Increasing the Capacity of Individuals, Families and Communities

Sub-Award Management

Hispanic Capacity Project Strategic Leverage Fund | Memorandum of Agreement

Sub-Award Excerpts

From the 2003 Compassion Capital Fund (CCF) Program Announcement, June 26, 2003³¹

Sub-Awards. The program goals will be further accomplished through the issuance of sub-awards by the funded intermediary organizations to a diverse set of small faith-based and community organizations that seek to increase program and organizational effectiveness. The total amount of sub-awards proposed in an intermediary’s application must represent at least one-quarter or 25 percent of the total Federal share, though applicants are encouraged to exceed this threshold, if possible. Applicants must develop sub-award plans that are consistent with the following principles:

• Participation in the CCF sub-award program must be open to faith-based and community organizations;
  
  
• Recipients of sub-awards must receive sub-awards through a competitive process and may not be pre-selected;
  
  
• The approach must include outreach to both faith-based and community organizations in a fair and open competition;
  
  
• Intermediary organizations must provide on-going technical assistance and capacity-building support to the organizations to which they issue sub-awards;
  
  
• The criteria for selection of sub-awardees shall not include consideration of the religious nature of a group or the religious nature of the program it offers;
  
  
• Intermediaries shall not require sub-award applicants to provide matching funds or give them a preference in the selection process if they offer matching funds in their applications;
  
  
• Intermediaries shall not require sub-award applicants to have 501(c) (3) status or to identify a sponsoring organization with 501 (c) (3) status;
  
  
• As a general rule, organizations that partner with an intermediary to deliver technical assistance or provide cost-sharing funds for the proposed project shall not be eligible for sub-awards;
  
  
• Sub-awards should be in amounts that are manageable for a small organization;
  
  
• Priority for sub-awards should be given to organizations implementing programs that address priority social service needs, such as the homeless, elders in need, at-risk youth, families and individuals in transition from welfare to work, those in need of intensive rehabilitation such as addicts or prisoners, and organizations that help couples who choose marriage for themselves, to develop the skills and knowledge to form and sustain healthy marriages;
  
  
• The sub-award plan should focus on organizations that historically have not received grants from the Federal government;
  
  
• Capacity-building activities that further the sustainability of sub-awardees’ social service efforts should form the central focus of an intermediary’s proposed sub-award concept. Sub-awards should be used to assist organizations in differing stages of development. For example, funds may be provided to fledgling organizations to improve their basic functions, such as attaining 501(c) (3) status or developing sound financial systems. Sub-awards may also be provided to promising organizations to expand the reach of existing programs. Such funding would allow a promising organization to move to a higher level of service, where it is able to assist more people on a sustainable basis. Uses for such funding might include employing a key additional staff person; moving to a larger or better-equipped facility; upgrading case management or informational technology capabilities; or supporting a new social service; and
  
  
• Sub-awards should not be used for “direct” services. Rather, they should be used to improve the sub-awardees’ efficiency and capacity. For example, an organization that distributes food to the poor should not receive a sub-award simply to purchase additional food. Nor, for example, should an organization that provides substance abuse treatment services receive additional funds simply to enable it to provide exactly the same services to more people. Although these sub-awards might well enable these organizations to assist additional individuals, they would not serve to improve the organizations’ sustainability, efficiency, or capacity. Rather the organizations would simply use additional funds in the same way that it used existing funds, without fundamentally changing or improving its services.

Plan for Providing Technical Assistance and Sub-Awards. As a part of its application to ACF, each applicant must submit a basic outline of its sub-award approach, describing the kinds of organizations in its community that would benefit and examples of activities that it expects these groups will undertake with sub-award funding. Intermediary organizations that receive CCF awards will be required to develop, with guidance from and in consultation with ACF, a detailed plan for this process within 60 days of receipt of award under this announcement. ACF must review and approve this plan prior to the issuance of any sub-awards using Federal funds awarded under this announcement. Intermediary organizations must report on the use of funds for sub-awards as they do for other types of expenditures of Federal funds received as a result of an award under this announcement and as specified in the Cooperative Agreement.

Intermediary organizations will also be required to develop, with guidance from and in consultation with ACF, a plan within six months of receipt of award for working with sub-awardees to develop outcome measures and to evaluate the activities supported by the sub-awards made with Federal funds under this announcement.

Hispanic Capacity Project Strategic Leverage Fund | Memorandum of Agreement