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2017 Expanding Patient-Centered Addiction Care Request for Proposals
Frequently Asked Questions: December 22, 2016
ELIGIBILITY FOR ALL MEHAF FUNDING OPPORTUNTIIES
Eligible applicants will meet the following criteria:
· 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charity, federally-recognized tribe, governmental or other public, non-profit entity
o Note: Individuals and for profit entities are ineligible. We typically do not fund fiscal sponsorships, organizations with pending 501(c)(3) status, and private foundations. MeHAF has specific requirements for 501(c)(3) public charities operating under subsection 509(a)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (known as “supporting organizations”.)
· Serve medically underserved people in the State of Maine
o Note: MeHAF considers medically underserved people to be those who encounter multiple barriers to obtaining health care. Barriers may include social factors such as living in poverty or homelessness, lack of insurance, and/or medical conditions such as mental illness or substance use.
Please contact Cathy Luce () or Holly Irish () if you have questions about your organization’s eligibility to apply for a grant from MeHAF.
ELIGIBILITY AND PRIORITY CONSIDERATIONS FOR THIS RFP
Q. Who can apply for this grant from MeHAF?
A. Applicants for this RFP must meet the following additional requirements (in addition to those listed above, which are for any applicant to MeHAF):
o Applicants must already be serving un- and underinsured populations.
o Eligible projects must include primary care providers and behavioral health specialists with expertise in substance use and addiction care.
Q. Can you provide more information about the intended focus of the RFP with regard to priority populations?
A. While not required (and not scored in the application), MeHAF will give priority to projects that serve pregnant women, new mothers, and infants who are affected by substance use disorder. Again, while not required (and not scored), MeHAF will also give priority to projects that serve people in rural areas. Please note that eligible applicants for this RFP must already be serving un- and underinsured populations.
Q. Will MeHAF consider projects that focus on incarcerated individuals with substance use disorders?
A. No. This RFP is focused on building capacity in primary care settings.
Q. In the Communities/Cities & Towns Served section at the beginning of the online application, we are asked in which county(ies) we will focus our project. Does this mean our project has to cover an entire county?
A. No. This is a coding data question that simply provides MeHAF with aggregate information about all our grant projects and applications over time. Scoring is not impacted by your response to this question.
Q. We are a statewide organization and would like our project to focus on the entire state of Maine. Is that acceptable?
A. No. Given the intent of this funding opportunity, we recommend that projects focus on local areas consistent with service areas of applicants and partners.
Q. We have a very effective program for medically underserved people who are struggling with opiate addiction that does not involve MAT services. We would like to expand this program. May we do that through this grant?
A. No. This RFP is focused on expanding capacity for MAT, whether through planning or implementation activities.
Q. I am not sure if we should apply for planning or implementation funding.
A. If you are already providing MAT services, you should apply for implementation funding. If you are not already providing MAT services, you should apply for planning funding.
Q. Is implementation funding necessarily for expansion of MAT into new sites?
A. No. Implementation funding may also be used to expand delivery of MAT at a current site (whether to expand delivery to additional patients or to increase the number of providers able to deliver MAT).
SHARED LEARNING REQUIREMENTS AND INTENDED IMPACT
Q. Can you give an example or two of the types of technical assistance that could be provided during a convening of grantees?
A. Technical assistance could include: sharing of best practices across a community or county; addressing stigma associated with MAT; learning how to incorporate substance abuse-related health information exchange data into workflows to improve efficiency and effectiveness of MAT; or applying The National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health and Health Care (The National CLAS Standards) to ensure quality and equity in serving diverse communities with MAT.
PROJECT STRATEGIES
Q. Is there a minimum number of patients or providers to be reached by grantees through this funding opportunity?
A. No. However, we encourage applicants to project meaningful and reasonable increases in the number of patients receiving MAT and the number of providers delivering MAT through this funding opportunity.
Q. You suggest in question 4 of the application for implementation projects that we might consider expanding capacity through nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Can you please say more about this?
A. MeHAF encourages interested organizations to review recent Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) legislation with regard to Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants prescribing Buprenorphine (as this provision may address capacity constraints in practices with limited provider capacity). Note that as of this date, final rules are still pending.
PROJECT PARTNERS
Q. Are prospective planning applicants expected to complete the entire Partner Roles and Responsibilities Chart (Attachment B)?
A. No. All applicants are expected to complete the Chart for primary care providers and specialists in substance use and addiction care (note that RFP requirement that all projects must include both primary care providers and behavioral health specialists with expertise in substance use and addiction care). Planning applicants may not be able to complete the Chart for all other sector groups; however, please reflect groups that will be engaged in your planning process and take note of others that will likely need to be engaged in implementation to ensure sustained and long-term recovery for patients receiving MAT.
Q. Are letters of support required/encouraged?
A. Letters of support are not required, but please do complete the Partner Roles and Responsibilities Chart (Attachment B) and be sure to answer part b in Question 4 of the application for implementation projects, where you are asked to describe these relationships in more detail.
BUDGET GUIDELINES
Q. Can the costs associated with partners attending grantee meetings be included in the budget?
A. Yes, we encourage organizations to include those costs in their project budget.
Q. Can funding be used to purchase medication?
A. No. Funds may not be used to purchase any prescription medication.
Q. How do applicant organizations decide how much funding to allocate to partners?
A. The distribution of funds should reflect the level of responsibility, specific roles, and anticipated expenditures of partners. We recognize that the funds provided will not meet all the costs of a quality planning or implementation process. Staff time and expenditures incurred by partners (including the lead organization) that are not funded through this grant can be used as in-kind contributions to meet the match requirement.
Q. How do we calculate indirect costs for the applicant organization?
A. Applicants may allocate up to 15% of direct expenses for indirect costs. Applicants are strongly encouraged to allocate funds for indirect costs.
MeHAF offers funding for both “direct” and “indirect costs” associated with all funded projects except for Discretionary Grants, and in very unusual circumstances, other grants as may be specified by the Foundation. “Direct costs” are those costs directly related to the design, planning and implementation of a particular project. “Indirect costs” are costs which are incurred by an organization in the execution of its activities but which cannot be readily identified with a particular activity. Indirect costs include general overhead costs, such as bank, payroll processing and audit fees; liability insurance; office equipment purchase or maintenance not directly related to the project; and salaries and benefits of executive or administrative personnel who are not directly engaged in the project.
Indirect costs should be calculated on the MeHAF budget form as all direct costs multiplied by the requested indirect cost rate. Please note that both direct and indirect costs must be contained within the total amount requested, and taken together, may not exceed the maximum request amount specified in the RFP.
Refer to the Indirect Costs Appendix B in the RFP for specific items allowed in the direct costs.
Q. Can we include indirect costs for the partners or just for the lead organization?
A. Indirect costs of up to 15% of the direct program costs (not of your total request) may be included in the budget for the lead organization. Indirect costs for any partners would need to be included in the budgeted subcontract amounts for the partners and should not be separately identified in the budget.
Q. When calculating the required match, should I use the entire organization’s budget or simply the division or section within which the project will be managed?
A. In general, if you are applying from a very large organization, it will be sufficient to calculate match based on the organizational division or section. An organization is defined as the applicant organization as a whole (if a small non-profit) or, if a large organization, the logical subdivision applying for funding (such as a division of a hospital). If you have any questions, please contact Cathy Luce ( or 207-620-8266 ext. 104).
Q. Can an organization’s budget include an undesignated or unallocated amount for anticipated future work?
A. No. All funds requested must be allocated to project activities that are described in the budget narrative. Budgets for subsequent years in multi-year grants are to be submitted on an annual basis.
SCORING
Q. What are key considerations in how the proposal will be scored/reviewed?
A. The scoring criteria are included in the RFP. Additionally, proposals will be evaluated on the extent to which they include priority populations. (MeHAF will give priority to projects that serve pregnant women, new mothers, and infants who are affected by substance use disorder. MeHAF will also give priority to projects that serve people in rural areas.)
ONLINE APPLICATION PROCESS
Q. I am not sure if I have a MeHAF account.
A. If you have applied for a MeHAF grant in the past, you have a MeHAF account. Please contact Cathy Luce ( or 620-8266, ext. 104) or Holly Irish ( or 620-8266, ext. 115) to verify your account information and ensure you have login credentials.
Q. For questions with multiple parts, is there a limit on the character count for each part?
A. No. For example, for question 4, if you are a planning applicant, you have 10,000 characters to answer 4a and 4b (including their sub-questions) under “planning projects.” You can use these 10,000 characters however you like, but please make sure to answer all parts of these questions. Note that the character count does not include the work plan, which should be completed and uploaded as a separate attachment.
Q. How will the reviewer know that I am answering the planning set of questions, for example, for question 4, if both the planning and implementation questions are numbered the same?
A. We ask you to tell us if you are applying for planning or implementation funding by checking the appropriate box at the beginning of the online application and indicating this in your project abstract. This will inform our review of your application and flag for us the appropriate set of questions to which you are responding.
Q. Our organization started an online application, but now I can’t get back into the application. How do I access my in-progress, saved application?
A. You can access your application from MeHAF’s Grantee Portal by clicking on the Grants Center menu option on our website and then clicking on the orange Login button on the Manage Your Grant page. You can also do so using this link.
Make certain you are logging into the grantee portal using the same email address used when creating your account. Please contact Cathy Luce ( or 620-8266, ext. 104) or Holly Irish ( or 620-8266, ext. 116) for specific assistance with the online application process.
Q. How will I know that MeHAF received my application?
A. After hitting the “Submit Application” button, you will receive a confirmation email message. If you do not receive the email confirmation, please contact Cathy Luce or Holly Irish (see question above for contact information).Please note that our confirmation emails are sometimes routed as spam by recipients email systems. Please check your spam folder.
Q. We are having trouble keeping within the character count limits. May we transfer some character count quotas from one section of the application to another?
A. Since the application process uses an online electronic submission, we do not have the flexibility to shift character counts from one section to another. Sometimes, using bulleted format can help reduce the number of characters, while maintaining content. However, since the online application system does not format bulleted text well, we recommend you use a hyphen or dash (- or –) to designate bulleted items. Another tip to reduce character count is to keep the work plan narrative (subject to the character count) to a high-level description, then provide the necessary detail on the work plan chart attachment (which is not subject to the character count).
Q. What is the best way for me to enter information into the narrative boxes of the online application?
A. We strongly recommend that you write your responses to the narrative sections in a Word or text document before you begin filling out the form. You may then copy and paste your answers into the online form. This process allows you to easily determine whether you are staying within character count limits, and will also serve as a back-up in the event there is an internet connection failure. Do not use formatting tools in your document, as they will not carry over into the online fields. Please only use plain text. Do not use bulleted lists, bold, underline, or italics. You may use quotation marks, numbered or hyphenated lists, dollar signs, parentheses, and hard returns.
Q. Can we upload additional documents?
A. Please do not upload documents that are not requested in the RFP. If you are unsure about whether to upload additional documents with your application, please contact Program Officer Kathryn Rouillard ( or 207-620-8266 ext. 118).