  • There is a pronounced need for STEM education. Good use of statistics.
  • Lots of retreats and communication efforts. Members will have structured monthly reflection retreats. These will provide specific time for members to reflect and document their experience. Lots of retreats and communication efforts.
  • Members will practice 30-second elevator speeches about AmeriCorps.
  • Great detail about the organization's management structure and funding.
  • Great matching (grant requires a minimum of a 26% match, they far exceed the minimum with a 45% match).
  • Great reach. They have demonstrated good reach in the past (add the numbers) and propose continuing that reach.
  • Administrative staff is well-defined and experienced.
  • Monitoring activities appear to be effective. Impressed with their whistle blower policy.

Weakness:No real mention of how AmeriCorps members will go about recruiting volunteers.

  • Mention of how supervisors are required to receive training, but no mention of how they are selected.
  • No explanation of why they requested the slot types that they did.
  • Stats regarding low income participation in STEM would be useful.
  • This grant focuses on math and science, but doesn't really describe work with Technology or Engineering, the "T"and "E" of stem. It would be better to change the wording so that "Common Core" (which applies to math and language arts) is replace by "Utah Core," which will encompass science objectives (which are closely aligned to 20th Century Skills).
  • It relies heavily on a survey for measured outcomes and doesn't provide clear evidence of the number of students who actually became more involved in STEM education or who have connections with STEM jobs based upon past work in this grant.
  • Much of the grant money is used to pay salaries, which may be a concern.
  • It was indicated that the Boys and Girls clubs received 70% of their funding from grants, which makes one wonder how sustainable they are.
  • More sample activities and lessons would be useful (only one small example).

Utah Campus Compact

Application Lead Reviewer – Kevin Fayles

Score: 78

Campus Compact is a statewide consortium of nine institutions of higher learning. Support organizations through direct service. It focuses on three areas: education, preventative health care, and capacity building for nonprofits.

Strengths: It is a statewide consortium of nine institutions of higher learning and has great stability. Indicating that the majority of students are studying to become primary or secondary teachers or nursing. Having an assessment tool is a good idea. Having members develop and implement their volunteer generation plan with their site supervisor. Knowing that the UCC would remain if the AmeriCorps program does not. Mentoring the retention rate of members. Having salaries of the coordinators paid by the campuses.

Weaknesses:The executive summary was somewhat vague and weak. IT did not clearly identify capacity building as the third program. The proposal did not inform until the fourth page that some members are nursing students. This should have been included on the executive summary as well as earlier in the proposal. Without knowing nursing students were involved, it did not make sense to have members assisting with health care.

Utah Healthcare Corps (AUCH)

Application Lead Reviewer: Ayelen Butler

Score: 72

AUCH and our members strive to reduce barriers to healthcare by enhancing primary care service delivery through prevention, health promotion and community participation.

Strengths:

•Great executive summary-well written.

•Well established program with many years of experience.

•Great research information.

•Very impressive training programs in place.

•Clear outline member responsibilities and breakdown of member groups.

•Strong member benefits and clearly outlined.

Weaknesses:

References are a bit outdated.

•No identification of administration contacts.

•No clear responsibility for the minimal time member.

•No clear details of sustainable private funding.

Boys & Girls Club of Weber/Davis

Application Lead Reviewer: Richard Gonzalez

Score: 66

Their goal is to have their AmeriCorps members do one-on-one mentoring with students, and tracking tendency behaviors.

Strengths:

•Clear goal for the S@TC program.

•Clearly stated what members will be doing to impact the goal.

•Great skills will be learned by members e.g. supervisory and data gathering skills.

•Great partnerships and the implementation of MOUs—awesome!

•Very clear end of school year results.

•Strong credentials and experience of program director and executive director—very strong team!

Weaknesses:

•Very hard to follow with the lack of clarity of acronyms.

•Many needs and problems are identified, but the applicant did not tie them back to how the program will solve those issues. The stats are strong, but did not clearly stated how they correlate with the goal of S@TC.

•Missing reference page (not sure if it was just not provided to us).

•Need clear identification of other sustainable funds.

•Not clear understanding of how many students will each of AmeriCorp member will help.

•Needs organizational strengths—the sustainability of other funds.

Mentoring for Success

Application Lead Reviewer: Stephen LeFevre

Score: 80

The Mentoring for Success program addresses an important community need and is very focused in its approach. The organization has good structure and defined responsibilities and is able to use the resources of the Ogden City School District for better fiscal management. While higher attendance is a worthy goal, the application weakly explained the specific impact on graduation rates,and the data available seemed dated and unspecific. There was not a thorough plan for overall sustainability of the program beyond federal funding.

Strengths:

Attendance leading to graduation is a valuable first step

  • Community need is well documented
  • Focused approach and specific targets
  • Specifically defined responsibilities for members
  • Impressive organizational capabilities, with good system of compliance
  • Use of established resources for fiscal management of program

Weakness

  • Not a clear desired impact beyond higher attendance (Graduation data?)
  • Didn’t explain why performance measures were appropriate (Why 15%?)
  • Evidence was dated and not specific enough
  • Overall sustainability of program beyond federal funds was not well-stated

Four Corners School of Outdoor Education

Application Lead Reviewer: Kristin Mead

Score: 39

Four Corners School of Outdoor Education fulfills both an environmental and social need in the community where it operates the Colorado Plateau region of South East Utah. The proposal details the environmental benefits the region would incur because of work the AmeriCorps members would perform- specifically trail maintenance, invasive species removal and conservation project deferred maintenance.

Strengths:The proposal clearly outlines the environmental needs that would be addressed: 1. Repairing recreational trail networks; 2. Restoring riparian habitats overrun by invasive species; and 3. Reducing deferred maintenance and conservation project backlogs. The applicant provided a thorough introduction to the Four Corners School of Outdoor education and the role it plays in the Four Corners Region- particularly in San Juan County.

Weaknesses:Community impact goals could have been more detailed. More detail needed to be given for longer term outcomes. Did not detail how AmeriCorps members specifically would be involved in volunteer recruitment. No mention of how members would be made aware of prohibited activities. No details were given on prevention and detection of compliance and/or prohibited activities, or how the organization would be accountable in instances or risk or noncompliance.

Five County Association of Governments

Application Lead Reviewer: Sherry Baker

Score: 51

The mission of the Five County Association of Governments is to Plan, Prepare and Partner with federal, state and local governments to strengthen the role of southwestern Utah local officials in the execution of state and federal programs at the local level.

Strengths: Experience with grant management in providing a wide variety of community services. A desire to meet critical community needs, and to do so in conjunction with other community service partners.

The proposal did a good job of identifying the problem and tying the problem specific to each county. The proposal also did a good job of identifying specific activities that will directly address the issues they have identified.

The proposal seems to have targeted critical needs in the 5-counties area. The organization seems to have broad community support that could lend itself well to successful implementation of these types of programs.

Weaknesses:

The grant application is short on details about program development, organization, oversight, supervision, and assessment. It reads more like a preliminary aspirational vision than a fully-developed program plan. The specific ways in which AmeriCorps members will coordinate their activities with all of the other after-school programs and community partners is not sufficiently specified. The proposal was generally disorganized; information was scattered, and it was difficult to find the information that was needed to evaluate the application.

Salt Lake County

Application Lead Reviewer: Kate Hulme

Score: 73

The members will be placed at different agencies that will be dealing with the homeless population or those who are at risk of becoming homeless including the Road Home, Community Action program, Housing authority of Salt Lake County, and International Rescue Committee.

Strengths:

  • Strong descriptions of needs, objectives, and process for implementationand evaluation.
  • Very strong plans beyond just federal support.
  • Good piece on AmeriCorps branding.
  • Strong case for how AmeriCorps members are particularly well-suited.

Weaknesses:

  • Insufficient descriptions of background and experience of program coordinator and fiscal managers. (Great explanation of Kerry Steadman, no mention of relevant experience for the others.)
  • Statistics from the last year sound great, but should have included an explanation of the difference between the actual and the target.
  • No information about how they will recruit volunteers.
  • What opportunities are AmeriCorps members given for processing?
  • How are local communities involved other than just being serviced?

Senior Charity Care Foundation

Application Lead Reviewer: Teren Taniuchi

Score: 81

Senior Charity Care Foundation provide financial assistance to those in care settings and senior apartments who require care, services or support but have exhausted all other potential funding sources and do not have the financial resources to pay.

Strengths:

They did a really good job of stating the reasons for this project, what they’re planning on doing, and providing back up data for the particular population. Very well organized, which made it very easy to follow the logic and the review and assess.

Weaknesses:

Lacked details in some sections, and seemed as though they ran out of steam towards the end of the proposal, causing their answers to be shorter and with less detail.

International Rescue Committee

Application Lead Reviewer: Paul Leggett

Score: 55

International Rescue Committee here in Salt Lake City. Their intention is to address service gaps, and maximize positive outcomes for refugees. They’re looking to identify internal strengths and weaknesses, and also undertake organizations that provide services in order to provide best services for refugees.

Strengths:The application is well written and provides a thoughtful perspective on the needs of the target population. The applicant provided a strong timeline and good examples of current programing.

Weaknesses:The applicant did not seem to follow the application guidelines closely and was missing several key pieces of information. Additionally, much of the organization overview focused on the national efforts, it would have been nice to hear about the impact of these programs in Utah.

Cancer Wellness House

Application Lead Reviewer: Jacob Johnson

Score: 44

Their mission is to deliver evidence based health and wellness programs to cancer survivors, care givers, and their families. Their strategy is to deliver evidence-based integrative holistic medicine programs including yoga, massage, acupuncture, nutrition, exercise, spirituality, and child, family, individual, and group therapy.

Strengths:

Organization has strong impact on community

Weaknesses:

Applicant provided only vague information, especially in regards to the screening training, and recruitment of AmeriCorps members. It is not clear that the organization understands how AmeriCorps members should be used. The accomplishments of the organization are asserted, but not demonstrated.

Utah Philharmonic Orchestra

Application Lead Reviewer: Terry Foust

Score: 56

The Utah Philharmonic Orchestra is creating a program called “Music Ignites” that would start in Salt Lake County. The program would focus on teaching special needs and deaf students. Students would be taught by professional music teachers. The program will use evidence-based music techniques. Children would get full tuition scholarships to the program which includes music lessons, and instruments to learn on. Children would get opportunities to attend concerts by music professionals.

Strengths:

  • This proposal provided strong documentation of the success ofmusic intervention
  • The proposal provided a well-planned implementation of theintervention
  • The application described the target population well andspecifically targeted the intervention. They specifically includedlocal Utah information providing local documentation of need.

Weaknesses:

  • Goals and objectives were not as clearly defined as they could be
  • The application did not provide strong documentation and evidenceshowing how this intervention is effective for changing the described needindicators.
  • Weak performance measures that only directly impact one identified need
  • Cost seems high at $12,000 per participant. No documentation of whatthe ROI is based on
  • Application weak on some required elements including:
  • did not identify primary and secondary contacts for grantapplication
  • did not describe organizations prior experience in administeringfederal grants
  • did not provide information on board of directors, admin and staffparticipate in planning process
  • The application was not always easy to follow or to find required grantelements.
  • Long term outcomes that impact the described need (children withdisabilities, school absenteeism, single parent homes, children living inpoverty) were not strongly associated with outcome measures

Committee Review Discussion

The committee discussion involved assessing each application for the following components and reaching a consensus score for each.

Compelling Community Need

Does the proposed project address a compelling need? Are the proposed activities “nice” or “necessary”? For example, an applicant proposes that AmeriCorps members be stationed at the national parks to serve as greeters in order to improve the public’s experience. Committee members should think about how the need of improved park visits measures up when compared to community needs outline in other applications. The committee must reach consensus on a score from 1(low) to 5 (high) in this category.