Three Weeks Left in the 2011 PEP Application Period!
2011 PEP applications are due three weeks from tomorrow. How are you doing? Where are you at in your proposal development process? Maybe you’re wondering where you should be at by this point. As long as you submit by 4:30pm Washington, DC time on May 13th, it doesn’t matter terribly what your process looked like for getting to that point, but if you’re looking for direction, here’s an idea of what you should be doing in the final three weeks.
At this point, you should have already:
- Created a grants.gov account for the applicant agency or updated the existing account. If you haven’t done this yet, go to http://grants.gov/applicants/get_registered.jsp today. Account set-up can take one day or several weeks, and submission through this system is required in 2011.
- Gathered data and information to substantiate the need for your proposed project. Need information must include but should not be limited to School Health Index (SHI) scores for Modules 1-4 for each school/building participating in your project if you are a local educational agency (LEA) applicant or a community-based organization (CBO) with a school partner. If you are a CBO with no partnering school, you need to conduct another formal need assessment and include those results in your application.
- Met with key project team members and stakeholders to determine the direction your project will take in order to address needs identified.
- Made at least an initial contact with any project partners.
- Begun collecting sales quotes and other cost information and started assembling your budget narrative.
- Downloaded the grants.gov application package, familiarized yourself with how it works and what you will need to do to load the package, and begun filling out the required federal forms.
*Any tasks above not yet completed should be taken care of immediately.
This week you should:
- Gather any outstanding need data.
- Finalize your project design, including determining your project timeline.
- Finalize your management plan. Ensure adequate time will be committed to overseeing the implementation of the project!
- Finalize your partnerships and request any signed partnership agreements or letters needed.
- Gather any outstanding budget information and complete a full draft of the budget. Check to see that your proposed match meets the matching requirement. (For information on the matching requirement and calculating match, see pages 21 and 22 of the RFP.)
- Full draft your narrative.
- Continue working on federal forms and assurances and draft the required national evaluation participation commitment letter. Print completed items and obtain superintendent or executive director signatures. Scan them in and upload them to your grant package. Even though grants.gov provides an electronic signature, the actual signatures are also required per the RFP.
- Request any appendices items needed from others such as job descriptions, resumes, and the indirect cost rate proof.
Next week you should:
- Collect any outstanding appendices items and load them on to your grant package.
- Meet with key team members to review the budget and make any need budget revisions. Finalize your budget by week’s end so that you have time to fill out the federal 524 budget form, enter budget numbers in the federal 424 form on the grants.gov package, and complete your narrative ensuring it fully justifies all items in your budget.
- Collect any outstanding letters, partnership agreements, forms, and assurances with signatures and load them on to your grant package.
- Revise your narrative.
- Write an abstract.
The final week you should:
- Have another person read your narrative to ensure clarity, then finalize your narrative. Remember the narrative is limited to 25 double-spaced pages using 11- or 12-point Times New Roman, Courier, Courier New, or Arial font with one-inch margins. (Arial Narrow and Times Roman are no longer allowed.)
- Complete the Screening Form included on page 113 of the RFP and load it on to your grant package.
- Load all remaining documents to your grants.gov package. Remember only PDF files will be accepted.
- Submit your grant early. If you can submit two or more days before the deadline, that is ideal. Grants.gov has a multi-step process for accepting applications that involves applicant receipt of a total of four confirmation emails. It can take up to two days to receive all four emails. If all emails are not received, or an email is received stating there is a problem with the application, you will only be able to go in and fix and resubmit the application if the deadline has not yet passed. Hence, you should aim to submit two or more days early if at all possible.
Good luck!!
Three New OSDFS Technical Assistance Webinar Opportunities for Potential PEP Grant Applications
The Dept. of Ed has announced the following:
The Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools will be conducting three technical assistance webinars designed to assist applicants to better understand various aspects of the 2011 application process for grants under the Carol M. White Physical Education Program (CFDA 84.215F).
The first two, held on Tuesday, April 19, 2011 are identical and provide basic information about PEP. Select the one that best fits into your schedule. In addition, if you would like more information about SHI, BMI, HECAT, & PECAT, you may also want to attend the webinar on Thursday, April 21, 2011.
You will find specific information related to these conference calls pasted below, or you can access the information on our website at: www.ed.gov/programs/whitephysed/applicant.html.
PEP TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE WEBINAR SCHEDULE
- 1. Technical Assistance Webinar for 2011 PEP Applicants – Basic Information
Date: Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Time: 10:00 am, Eastern Daylight Time
Meeting Number: 745 723 332
Meeting Password: OSDFS
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To join the online meeting (Now from iPhones and other Smartphones too!)
1. Go to https://educate.webex.com/educate/j.php?ED=145829037&UID=0&PW=NYmY5MDUxZGZi&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D
2. Enter your name and email address.
3. Enter the meeting password: OSDFS
4. Click “Join Now”.
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To join the teleconference only
Please dial in using the information below:
Dial in number: 1-800-593-9940
Passcode: 5625816
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For assistance
1. Go to https://educate.webex.com/educate/mc
2. On the left navigation bar, click “Support”.
- 2. Technical Assistance Webinar for 2011 PEP Applicants – Basic Information
Date: Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Time: 2:00 pm, Eastern Daylight Time
Meeting Number: 744 238 674
Meeting Password: OSDFS
——————————————————-
To join the online meeting (Now from iPhones and other Smartphones too!)
1. Go to https://educate.webex.com/educate/j.php?ED=145828192&UID=0&PW=NMDkxZTQwNjc2&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D
2. Enter your name and email address.
3. Enter the meeting password: OSDFS
4. Click “Join Now”.
——————————————————-
To join the teleconference only
Please dial in using the information below:
Dial in number: 1-800-593-9940
Participant code: 5625816
——————————————————-
For assistance
1. Go to https://educate.webex.com/educate/mc
2. On the left navigation bar, click “Support”.
- 3. Technical Assistance Webinar for 2011 PEP Applicants – SHI, BMI, HECAT, & PECAT
Date: Thursday, April 21, 2011
Time: 3:00 pm, Eastern Daylight Time
Meeting Number: 749 562 391
Meeting Password: OSDFS
——————————————————-
To join the online meeting (Now from iPhones and other Smartphones too!)
1. Go to https://educate.webex.com/educate/j.php?ED=145828252&UID=0&PW=NNThkMThjYmU0&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D
2. Enter your name and email address.
3. Enter the meeting password: OSDFS
4. Click “Join Now”.
——————————————————-
To join the teleconference only
Please dial in using the information below:
Dial in number: 1-800-593-9940
Passcode: 5625816
——————————————————-
For assistance
1. Go to https://educate.webex.com/educate/mc
2. On the left navigation bar, click “Support”.
NOTE: The opinions expressed herein may not always reflect the views of the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools or the U.S. Department of Education and should not be viewed as an endorsement.. If you think ED’s SAFE AND SUPPORTIVE SCHOOLS NEWS would be helpful to a friend or colleague, please send them to: gov/news/newsletters/listserv/preventioned.html . To access the OSDFS web site please go to: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osdfs/index.html. .
SAVE THE DATE – August 8-10, 2011 ~~ OSDFS 2011 National Conference entitled Making the Connection: Creating and Maintaining Conditions for Learning
Carefully Develop Your 2011 PEP Proposal to Communicate Value to Congress
Congress has just made cuts of historic proportions to the 2011 federal budget. (The 2011 federal budget year began 10/1/2011.) A wide range of programs saw their funding reduced or were cut completely. Deeper cuts are likely to be seen in the 2012 budget.
Many organizations have been and are responding by asking you to write letters to Congress to express your support for various programs, including the PEP grant program in particular. While I agree there is a place for those efforts in this process as programs are reviewed for their value because, ultimately funds are finite, I’m now recommending a slightly different approach, a two-process…
Step 1:
Do an amazing job on your grant proposal. Really, seriously. Write an absolutely stellar proposal that articulates a clear plan that is highly responsive specifically to your local need (not just generalized state or national need) and likely to work. Be sure your budget is large enough to accomplish your goals, objectives, and outcomes but modest enough to be financially reasonable. Don’t pad your budget, and don’t ask for things you don’t need. There is no generic amount that is too large for any particular size population from a competitiveness standpoint: you can request whatever you need to as long as you can justify your request. That said, don’t go overboard. Some of the education programs cut first this year were programs with histories of funding many bloated budgets that only led to marginal results. If you don’t want that to be the case for PEP, think bang for your buck.
Step 2:
Call your Congressional Office and ask to speak to the person in charge of appropriations and/or grants after asking to (and almost certainly being denied) speak to the actual Congressional Representative or Senator. Explain your personal involvement with PEP–whether that’s as an applicant hoping to receive funding in 2011 or a previously funded grantee. Many conversations have taken place and many letters have been sent outlining the basic, generalized need for this funding. It’s time to drill down to the local communities that are actually being impacted and how. You should plan out what you want to say ahead of time and make notes, because you may not be able to talk for more than a short time. Explain the specific needs your target population has, what you’ve done or what you plan to do, and how you know what you’re proposing will work or what key positive results you saw after grant implementation. This latter item is really, really important. Programs need to be valuable—showing results—to continue. This is always true, but it’s especially true right now during these dire financial straights. After your call, follow up with a letter reiterating what you said. If you’re applying for the grant this year, consider sending a copy of your proposal once it is complete. This is unlikely to affect your ability to win an award in during the competition, but it may be a valuable illustration of what specifically schools and community-based organizations are trying to do with PEP grant funds, which could be beneficial for keeping the program in the budget in the future.
In summary, if you want to see PEP continue to be funded, make an effort to show your members of Congress that this program is making a difference and that budgets currently being submitted are reasonable for the results to be achieved. Enough generic letters have been sent. It’s time for real conversations and proof of efficacy and cost-effectiveness, if we want to see this program continue.
PS You can certainly apply this approach to any federal, state, or local program you’d like to see continued!
Take Advantage of FREE PEP Grant Application Support 4/6!
Project Adventure (www.pa.org)—Insight’s exclusive adventure partner—is offering a FREE webinar focused on the 2011 Carol M. White PEP grant Wednesday, 4/6/2011 at 2pm Eastern Time! Project Adventure experts, including Bill Bates and others, will discuss their previous experiences with this grant program, provide tips for engaging stakeholders, and explain how adventure can help applicants meet state PE standards and respond to PEP elements and requirements. I’ll be speaking on the call, too, and my presentation will focus on RFP requirements and application tips. I’ll also be on hand to answer participants’ application-related questions during the event.
Project Adventure offers PEP technical assistance teleconferences each year, and they are always valuable. We’ve received terrific feedback from participants over the years, and we anticipate this year’s event will be the best yet! If you’d like to join us, email your name and organization name to registration@pa.org to register.
-Rosalie Mangino-Crandall
