>> JENNA NOVAK: Thank you for joining us we're really excited to have you all here my name is Jenna Novak, and for those of you who do not know me, I am the deputy director of OTIP’s National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center or NHTTAC. So we are OTIPS T&TA wing, and what we do is we address human trafficking from a public health lens, and by doing that we are consistently building the capacity of communities to identify screen for and respond to the complex needs of all individuals that are at risk or who have experienced trafficking, and I wanna do a quick audio check before we get started, so if you can hear me, please go ahead, and in the chat say, Hello!
Okay. Great. Hi, everyone good to see you. If you are having any difficulty with audio there is also a call-in number that you are welcome to use. Feel free to do that. If anything does happen and you can't hear us for a while, please just sit tight and know that we will. We're working on the back end to get back to you.
So just to let you all know this session is going to be recorded, and it will be added to OTIP and NHTTAC websites. We are currently recording at the moment, couple of other recent housekeeping things before we get started. If you would like to use closed captioning, it has been enabled, at the bottom of your screen.
If you click on the CC and that will then allow you to show caption throughout the entire webinar, please feel free to use the chat to talk amongst each other. We love to see all the sharing of ideas in that way as well.
If you have specific questions for us, then go ahead and use the box, and we will work to try to address all of those questions during the discussion at the end.
So, for today, we have 2 wonderful presenters for you.

First, we have Sophia Papademos, Sophia is a consultant for NHTAAC and has been working in the anti-trafficking field for more than a decade. She previously served as the anti-trafficking coordinator for the State of Ohio, and prior to that she was working at the Ohio Department of Public Safety, the Ohio Governor Office and the United Nations Global Initiative to fight human trafficking.
Sophia is an OTIP grant recipient, who was wonderful and so that is why we have called on her to share her knowledge and expertise and experiences today.
And then, secondly, we have Flavia Keenan, who is OTIP's victim assistance program specialist. She's been working in the field for 13 years, and in that capacity, she leads OTIP's grant-making efforts and programming. Prior to joining OTIP Miss Keenan spent 7 years working in direct services with various populations, including individuals experiencing homelessness, gender-based violence, and human trafficking.
And I'm going to quickly turn it over to Flavia so that she can provide some centering and context for today's webinar.

>> FLAVIA KEENAN: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. We're very excited. This is something that we've been wanting to do for very long time, and we're so pleased that we're able to work with NHTTAC and Sophia on this on this event. I do just have a quick disclaimer to provide and oh, sorry! And could somebody advance it to the disclaimer?
There's a little slide so folks can follow along. Yeah. So, this webinar is just intended to provide an overview of the ACF grant application process in general. But it's not going to be specifically tied to any notice of funding opportunity or any specific OTIP funding source.
So, this is again just intended to provide general guidance but it's not going to be specifically tied to any notice of funding opportunity or any specific OTIP funding source. So, this is again just intended to provide general guidance to prospective applicants and so any questions that come up for you. Please ask. Just know that our response will be kind of coming to you from a place of general guidance versus specific applications, because currently does have 2 active solicitations on grants.gov so we definitely cannot speak on those 2 NOFOs at this time. But thank you very much. And Sophia, take us away!
>> SOPHIA PAPADEMOS: Okay. Hello. Everyone as people started to join. It was really nice to see some familiar names pop up. So, thank you all for joining this afternoon this morning, wherever you may be.

My name is Sophia, and I'm a consultant with NHTTAC. So, my previous relevant experiences, I know you're gonna touch on them. I have been the Project Director for HHS grants in the past, and DOJ grants, and so that's in the past few years I've been working on State and Federal grants in different capacities have been a sub recipient.
I've been a grant reviewer, so the information I'm presenting today is it someone who's sat in different seats. And believe me, when I say I've been in your shoes so I'm hoping that this can be helpful for everyone. Applying for Federal grants can seem overwhelming, or at least I should say, the first time and the second time, maybe the third time I applied for granted was overwhelming.
But this presentation is gonna walk you through and provide more information about what the process entails. So hopefully by the end of it, kind of like a sigh of relief, of some next steps.

For how you can kind of execute your application. So, funding helps support your programs and projects. But one thing I really wanna emphasize is the community you enjoy as a recipient it's just really incredible learning from other states and organizations with guidance from the Feds can really enhance our programming to best identify and serve people with a lived experience in human trafficking.
So, applying for a federal grant can be time consuming, and I know Flavia touched on this.

There are often a lot of questions that HHS ACF OTIP, they cannot, cannot address. So, this really is this, webinar is really aiming to provide as much general information as obvious that is possible to assist you, your organization and your community when applying for a grant.
So, our learning objectives for today to try and understand eligibility, requirements where to look for those requirements and the review process.

When applying for funding opportunities, exploring considerations for applying, and whether an applicant is the right fit for an OTIP grant, reviewing common mistakes and lessons learned from past OTIP grant applications and learning general guidelines and best practices for submitting a complete grant application so hopefully, some of the information I can provide as a past grantee will be helpful kind of some of the checklist that to do things not to forget will play a role in this presentation today.
So, Flavia covered our disclaimer. Just a lot of general information today. So, we're gonna talk about eligibility requirements first, but before we dive into that we have a poll, I think it's helpful when I'm connecting with folks to get a better idea of kind of where you're sitting, what the type of work you do.
So, I can help with those examples. So which category best describes your agency? Whether that's social services, health care or public health can just hit those right now.

Kind of see as they trickle in.

Okay, so over 50% in social services. Wow, we have for those of you who hit other. Do you mind typing in the chat kind of what those other agencies or categories might be? Just out of curiosity. So almost 30% hit other.
Well, you guys can do so at your own, at your own pace, and also, you know, please, I know Jenna mentioned this too.

If you wanna share your oh, state government, hey, Maria, if you wanna share your information, your emails to connect with others. Please, please go ahead and do so in the chat box. So really nice opportunity to bring people together. 
Oops. We had a bear with me for a minute. Okay, so here we go. 

Eligibility. One of the most common questions we get during the Grant application process is, am I eligible to apply? And, in fact, in past experiences people have asked like, Am I eligible to apply for X funding? And it's like a funding stream. I am not associated with, or don't even know, but I just think people want to know.
How can I apply for this money? But it’s up to the applicant, right, to find out if your agency is eligible for a particular funding stream the notice of funding opportunity that is released will explicitly state what agencies and organizations are eligible so if you grants.gov. Which may be your best friend or not depending, I guess how you know the tons of information there and then you go to applicants.
Can eligibility, kind of see the screenshot here you'll find helpful information, defining eligibility. So just as like a tidbit, sometimes there are cases where eligibility may be restricted to organizations that haven't applied before.
It's a good new funding opportunity for agencies that have not received that before.

But once again, just really important to check, whether or not you are eligible, because, as we've mentioned applying for a grant can be very time intensive.

So, you wanna make sure you're actually eligible before doing so.

So many agencies that typically apply for ACF funding are in one of these categories. So, it's it just really, want to emphasize again each notice of funding opportunity varies so eligible agencies may differ, depending on what that funding is.
So, for example, direct service funding obviously may have different eligibility, criteria than human trafficking youth, prevention, education, funding.

So, if you aren't eligible for funding, I just have to highlight this: your application won't be reviewed. So, it's just really important to make sure that you are in fact, eligible for that specific NOFO, so government that you know State governments, county governments, city or township, special district, native, American tribal governments.
So that is one category. We often see edition so independent.

School districts, public Institute, controlled higher Ed institutions, private higher ed institutions, public housing authorities, Indian housing authorities, Indian housing authorities, nonprofits.

So, for example, like some community-based organizations, may fall under nonprofits, including faith-based organizations. It's also important to note that some organizations may identify your organization included as survivor led or community based.
And sometimes those can fall into different categories, depending on what other components make up your organization.

So, eligibility, options. First, step right. Are you eligible? Super important. So, let's say you've established you are, in fact, eligible to apply. Here are some considerations to kind of think about when applying for funding.
So, if you're agency is eligible to apply, the next question is, does your agency have the capacity to implement the funding right?

Eligibility does not equal capacity. So, I used to have a former boss tell me that it's really important to just take a look at that funding. And what is it asking of you? What is it requiring you to do? And can you fulfill that this isn't to deter agencies from applying? But to really take a look at, okay, what will this funding require of my agency to do? What does this look like if we receive these dollars? So, for example, does your agency have the staff necessary to meet the grant requirements? Will you have to hire new staff in order to implement this grant do you have the resources to hire the new staff, and then do you have the administrative capacity right? That's a big component.
So, there will be data reporting requirements, financial oversight and reporting programmatic reporting requirements you may have to oversee sub recipients. So those are just all things that consider before applying to make sure that you, as an agency, has the capacity to really implement this funding.
And then the other piece of that outside of the administrative capacity.

But is your agency ready to identify approaches to effectively respond to trafficking and a trauma and survivor informed way? So, if you receive this funding, are you in a space where you're really ready to implement it and approach this funding in that informed way?
So, one way to kind of assess your readiness is, HHS has a toolkit for building survivor, informed organizations.

I'm going to reference a couple toolkits throughout the presentation, and I'm going to drop them all in the chat at the end, or if someone else wants to drop them right now, they can that you know, keeping in mind that AJ has spent a lot of time building out these toolkits and really trying to shape and help organizations.
So definitely really helpful tools to look at when applying and just overall. If you become a grantee what the resources that are out there, there's we'll touch on a little bit at the end.

So, some other considerations, when we talk about a fine for grant, does your community have a response protocol for human trafficking? Right, anti-trafficking work is a collaborative effort, and it's really, it's helpful if your community already has relevant partners at the table.
That's not to say potential funding couldn't bring those partners to the table, but just looking at what existing within you within your community, to what extent is human trafficking prevalent in your community, and it has the presence of trafficking been documented what type of trafficking so in my experience when applying for any human trafficking, funding. There's always an ask for data, right to reflect the problem of human trafficking, why are we going to fund this?
I mean, I know we could have an entire presentation on its own about the challenges of collecting human trafficking data, but having some baseline is helpful, something to reference within your application. Do you do you have a response? Protocol? Are there other OTIP recipients in your region, and are there possibilities for collaboration?
Because there is a reality that they're usually geographic considerations for funding programs. So, for example, we're typically there are not gonna be 6 programs in the same city funded right?

So, you need to look at kind of what's around you. Who could you collaborate with? How could you enhance your response in your project?

Also just looking at your community readiness. So, do members know about or have access to information on trafficking is this something discussed within your community? Are there local efforts, whether that's a coalition, a working group just kind of taking inventory of what you have within your community.
I think that's also a really helpful start when you're looking to apply what resources are already within your community, what gaps you could fill, and who you could partner with to enhance that response?

So, there's also, like a community readiness, guide that HHS has created, which I'll also drop in the chat at the end.

But that can also kind of take an assessment of what's in your community and what you can, what you have, what you need, that kind of kind of response.

So, we've talked about eligibility considerations for applying just a little check in. So, what are some other considerations to keep in mind when you're applying for a grant?

Anything else. I mean, I've missed, or you think it's really important to highlight.

Please drop it all in the chat box. I'm gonna kinda look at it as we as we do this.

Project partners for sure. Who can? Who can you work with? Who can interpret anyone else some other things I think about our data tracking systems in place, people who can.
So, I'll be the first to admit data. It's not my strongest suit in my previous office we do social science.


We? She's still their social science researcher. Yeah, data collection and evaluation. Thank you.

Marissa exactly did just that, I mean, without her we would have been lost. Some of these grant projects. So, do you have someone or is there another agency you can work with to do that data evaluation?

Anyone else, deliverables, outputs outcome exactly.

Can you really fulfill what this grant is trying to accomplish?

Another one that comes to mind, survivor, involvement. What does that look like within your community, within your agency, within your project?

See, I think we we've touched on a few good ones, and thank you, Marissa, for…Yup great. I have a few more people. The input of people with lived experience. Yes.

Addressing sex and labor, trafficking as appropriate.

Yep, these are all great things. To your mind. Your mind's already there.

You guys, you're already real spin.

Okay. So!

For your application to be reviewed, obviously it must follow the guidelines and the requirements prescribed in the notice of funding opportunities.

So, we're going to kind of go through what's submitting a complaint application looks like in some helpful tips for that, if you will so.

First, we will break down grants.gov versus sam.gov to the best of my ability and Flavia chime in at any point if I missed something so grants.gov is where the notice of funding opportunities are released.

You can find eligibility, requirements, forecasts are posted where I look sam.gov is the actual, it is the actual website you use to register and receive your unique entity identifier, which is what you will need to submit your application.
So, make sure that you go. If your agency isn't already registered in sam.gov, that you actually go and register and receive that number, because that's something that should be done well in advance of submitting your application. You don't want to be submitting it the last hour, and then also realize you don't have a UEI. So my little tip would be to try and get that done as soon as you, as soon as you can.
A budget, obviously a huge part of your application. It's the financial blueprint for the scope of work it ensures compliance and it's one tool for measuring and monitoring progress.

So really, all organizations need to cover the full cost of delivering on their missions.

So, according to the Nonprofit Finance Fund, there's 3 practices that they say will help budget to an annual surplus name and effectively communicate full cost needs and build full cost over multiple years with a long-term plan. In mind so let's break that down a little bit.

Building your cost over multiple years with a long-term plan in mind. It's so important to think about sustainability when you're creating your budget.

And just your project in general right? How will this project last beyond the scope of this grant last beyond the when this funding ends? And look at what? What that is. So, if it's a 3-year project, obviously build your budget out for those 3 years with hey, increase cost of living increased, whatever that may look like a full budget, but also thinking about, how do we ensure this program?
Beyond the grant, and I know in my past experience OTIP did a great job of kind of work with grantees to look at that sustainability piece, but really you should be thinking about that from the beginning.

So, then what else are we looking at with budgets right?

Separate your program into major categories, and then look at different sections of what the grant pays for, and then what your organization will need to pay for so the grant may not be able to cover for all the costs.

So, what does that mean for your organization? And do you have that funding to supplement? Or, you know, compliment the program that you're trying to build within this grant. And then looking at your direct first indirect costs, so direct cost.
For those people who are less familiar with some of these things, so they're attributable to the grant program, staff salaries, staff travel, training, other program, operating costs. And we talk about indirect costs. We're looking more at it costs attributable to the organization. So, management of staff, salary, accounting, and legal services off equipment rent and leases general liability insurance. Those are just examples of items that could be considered indirect costs.
So once again building out that budget kind of walking through each category once you've created it and looking at any inaccuracies and consistencies.

Excuse me. The Grant management toolkit is a really helpful resource. There are sample budgets within another toolkit.

I'll drop in at the end. But just looking through, you know your training, your travel costs mileage, thinking through our staff, gonna have to attend trainings. We have to pay for those trainings. What modes of travel we have just really breaking, making sure you're accounting for every piece of your apropos plan. And then making sure you're identifying any type of in accuracy or inconsistency. Right?
Because when someone's reviewing your budget, that's what they're going to look for, right looking for incorrect, or shouldn't say, look for but that's what we'll be caught or could be caught upon review.

Incorrect mileage or not, including staff training or the opposite of that, including, like an exorbitant amount of funds for staff training, for example, like 8 people to attend a training all the way across the country for $30,000 late like that's gonna red flag someone right?
That's not exactly what people want to pay for. So just looking at. Does your budget make sense as a whole? Is it reasonable, and does it align? Does it align with your program narrative? So, it's really important that you're reading the NOFO to see what's allowable, what's unallowable. What's like I said, reasonable, and organize the narrative to fit the budget categories and make sure you're providing adequate descriptions, because your budget narrative should really create a full picture of your budget in each category should include some type of narrative or justification, so this person relevant to this project because the acts so just for an example of a past budget so if you're looking at. Maybe funding certain positions for a grant.
So, you need to make sure you have how many hours they work per week at their rate, and then at a percentage. So let's give the example of this person is 40 hours per week, 52 weeks a year, at however, many dollars an hour. But it's only going to be 4% of their time. So just like breaking down the actual equation of how you got to your number.
I think it just provides a clear picture for what you're asking within your budget.

Make sure you're proofreading double checking I can't tell you amount of times I've read a budget been like these numbers actually don't add up to this total.

So just really get a second set a third set of eyes on your budget if you can, and there may be things that are semi-budget related, but also kind of just program related that I wanna touch on where it could be a write a flag for example, staff turnover you've had recently or a change in staffing, or something that's kind of change within your budget or organization.
I think, just being able to address that upfront and having a plan to work through whatever that may be, can really help, and you can explain that through your budget and budget narrative. But a budget is definitely creating a logical budget, I should say, is definitely important piece, one applying, and fortunately the grant management toolkit, as I mentioned, just has a ton of resources within it that can really help while you build your budget.
So, it can be very, very beneficial to engage your partner, I mean your community, excuse me, through partnerships.

So, another piece of that that application, if you will kind of looking at if you're gonna have formal partnerships and subversions, and some of those benefits can be providing a different lens and expertise to the project sometimes sub recipients can serve as a liaison, to local communities and their trusted voice within the community they can also strengthen your agency's response, right?
Like they, the subrecipients may be filling a gap that your agency currently doesn't have the capacity to fill to better assist individuals with lived experience of trafficking so really emphasizing.

Looking at your community and ways to engage them to serve in the development of the branch. So, sharing of funding resources through formal partnerships with MOUs, right. That's what we're talking about.

And if there are conditions around matching or survivor, involvement really make sure you're reviewing the NOFO to see what that formal partnership needs to entail or what that needs to look like, and then we're gonna go over I'm using a little bit just talk through like some sample, and they'll use. But that grant management toolkit also has some sample, and we'll use.
We'll talk that in a little bit. So, submitting a complete application alright, we've kind of touched on some of the more important pieces of your application, but creating a Sam Gov account to receive the UEI.


Read and reread that notice of funding opportunity thoroughly reviewing the scoring criteria to ensure your application, fully addresses everything that you're going to be reviewed on categorizing things before you need everything you need for the submission so the financial forms the lobbying forms, the attachments, proof of victim, services, organization, letters of intent, whatever that may be.
I strongly recommend at the start of your grant process to make an excel sheet of Ev, or document.

You may need to upload as an attachment, and then the status of it, whether you know MOU is with potential subrecipient financial form status needs to be signed by X. So just making sure you have that checklist over required documentation, because that will really make it a lot easier if you're submitting your application to just have a list, you can run down and then I know this seems obvious.
But sometimes I think when you're overwhelmed and you're kind of like in that grant application mode, you forget some of the small minor details, but just formatting, you know, page numbers, including specific background information, all the required documents.
This is just a personal thing trying to avoid acronyms. Not everyone who is reading your application is going to necessarily know your local acronyms, or be able or want to be able to look back all the way 20 pages to see. What was that again? What was that acronym? What agencies! That so I tried to avoid them in general, when submitting an application, and then making sure you know you have the signature is necessary to submit the application.
Oh, so just a side note. Oh, Flavia, just put this in the chat, but just that they've heard consistent delays and getting AI numbers from sam.gov. So definitely, just further emphasizing, try and get that done as soon as possible so that your that's not holding you up or making you unable to apply because you've missed a deadline.
From this entire presentation. It please let it be this plan ahead. Gathering documents for application. It takes time. It requires planning. You have to think about. If you're partnering with the subrecipient, you know, do you need to submit that letter of intent or the MOU?
Sometimes, you know, you may have it ready to go, but it may take their agency 2 weeks to turn it around, or even longer. So just really looking at your timeline, making sure that you've planned ahead.

Once again, grant management. Toolkit has those sample MOUs I talked about and I'm going to review one here in a minute.

What's signatures? Do you need to apply right? Does your director need a week to turn around signatures?

I know we're now also, sometimes working in a remote, remote world where you're not necessarily always seeing people every day. So how can we make, you know, make sure that you're getting everything you need ahead of time? So those are just stressed do you all give yourself ample time to apply before the due date? Because systems can crash. You don't want to be applying at 11:58 pm when it's due at midnight, and then you have a computer glitch.
So just plan as much as you can, and just from personal experience anticipate, may be at least one thing going wrong during submission to ensure you have time to troubleshoot it right. It cannot be corrected, but just making sure that if you're having an issue, you can maybe pick up the phone and call someone @grants.gov.
But if it's, you know, after hours you may not be reaching anyone. So just thinking about that as you are applying for funding.

Okay. So, as I say, I would go through a sample MOU in case that you, this is something you haven't used before, and we're kind of going into a poll that in a minute. But this is an actual MOU from a previous OTIP Grant.

This was for look beneath the surface, the regional anti-trafficking program. It's no longer an open program, but I've been given permission from my former agency to share this, and hoping that it's helpful, helpful for other folks. So, it just breaks down the purpose of the project outline specific parties and responsibilities. So, one thing, when we talk about an MOU it's really, you know, it's your agreement with an agency. But it also provides you with protect you, and the subrecipient with protections, and it.
This explains or I should say reference is a specific, a job description, attachment. So, the beauty of an MOU is you can be as detailed as you want, whether that's through data collection. Whether it's job responsibilities. You can really outline what you hope to get out of the partnership. But it should be both ways. Very 2 sided through your MOU.
This looks at this next piece, funding the 2 pieces. I want highlight are funding and termination. So, when drafting an MOU, I think it's important to think about how often you would want your sub recipient to submit an invoice.

So, this funding section stipulates no more than monthly for work performed under an endow, and what I found is sometimes when it's a newer sub recipient or a new partnership, they may want to invoice more frequently in the beginning, and then once they get the hang of it. You can switch to quarterly, or whatever that agreement looks like.
As you see, their determination clause. Of course, that's not the hope. It is important to have that protection in place for either party. So that is just something to think about. This specific oops. This specific MOU was, for a state government agency. So, there are, I think, more legal pieces and maybe you would need for direct service agency.
But that's up to you, to up to your agency.

But, for example, this is specific to ethics and conflict of interest. Campaign contributions, or type of things. So just wanna highlight that because not everyone's MOU. When I'll necessarily have those pieces in it.

Once again, that are as a government agency. The legal department required specific clauses that may be less applicable to agreements between nonprofits only.

So once again pushing that Grant management toolkit because it will have some other types of MOUs as well.

So now that we've talked about MOUs quite a bit, just out of curiosity has your agency use a third-party agreement? Whether that's a letter of commitment, a preliminary agreement, an MOU. Have you all? Are you all well familiar with them?
We can give everybody a second to go ahead and vote on the poll.

Okay, let's take a look at the responses. So, most of you 76, most of you have. Okay, so hopefully that wasn't too redundant for the folks who have.

But if you hadn't or have not, hopefully, you can pull some helpful information from that.

Okay, moving on review process. Very important process. Obviously, if the grant application process.

So now that you've submitted your application, you've done your checklist, you have your budget, you have your narrative, you've done all those things it's going to go through a thorough multi-layer review process, and this is where I encourage Flavia to chime in at any time. If I misspeak about any part of the review process.
So, there's an initial screening process, and that's done by a federal contractor based on the creator in the NOFO.

So, they’re just looking for a fully submitted application adhering to the specific requirements. Section 3 of the NOFO, which is standard across all NOFOs, you can find the items for the initial screening process and what's looked at so that section will include disqualification factors in section.
It's 3.3. So, awards, ceiling, time of submission, file, format. And then any program, specific disqualification factor. So, I encourage you to kind of look at that.

What I mean I encourage you to look at the entire NOFO a hundred times so, before you submit your application. But those pieces are in there, and then the applicants that make it through that initial screening process are sent to the office of Grants management.
So OGB will submit. It conducts what they call a business review, and analyzes the budget, and then eligible applicants are then peer reviewed. So, peer reviewers are non-federal objective people who review and score the applications.
They're often subject matter experts in this space. They may include individuals with a lived experience.

Oh, Flavia! Chime in!

>> FLAVIA KEENAN: Yes, just wanted to clarify that OGM doesn't look at the budget to do that, that business review until after the peer review process has been completed.

>> SOPHIA PAPADEMOS: So OGM would. What is the contractor in charge of?

>> FLAVIA KEENAN: Receiving the application, they make sure that they are eligible, so that they're not going past the page to and things of that nature, that there's only 2 files included that they meet any additional eligibility requirements. So, for example, a lot of victim services grants require that by legislation that victim service organizations are the only ones eligible to apply. 
So, the screening process takes all of that into account. The business review is after the peer review process.

>> SOPHIA PAPADEMOS: Okay, my mistake. Thank you, Flavia, for correcting that.

So, then that will be happening after the Yes. The Peer review process that I, the that I was explaining. So, as I mentioned, peer reviewers may, they may include individuals also with lived experience.

And this can be found. The Peer Review section can be found 5.1, which is also standard across the NOFOs.

We, Flavia? Did you have another question? I wasn't sure, because the hand is still up.

>> FLAVIA KEENAN: Oh, no! Let me take that off!

>> SOPHIA PAPADEMOS: This is the area where I'm obviously less as I'm I have not sat on the Federal Review side. I have reviewed Grant but not on the Federal side, so I appreciate the extra information from Flavia.

So okay, the last bit, I should say. Finally, the grant will make its way to OT, and they review the scored application.

So OTIP so, in addition to the scores, OTIP considers geographic location existing grants, and then bonus points. So, for example, bonus points can be associated or earned, I guess, with ACF and OT priority.

So, for example, in the past there was outreach that you receive bonus points if you had a plan to conduct outreach within partnerships within federally funded migrant health centers so just like if it's a specific area that OTIP is looking to fulfill. You can receive bonus points for that.
Is there anything to add to that piece of Flavia wallow tips doing there?

Kind of review. Final Review.

>>FLAVIA KEENAN: Yeah, I think that the most important thing to note here is that the peer review process is completely objective. And so OTIP staff sit kind of we lead the peer review process.

But only the non- federal objective, you know. Peer reviewers analyze and score the applications based on the criteria that were outlined in the NOFO.

And so OTIP has minimal involvement in that at all is essentially we're just the administrative people that make sure that the applications are reviewed in scored on time following the deadlines that are set to make sure that we're able to award on time and then once those applications are scored its AFC’s policy that we really only score applications in the obstacle, that we only fund applications in the order in which they're scored.
So obviously the top scorer in which they're scored. So obviously, the top scoring applications would be funded, and if there are ever any skips or any changes to that, if there are ever any skips or any changes to that's and burdensome process of approval of within ACF. And so typically the only skip that we ever see on our end is geographic.
So. Say, for example, the top 3 applicants are all from the same state and the same county in so for the purpose of having geographic diversity, we may choose to skip 2 of those potentially.

But again, it depends on the solicitation. It depends on the number of applicants.

If only 3 app applicants applied, and all 3 of them are in the same state, then they're all going to get funded.

So just some new ones. There!

>> SOPHIA PAPADEMOS: Okay, thank you so much for adding to that. And I know that the process he's been, you know, clearly laid out for you all for some time, and I think it's helpful for folks on the other end to kind of hear what that looks like.

>>FLAVIA KEENAN: Absolutely.

>> SOPHIA PAPADEMOS: Okay, so now that we've reviewed everything, let's talk a little bit about some lessons learned right?

We really want this presentation to be helpful. So, we're gonna kinda take a look at some common mistakes from past applications that have been pulled and just looking at how you can, how you can learn from other people's mistakes.
So! Some common administrative mistakes have included failing to upload required attachments, uploading more documents than allowed for the no flow applying multiple times.

So, I think it's important to clarify the first 2 of these.

So, failing to upload the required attachments or uploading more documents than allowed would result in an application not being reviewed.

If you apply multiple times, the only application that's gonna get read is the one that was uploaded last. That's the one that will be reviewed, and I know I touched on this before.

But just to avoid the missing required attachments. Really, if you can make that an excel sheet, a word, Doc, whatever that is at the beginning of all required attachments, I think it will. It will help you as your uploading like oh, attachment, A check B check I have C check and just kind of go down that check list. So, some budget mistakes that have been caught, allowable and unallowable cost, discrepancies so allowable costs are costs that are permitted with the funding for the NOFO UN allowable costs are costs that cannot be built to the grant so unallowable costs will vary depending on the funding streams.
This is why reading your no file is so important, but just making sure that you are not including UN allowable costs in your budget errors.

So, whether that's indirect. Indirect costs match.

So, I know we touched on this before, but the indirect costs are our admin costs that can be attributed to the organization, and I think typically those are capped at 10% of the requested funding. But it can vary so always make sure. You know once again you're beating that no fault regarding match.

Some grants will require a match component, which means you're responsible for coming up with a percentage of the funds for the project.

This can usually be staff time or in-kind funds, but just make sure you're reviewing that NOFO once again.

So what? What is the specific match? What is the requirement? So, section 3.2 of the NOFO will provide, and this is on all. NOFO will provide information on cost, sharing and match. Fringe, so I will be the first to say I'm not a fringe expert, but some of the grants I review, we do have a person who that is there. They are fringe experts, if you will, and just being able to identify like oh, no, that's an incorrect percentage that's not what you know.
Just double checking, are, are your fringe costs correct? Those are fringes for those who don't know.

Those include personal benefits, such as like retirement, unemployment, compensation, things like that to make sure those percentages are accurate when you're putting that in your budget.

Failure to provide a detailed explanation of expenses in the Budget Narrative.

Few have. I mean, this is just a simple, silly example, but you know 10 laptops at $2,000 a pot like what you know, just the ability to explain why you're requesting what you're requesting. And then, just lastly, the budget doesn't reflect the Grant objectives super important that what the funding stream is asking for your budget reflects that right?
You could have a great budget narrative. But if you're I'm excuse me, you can have a great program. Narrative.

But if your budget doesn't align, that's not gonna happen. So this leads me to the next slide. Right alignment with the NOFO.

The proposed grant. Should the proposed program reflect the no fault objectives, so I would say, you know, don't use the same application every time, whether or not it's the same funding opportunity funders want to see diversity. They wanna see growth. I wanna see what you're expanding on so not just continuing to apply for the same thing each time.
Understanding terms and scope of work. You know, training versus outreach. There should be definitions within you know, paying close attention to the deadline for submission of application. So, when is this due? Once again going back to just planning ahead?
This is just like a personal experience. Note as a reviewer, and this wasn't at the Federal level. But there was an agency who just kept applying with the same application under just totally different funding streams, and it was a great application.
If I had just liked a private slush fund to fund them. But it didn't align with anything that the novo was asking. And so, it you know it's not a copy and paste situation.

You really need to make sure you're building a program.

Building your program throughout, you know, to really reflect what that NOFO is looking for.

And subsequently, as a result of just continuing to apply at the same application that didn't fit that agency wasn't with them funded.

So, I can't emphasize enough to just read the NOFO work through.

Look at your community. Look how your community readiness, what your agency is capable of, what partnerships you have in place.

OTIP funding is so helpful and valuable, and if you can build a great application for a program that's gonna help those with a lived experience of trafficking I mean, that is what our ultimate, our ultimate goal is so take the time to sign up for notifications to look at what's coming out to see.
Where are these funding streams can complement what you're doing?

And I really encourage people to apply, and so I hope that this helped you in any way for future funding opportunities, as you apply.

But does anyone have any questions? We can pop into the chat, and see?

Sophia. In the chat there was a question, if we oh, I just lost it!

Do you mind restating how grants with the same? Scores are ranked.

If they are among the highest scoring applications. I just responded in the chat, but essentially, we rarely get applications with the same exact score, because we do go into decimals.

But essentially, if we were funding 3 grants and the top 2 scores, say, we're 100, they would both get funded.

Obviously, the question sounds like it might be, if you know, it's towards the bottom, and there's 2 grants that have the same score, you know. That is not a situation that we have encountered before.
And we question in the chat, and this can be for either of you.

Should the narrative be written in the same order as the NOFO? Lists, the narrative items? Can the application be score be lowered?

If items in the narrative are located in a different section, i.e., the problem statement. We're organizational capacity.

Hmm!

Hi Marissa! Yes, so there's 2 parts to this answer. So, for the first one should the narrative be written in the same order, I would just be putting myself in the brain of a person who is reading my application and basically has to go through a checklist, I would probably make sure that it would be oh, I'm making it as easy for that person to read. Given that, they're reading like 7 others 200-page applications.
So, in that sense I personally would write in the order.

However, the application cannot be scored lower. If the items are not located in the order, we order is not a criteria, and so that could be, you know, earlier I spoke about order is not a criteria, and so that could be you know earlier I spoke about ways in which staff.
That you know earlier, I spoke about ways in which staff that you know, participate in the reviews.

That is one area in which we may jump in and say, that is one area in which we may jump in and say, oh, you know, I noticed the reviewers missed this.

You know I happen to find it in the appendix, you know Section B, or whatever you know, consider it.

I don't know if you guys didn't see it or something, but just flagging that it's there in case it got missed.

My second flock.

If you can put yourself in the reviewers, position as much as possible. I think it's just helpful for ease of reading.

Any other?

Okay. Yeah. Other questions. Please feel free to type those in the chat.

You can also raise your hand if you go to reactions at the bottom of your screen and click, raise hand, we can unmute if you'd rather that communicate verbally.

I'm not seeing any additional questions pop up. So, I just I wanna say, thank you to everyone for sitting and listening in. I know that there are questions that may continue to arise, feel free to go ahead and email us.

And I will show our contact information just so that you all know I wanted to give a little bit of oversight of what NHTTAC does and what we can do for you. So, we provide a little bit of oversight of what NHTTAC does and what we can do for you, so we provide training in tech technical assistance in various capacities.
But we have 3 main focus areas. So first, we work with individuals with lived experience, we have an accredited training program that has an accredited training program that has online modules that are free of charge that are self-directed anyone can take at any time and those that program also extends to more organizations and communities for deeper level capacity, building.
And then, lastly, we have customized training and technical assistance where we do in-depth needs assessments with communities and organizations in order to get them the support that they need.

So, if you think that you would like assistance from NHTTAC, please feel free to reach out to us, either through our website email or by calling and we're happy to answer any questions. I did see one more question pop up when they were answered.
This will be shared on the website as well as sent out in a listserv eventually for everyone. And then, lastly, we just ask that you all evaluate the training today.

You can either do that by QR code here, by holding your camera up to the screen on your phone, or you can click on the link it really helps us in understanding how we're doing and what other topical areas that you would like to get some training on so again, thank you all for joining us we were really excited to give this information to you, as Flavia, said, OTIP has been wanting to do this for a while, so thank you for being interested in it, and Sophia, thank you so much as always for sharing your expertise and your experiences with us and the rest of the field Flavia you as well. We so appreciate all of you have a wonderful rest of your day everyone.