OpportunityTitle: AmeriCorps State and National Grant Competitions
CategoryExplanation: The mission of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) is to improve lives, strengthen communities, and foster civic participation through service and volunteering. CNCS&#151;through its AmeriCorps and Senior Corps programs &#151;has helped to engage millions of citizens in meeting community and national challenges through service and volunteer action.     This AmeriCorps State and National (AmeriCorps) Notice of Federal Funding Opportunity Notice (Notice) will focus grant making for fiscal year 2014 in six focus areas:   &#149; Disaster Services.   &#149; Economic Opportunity.   &#149; Education.   &#149; Environmental Stewardship.  &#149; Healthy Futures.   &#149; Veterans and Military Families.     Indian Tribes are eligible to apply to this Notice; however a separate Notice of Federal Funding Opportunity for Indian Tribes for either fully operational or planning grants will be released later in the fall with an application deadline of spring 2014.      In order to maximize the impact of the public investment in national service, CNCS will provide grants to programs that demonstrate that they will engage AmeriCorps members in an evidence-based or evidence-informed approach to providing a service intervention that will result in intended solutions to community problems (e.g., based on proposed program&#146;s performance and evaluation data or research demonstrating the effectiveness of a similar intervention). Applicants will be awarded points for providing evidence that their proposed intervention will lead to the outcomes identified in the theory of change (logic model). Applicants shall provide evidence that the proposed intervention is effective for the proposed population and community challenge.     In order to maximize the impact of the public investment in national service, CNCS will provide grants to programs that demonstrate that they will engage AmeriCorps members in an evidence-based or evidence-informed approach to providing a service intervention that will result in intended solutions to community problems (e.g., based on proposed program&#146;s performance and evaluation data or research demonstrating the effectiveness of a similar intervention). Applicants will be awarded points for providing evidence that their proposed intervention will lead to the outcomes identified in the theory of change (logic model). Applicants shall provide evidence that the proposed intervention is effective for the proposed population and comm
AdditionalInformationOnEligibility: Public or private nonprofit organizations, including faith-based and other community organizations; institutions of higher education; government entities within states or territories (e.g., cities, counties); labor organizations; partnerships and consortia; Tribes; and intermediaries planning to subgrant awarded funds are encouraged to apply. Receiving funding previously from CNCS or another Federal agency is not a prerequisite to applying under this Notice.    Organizations that have been convicted of a Federal crime are disqualified from receiving the assistance described in this Notice. Pursuant to the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, an organization described in Section 501 (c)(4) of the Internal Revenue code of 1986, 26 U.S.C. &#167; 501 (c)(4), that engages in lobbying activities is not eligible to apply.    New Applicants  CNCS encourages organizations that have never received funding from CNCS or AmeriCorps to apply for the grants described in this Notice. New organizations should submit applications with the understanding that the general practice is to award no more than 50 member slots for new Grantees. New applicants are not eligible to receive fixed amount grants.    Applicants that must apply through State Commissions   Organizations that are proposing a project that operates in only one state must apply to this competition through the Governor-appointed State or Territory Commissions. Each state and territory administers its own selection process and puts forward to CNCS the applicants they select to compete for funding. Organizations should contact their State Commissions to learn about their state or territory processes and deadlines. The list of State and Territory Commissions can be found here:  http://www.nationalservice.gov/about/contact-us/state-service-commissions.    Applicants that may apply directly to CNCS  Applicants in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands apply directly to CNCS because these Territories have not established a state commission. Applicants are eligible to apply for funds for member support and program costs. Government entities of the Territory are not eligible to apply. CNCS will fund successful applicants with funding allocated to the Territories as part of the formula funding process.    Organizations that propose to operate AmeriCorps programs in more than one state or territory apply directly to CNCS. Tribes apply directly to CNCS.
Description: A. Purpose of AmeriCorps fundingAmeriCorps grants are awarded to eligible organizations proposing to engage AmeriCorps members in evidence-based or evidence-informed (e.g., based on proposed program&#146;s data or a similar program&#146;s data) interventions to strengthen communities. An AmeriCorps member is an individual who engages in community service through an approved national service position. Members may receive a living allowance and other benefits while serving. Upon successful completion of their service, members receive a Segal AmeriCorps Education Award from the National Service Trust. For two decades, the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) has invested in community solutions across the nation -- working hand in hand with local partners to improve lives, expand economic opportunity, and engage millions of Americans in solving problems in their communities. With its unique structure as a public-private partnership and its model of engaging citizens and requiring matching resources from outside parties, national service can benefit the recipients of service, those who serve, local communities, and our nation. Through all its programs, CNCS seeks to expand economic opportunity &#150; helping Americans acquire the skills, education, and training they need for productive employment. By helping more Americans graduate, pursue higher education, and find work, national service can provide immediate and long term benefits by expanding individual opportunity, building family stability, and creating more sustainable, resilient communities.Through AmeriCorps and its other programs, CNCS brings vital leadership, resources, and coordination to some of the most pressing challenges facing America: educating students for jobs of the 21st century; assisting individuals, families, and neighborhoods on the road to economic recovery; addressing the needs of military families and a new generation of veterans; helping communities rebuild after natural disasters; increasing energy efficiency and improving at-risk ecosystems; and providing information to improve the health and welfare of individuals in disadvantaged communities.B. Focus AreasIn order to carry out Congress&#146; intent and to maximize the impact of investment in national service, CNCS is targeting AmeriCorps funds to the following focus areas:Disaster ServicesGrant activities will increase the preparedness of individuals, improve individuals&#146; readiness to respond, help individuals recover from disasters, and help individuals mitigate disasters. Grantees also have the ability to respond to national disasters under CNCS cooperative agreements and FEMA mission assignments. Economic OpportunityGrants will provide support and/or facilitate access to services and resources that contribute to the improved economic well-being and security of economically disadvantaged people. Grant activities will help economically disadvantaged people to have improved access to services aimed at contributing to their enhanced financial literacy; transition into or remain in safe, healthy, affordable housing; and have improved employability leading to increased success in becoming employed. Education Grants will provide support and/or facilitate access to services and resources that contribute to improved educational outcomes for economically disadvantaged individuals, especially children. CNCS is particularly interested in program designs that support youth engagement and service-learning as strategies to achieve improved academic outcomes. Grant activities will improve school readiness for economically disadvantaged young children; educational and behavioral outcomes of students in low-achieving elementary, middle, and high schools; and the preparation for, and prospects of success, in post-secondary educational institutions for economically disadvantaged students. Environmental StewardshipGrants will provide support for direct services that contribute to increased energy and water efficiency, renewable energy use, or improving at-risk ecosystems. In addition, grants will support increased individual behavioral change leading to increased efficiency, renewable energy use, and ecosystem improvements particularly for economically disadvantaged households and communities. Grant activities will decrease energy and water consumption; improve at-risk ecosystems; increase behavioral changes that lead directly to decreased energy and water consumption or improved at-risk ecosystems; and increase green training opportunities that may lead to decreased energy and water consumption or improved at-risk ecosystems.In addition, the Administration is exploring ways to provide service, training, education, and employment opportunities for young Americans through protecting, restoring and enhancing public and tribal lands. CNCS is exploring potential programs along the lines of a &#147;21st century Civilian Service Corps&#148; that can facilitate conservation service work on public lands and encourage a new generation of natural resource managers and environmental scientists, particularly in low income and disadvantaged communities. Healthy FuturesGrants will provide support for health needs within communities including access to care, aging in place, and childhood obesity. Grant activities will improve access to primary and preventive health care for communities served by CNCS-supported programs; increase seniors&#146; ability to remain in their own homes with the same or improved quality of life for as long as possible; and increase physical activity and improve nutrition in youth with the purpose of reducing childhood obesity.Veterans and Military FamiliesGrants will positively impact the quality of life of veterans and improve military family strength. Grant activities will increase the number of veterans and military service members and their families served by CNCS-supported programs and increase the number of veterans and military family members engaged in service through CNCS-supported programs. To the greatest extent possible, proposed activities should be aligned with the Veteran and Military Family National Performance Measures. Governor and Mayor InitiativeCNCS will be continuing its pilot of the Governor and Mayor Initiative, which will be given priority consideration in Tier 1. CNCS will accept one application per state. The application must address a pressing challenge the Governor wishes to solve in her or his state. A Governor must apply with one Mayor in his or her state and a minimum of two nonprofits. In conjunction with the Mayor, the Governor will be responsible for identifying and selecting those nonprofits that are best able to achieve a demonstrated positive impact on the problem. The application should include letters of commitment from all relevant parties. If the Governor and Mayor have not yet selected partnering nonprofit entities, they should describe the process that the Governor and Mayor will use to select the nonprofit entities. The application, submitted to the State Commission, will respond to the application criteria and explain how several nonprofits working together, with the Governor&#146;s office serving as a convener, will effectively deploy AmeriCorps members for a collective impact. Only the Governor, Mayor, their designated government office (but not the state commission), or a public university may apply for grants under the Governor and Mayor initiative. Applications from other entities will be deemed non-compliant and will not be considered under this initiative.For example, a Governor and a Mayor in a state could conclude the most pressing challenge facing the state is its high school graduation rate. The Governor and/or Mayor would submit one application describing:How the partnership will be organized and AmeriCorps resources will be allocated between the partnering entities (State, locality, and nonprofit entities).The proposed theory of change and program model.How they will utilize an identified consortium of nonprofits that are well positioned to achieve outcomes identified in the theory of change.C. Additional Program ModelsCapacity BuildingGrants also will provide support for capacity building activities provided by national service participants. As a general rule, CNCS considers capacity building activities to be indirect services that enable CNCS-supported organizations to provide more, better, and sustained direct services in CNCS&#146; six focus areas. Capacity building activities cannot be solely intended to support the administration or operations of the organization. Examples of capacity building activities include recruiting and/or managing community volunteers; implementing effective volunteer management practices; completing community assessments that identify goals and recommendations; developing new systems and business processes (technology, performance management, training, etc.); or enhancing existing systems and business processes.Encore ProgramsCongress set a goal that 10 percent of AmeriCorps funding should support encore service programs that engage a significant number of participants age 55 or older. CNCS seeks to meet that 10 percent target in this competition and encourages encore programs to apply. Professional Corps Professional Corps programs recruit and place qualified members in positions as teachers, health care providers, police officers, engineers, or other professionals in communities with an inadequate number of such professionals. Applicants are eligible to apply for funding for a portion of the program costs. Professional Corps members&#146; salaries are paid entirely by the organizations with which the members serve, and are not included in the budget. In order to be considered for funding, applicants must demonstrate that there are an inadequate number of professionals in the community(ies) where the corps seeks to place members. These grants can either be fixed amount or cost reimbursement grants.D. National Performance MeasuresThe SAA emphasizes measuring the impact of service and focusing on a core set of issue areas. CNCS&#146; five-year Strategic Plan establishes an ambitious set of objectives that support the mission and goals to implement the Serve America Act. These strategic goals guided the development of 16 agency-wide Priority Performance Measures. National Performance Measures allow CNCS to demonstrate aggregated impact of all its national service programs, including AmeriCorps State and National. They are divided in two categories: Priority Measures and Complementary Program Measures. For more information, please refer to the National Performance Measure Instructions.E. 2014 AmeriCorps Funding Priorities In the FY 2014 AmeriCorps competition, CNCS seeks to prioritize the investment of national service resources in economic opportunity, education, veterans and military families, disaster services, and the Governor and Mayor Initiative. CNCS will continue to focus on national service programs that improve academic outcomes for children, youth, and young adults. This focus reflects the extensive experience and past success of national service programs in education, and aligns with the efforts of the Department of Education. In addition, CNCS seeks to increase its investment in programs that serve veterans and military families or engage veterans and military families in service. CNCS will also focus investment in programs that increase community resiliency through disaster preparation, response, recovery, and mitigation. CNCS will focus investment in programs that increase economic opportunities for communities and AmeriCorps members. Finally, CNCS will focus on summer programming for K-12 students, especially those programs that address the academic &#147;summer slide.&#148; Proposed activities will engage youth and young adults as summer members to help support summer reading, math, science, and environmental learning activities for youth in rural and urban areas most likely at risk of summer learning loss.CNCS will seek to build a diversified portfolio across the focus areas, and other considerations are outlined below in Section V. B. Applicants proposing programs that receive priority consideration are not guaranteed funding. Furthermore, programs must demonstrate significant program focus, design, and outcomes to receive priority consideration. CNCS will give priority consideration to applicants in the following Tiers, in descending order of preference:Tier 1: Programs that select:Complementary Program Measures in Economic Opportunity (Programs that select O12, O14, O15, O17 must also select an additional Priority or Complementary Program Measure from Tier 1, 2, or 3 that measures community impact), orPriority Measures in Veterans and Military Families, or Priority Measures in Disaster Services, orA Governor and Mayor InitiativeNOTE: CNCS&#146; expectation is that if Tier 1 is selected at least 30% of your MSYs are in the complementary program measures or priority measures above. If that is not the case and Tier 1 has been selected, please explain in the narrative why it was not possible to meet the 30% threshold. Programs that fit these Priority or Complementary Program Measures should use these measures. These measures can be found in Section IX, Tier 1. Tier 2: Programs that select Priority Measures in:Environmental Stewardship, orHealthy Futures, or Capacity Building Education and are not serving 100% in schools that received awards under the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program and are implementing one of the SIG school intervention models and/or Priority Schools identified by a State educational agency (SEA) that has received approval from the Department of Education of its request for Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) flexibility, orPrograms that have selected Priority Measures other than those in Tier 1 for:Economic OpportunityNOTE: CNCS&#146; expectation is that if Tier 2 is selected at least 30% of your MSYs are in the priority measures above. If that is not the case and Tier 2 has been selected, please explain in the narrative why it was not possible to meet the 30% threshold.Programs that fit these Priority Measures should use these measures. These measures can be found in Section IX, Tier 1 or 2. Applicants whose members will be serving in schools that received awards under the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program and are implementing one of the SIG school intervention models and/or Priority Schools identified by a State educational agency (SEA) that has received approval from the Department of Education of its request for Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) flexibility must check the box on the Performance Measure tab in eGrants &#147;SIG/Priority Schools&#148; to be considered for Tier 1. The &#147;NCES School ID&#148; will need to be entered in the service location information at the time the members are enrolled. Tier 3: Programs that select Complementary Program Measures. These measures can be found in Section IX. Tier 3. Tier 4: Programs in the Focus Areas with self-nominated measures.Tier 5: Programs outside the Focus Areas with self-nominated measures. Continuation requests for expansion will receive priority consideration and preference in the same manner as described above.
GrantorContactEmailDescription: Direct email for competition.
GrantorContactText: 202) 606-7508
CloseDateExplanation: The deadline for eGrants submissions is 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on January 22, 2014.