Increasing the Capacity of Individuals, Families and Communities

Sub-Award Management

Determining Your Sub-Award Process | Step 2: Reviewing and Selecting Sub-Awardees

Step 1: Soliciting Applications

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B. Distributing Your RFP Packet
After designing your packet materials, the next step is to determine your outreach strategy and plan—how best to contact and inform those eligible organizations and groups of the availability of your award(s) and how to obtain the RFP packet. By now, you already have identified your targeted groups and organizations; next, you will need to compile an outreach list (both email and street address lists) in order to contact those groups. You can develop your master list by combining a series of lists:

• Your own organization’s mailing list
• Mailing lists of partners associated with your project
• Association lists (organizations in particular service areas such as homeless shelters or after-school programs)
• Nonprofit lists (nonprofit organizations usually compiled by city or area by the local United Way, Chamber of Commerce, Junior League or other civic group)
• Faith organization lists (churches, synagogues, mosques, etc.) by type of faith, denomination or particular geographic location

To develop an effective outreach and distribution strategy, consider the following possible elements for your strategy.¹⁴

Distribution Strategy Ideas   Post information on your and your partners’ websites Make arrangements to post information on other websites supportive of your project Send out email notices to your master email mailing list Send out notices by direct mail and/or fax to your master mailing list Make personal phone calls to targeted and influential groups (for their information as well as to help pass on the information) Make presentations to targeted audiences at organizational meetings, conferences, trainings Place notices in publications and newsletters serving the nonprofit and faith community sectors Develop a PSA (public service announcement) and release to radio, print, and local cable TV media outlets Develop a press release and hold a press conference concerning the award and its availability to targeted organizations Ask other organizations (working with the same target group of organizations) to provide the information via their mailing lists, on their websites and in their newsletters

Clemson University’s South Carolina’s Rural Communities Compassion Project made arrangements to distribute information on its project and the RFP through a variety of organizations including South Carolina Association of Nonprofit Organizations, South Carolina Educational Television and various public libraries across the State. In addition, the Rural Communities Compassion Project assured statewide distribution of their RFP and project information to rural faith-based and community organizations through the cooperation of 46 county United Way offices, 46 county First Steps Offices (coalitions focused on child enrichment), 46 Clemson University Extension Offices, the South Carolina Employment Security Commission, the South Carolina Christian Action Council and 10 South Carolina foundations.15 Requesting Letters of Intent/Calls of Interest If you would like to gauge how many applications you are likely to receive so that you can better prepare, you may want to request letters of intent or calls of interest from potential applicants as a part of the RFP process. These will help you determine the level of applicant interest, plan the number of staff/volunteers needed for the selection process, determine if you need to engage in further solicitation to boost the number of applications coming in and screen out applicants that do not meet your eligibility requirements. To do this, you could put information in your RFP packet or in your announcements asking that potential applicants contact you by email, mail or phone.

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Determining Your Sub-Award Process | Step 2: Reviewing and Selecting Sub-Awardees