ROUGHLY EDITED TRANSCRIPT
ILRU
An invitation to Apply for New Awards – Guam /
American Samoa
July 7, 2015
9:00 p.m. EDT
Captioning Provided by:
Closed Caption Productions
Phone: (602) 4560977
REALTIME CAPTIONING AND/OR CART (COMMUNICATIONS ACCESS REALTIME TRANSLATION) ARE PROVIDED IN ORDER TO FACILITATE COMMUNICATION ACCESSIBILITY AND MAY NOT BE A TOTALLY VERBATIM RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS.
> PAULA McELWEE: For those of you who have joined, please bear with us another minute. We will start the call as soon as we clear an access issue for one of our participants.
I think we've got that taken care of. We're going to turn on the recording in just a second and we will start the training.
> PARTICIPANT: Thank you so much.
> PAULA McELWEE: You're welcome. Access is important to us, and so we want to make sure everyone can access the information.
Thank you all for joining us this today. This is the training that is presented by Independent Living Research Utilization (ILRU) as part of our ILNET network of training and technical assistance, and this is related specifically to an invitation to apply for new grant awards that will be hopefully issued this fall. These awards are now through the Department of Health and Human Services. A year ago when some of you may have applied or thought about applying, it was with the Rehabilitation Services Administration through the Department of Education. That's no longer since WIOA. That has not been the case.
Sharon, I'm not seeing the captions. Hold on just another second.
> SHARON FINNEY: They're streaming.
> PAULA McELWEE: If you can see them, that's fine, but they're not showing on my screen. If everybody else can see them, I won't worry about it. They're streaming. All right! I won't worry about it. Sorry about that delay.
So the invitation is from the department of Health and Human Services through the Administration for Community Living through the new Independent Living Administration that was established with the passage of the most recent Rehabilitation Act version. So this is related specifically to Centers for Independent Living.
There are some essential dates to remember. Of course, today is our preapplication meeting. So you know, this is being recorded, and we will be posting it on our Web site. So if there's something that you think later "oh, gee, did they talk about on the webinar, I want to go back and check," it should be available to you at that time. So we will be posting it probably tomorrow. We will give you the link for that. Sharon will type it in the chat box so that you all have that link. And the general page I'm going to give you for technical assistance information will also be visible on that menu of things if you'd like.
That's today. But, of course, we can do a little bit more than that by accessing it later. July 21st is the deadline for you to submit a notice of intent to apply, and August 17th is the deadline for the transmittal of any applications. I want to strongly urge you not to wait until the last moment. There can be technical glitches, first of all. So just take a look at the time changes the time differences, which you know better than we do, but the time zone differences and the technical glitches between those two can cause some confusion. So don't wait until the last minute. If something goes wrong on the technical receipt end of things, you don't want to get caught after all the hard work that I know you all put into your application. So please try to beat that deadline by a few days so that that's not a problem.
Just a disclaimer here, ILRU is a private contractor. I'm not ACL. I don't really speak for them. We're contractors with them just like you are if you come from a center now or you will be in the future. So we cannot actual 30 speak for them. There may be questions that you'll ask that we're not sure yet how ACL will interpret them and we may be sending you back to that information at some point. So keep that in mind.
Each applicant is responsible for completing their own application process and for clarifying any rules and regulations. What we're giving you is our best interpretation of the public materials that have been put out around this grant, and so we want to just make sure that you know if a question is really crucial, you probably want to check it with the ACL contact we'll give you in just a minute.
The first thing you want to know is that next deadline. That July 21st deadline to submit a notice of intent to apply. You send that notice, in fact, any of your questions or issues that you have as you go through the application process, same person, you'll want to make sure that you have this email address and you can also late herb get a phone number. You'll want to make sure that you submit an email to Veronica Hogan at ACL and we understand an email is all that's needed. But we recommend that the authorized person, and we'll talk about what that is or who that is, the authorized person actually write a letter on your stationary. If you have the capacity to scan it as a PDF. And attach it to your email to Veronica Hogan. That probably is the most official way that you can actually give your notice of intent. But I talked to her about this a couple of days and she said she would accept and she said she would accept either. So it probably isn't necessary to do the letter, but I think it's still more proper. So keep that in mind.
The purpose of the program is to provide support and planning, conducting, administering and evaluating Centers for Independent Living in compliance with a specific Section of the title 7 of the Rehab Act. This is Section 725, and there are standards and assurances in that Section of the Rehab Act that you'll need to meet. That's the purpose of this program, is to fund a center in each of the in each of Guam and American Samoa through this grant application. And that means to prepare the grant you really need to know, if you don't already, what it is that the grant is asking for.
Now, we've gotten an overview for you at this link, and you can click on this link, it will take you to a page on ILRU's website and that will be everything we have that has to do with this particular grant opportunity. So we've tried to put in links related to regulations, this presentation will be archived on that page. You'll also see another PowerPoint presentation we prerecorded which you may or may not have had time to see, but that's around the eligibility of an organization to be considered for these applications and the requirements that have to be met. So hopefully that's helpful to you. It's a little more than the Federal Register announcement includes. So you might want to keep that in mind.
Now, for the person the caller who is not online with us, any caller that's not online with us, go to ILRU.org, put Guam or American Samoa in the search bar on the lefthand side, and you will see this all pop up and you will be able to get to this web to this PowerPoint presentation. There will also be a transcript of the presentation available to you after the fact as well, and there's a transcript of the first PowerPoint presentation available on that same page. So keep all that in mind.
There are two distinct grant awards. One of them is for American Samoa and one is for Guam. The amounts have already been determined. So the amounts that you see on the screen, the $154,046 for American Samoa, and $95,096 for Guam [no audio [you need to stick with those amounts in the grant you create for your grant application. The reference number you'll need on a regular basis is here on the screen for you as well. So that reference number is 93.432. And that reference number is going to show up a number of times when you're searching. So you'll want to keep that information because I'm going to give you some instructions on how to get onto to grants.gov where you apply. It's the same number for both of these grants.
Now, if you plan to serve both, you still have to develop two separate and freestanding grant applications. And, in fact, it's very important that there be distinctions between your grant applications, especially around how you determine the need for that area, how you work with the SILC in your territory. Those are things that are going to vary from Guam to American Samoa and so you want to make sure there are distinctions in your application between these two ebb entities these two territories as you apply if you decide to. Remember, it's possible, if you apply for both, to only receive one. So whatever you have in your budget has to allow for each of these to stand alone, and then you can do a budget revision later if you get them both then you don't have to spend all that money, that will be okay. You can get a budget revision later to do more in the services area and less in administrative if you happen to get them both. We know some of you may decide not to apply, you may think being about it, feeling it out. If you decide not to apply, we would like to see a strong center in each of these territories, and we hope that you will help us get the word out if you know of other entities that might apply. So, again, use that link and make sure that you pass that information on to anyone that you know that might be interested.
Now, one of the questions we get a lot is "If I'm already existing as a center in another place, can our center apply for these funds?" And the answer is yes. If you're proposing expansion of an existing center through the establishment of notice this language separate and complete center. Now, the governing board might be the same over two. They allow that you might share administrative policies and procedures and some administrative staff might work over both of them. So, for example, obviously with this size grant you don't have the money to hire an Executive Director and an accountant and an HR person and whatever else administrative you want to think about. So you need to look at how can we match that with our existing center and share those costs, and that's allowable, but it does have to have all of the services and have its own location geographically and has to be set up in that way. So they're not looking for a remote center. They're not looking for something that people access by email. They're looking for a center that's actually geographically located on Guam, geographically located in American Samoa. So those are things that you need to keep in mind as you do your application.
Except for that sharing of admin stray of the governing board and some of the administrative costs, an applicant that is currently receiving a different grant cannot apply for these grants. Except if you're sharing just those portions.
Now, to get a grant packet you can go to grants.gov. Remember that reference number I gave you, that number that will get you in. And you can actually go in. And we have for you a quick sure on how to get to that application information. Don't follow that link right now, but it will be posted for you and you can grab it later. That will take you right into grants.gov, and it won't take you in. It will show you my computer screen as I go in, but it will take you through the steps so you know how to get in there. Those applications are available on the Web site right now so you can download a copy to work on at your desk, you can do that on paper, and then fill it back in, or you can it's downloadable and uploadable. You can fill it in at your desk and then upload it later. Once you apply for grants, that's another tab on that grants.gov. They will let you save them and go back and forth and work on them as often as you need to between now and the 17th of August.
You can also, if you need to, get a copy by contacting Veronica Hogan. She is, as I said, the ACL contact person for this particular grant proposal. If you need an accessible format, you must ask her for whatever it is that you need. You can do that either by email or phone. And this is her contact information here. So if you would need an accessible format for your application or if you cannot, for some reason, download it, she can make sure that you get that application so that you can work on it.
Now, before you apply for the grant, make sure you have Adobe Reader installed. The application packages are posted in the Adobe Reader app and they are really fairly current if not the most current version, and I think it is the most current version is what they're using at grants.gov. So if you have older computers or older operating systems this could be a glitch for you and you need to find this out as early as you can. You could get a validation error that says you're using an incompatible version of Adobe Reader. So grants.gov recommends you install the earlier versions on your computer and then reinstall the latest version that's compatible with your operating system.
Now, if more than one person is working on your grant, you all need to use the same version the same operating system and the same version of Adobe Reader. That's as technical as I know how to be. I'm just repeating back to you what they've said. That's what you need to know, make sure you're current in that and that you're all of the people who are working on the grant together have the same version.
The application itself is submitted electronically. That happens at grants.gov. You can download as I said a copy to work on offload and upload and submit that. You can also work online once you register. We will talk about what you have to do to register next. And then you can save it as you go and upload it or submit it when you're finished, but you can keep all of it on grants.gov and keep working on it. We recommend, as I said before, that you upload your final proposal at least a week prior to the due date because that will give you time to resolve any technology issues. Your deadline your actual deadline for transmittal of the applications is no later than 4:30 p.m. D.C. time on August 17th. And then the funding will be available beginning October 1, 2015, and it will be funding for one year, is what you'll be issued the first time. I'll explain that actually it's a fiveyear proposal. You have the potential to have five years' worth but you only have to apply for one year right now, so that keeps it simpler if your budget and goals are oneyear goals.
Now, if you cannot submit electronically, we can help you with an exception, but they don't like to have that other process going because it's confusing. So they only grant an exception if you truly can't access the Internet or if you truly do not have the capacity to upload the necessary documents. If that's the case, I want you to contact me and I'll walk you through that process because you have to submit a written statement that you qualify for the exception at least two weeks prior to the due date, and then you have to wait for their approval if you're not going to submit electronically. So the sooner you ask for that exception the better if you're going to do that. If your exception is approved you can submit your grant in mail or by or in person if you want to go to Washington D.C.
To submit that application on grants.gov you must have some things in place for your company. Some of you come from organizations that are already established. That means you're way ahead of the ones who are thinking about creating an organization related to this grant proposal. If you're creating an organization for this grant proposal there are some things you have to have in place. So you have to secure, for example, a taxpayer identification number for the 501(c)(3) nonprofit applicant organization. You must be a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in order to apply for these funds. You get your taxpayer ID through the Internal Revenue Service. It takes this is probably the longest step in the process. Takes up to five weeks, but you can't do it unless you've already incorporated in your state or your territory. So you have to already be incorporated. Your corporation then applies for these funds. Once you have your taxpayer ID, then you have to have a DUNS number. That DUNS number, we gave you the link here for how to apply for it, it's free. It is the number that if you have an existing center it's the number that you're using for ID as your as you're setting up for your automatic draws and some of the other things. That DUNS number is a very key number that you use on a frequent basis once you're established. So you want to make sure you've got that DUNS number in place. Now, that can be created fairly quickly, one or two business days, you can do it online. Once that's done, you have to register in the system for award management. The system for award management, or the SAM system, takes 24 to 48 hours to do that. They've provide add tip sheet, and we've given you the link there, which will help you make sure that your SAM gets approved. But this is why anyone who is already with an existing organization is some steps ahead on the application here, and you can see it, I know, because this is the kind of situation where you just have some steps to go through if you are not currently an existing corporation.