Item No. 1 of 1

INVESTIGATOR: Mosca, L.

PERFORMING INSTITUTION:
THIRD SECTOR NEW ENGLAND, INC.
89 S ST STE 700
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02111

SUPPORTING BEGINNING FARMER PROGRAMS WITH TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO APPLY FOR BFRDP

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, in collaboration with their partners is proposing to support inexperienced BFRDP applicants through the EET-Assistance grant. The project team has extensive and diverse experience working with NIFA applicants as the Training and Technical Assistance provider for Community Food Project applicants, beginning farm programs and evaluation. Additionally, the project team has an extensive national network of contacts to ensure that organizations across the US are able to benefit from the support. The project's objectives are to: 1.) Identify inexperienced applicants' challenges in understanding and submitting successful BFRDP proposals. 2.) Expand number and availability of training materials, resources and webinars designed to support inexperienced applicants with submitting BFRDP applications. 3.) Develop online tools to help inexperienced applicants understand their level of readiness to apply for BFRDP, and 4.) Develop an online portal for public questions and answers with BFRDP program staff to streamline the RFA and application process. The team will work closely with BFRDP program staff to understand challenges already identified, as well as evaluate past applicants to understand common barriers. From this, the team will develop extensive resources to support inexperienced applicants, including written materials, webinars, an online self-assessment tool to assess readiness to apply and a dynamic FAQ portal that will allow applicants to see what others have asked, as well as ask their own questions. All tools and resources developed will be publicly available on the New Entry, NIFA, and BFRDP websites.

OBJECTIVES: Objective 1: Identify inexperienced applicants' challenges in understanding and submitting successful BFRDP proposals. To develop an effective support and assistance strategy, we will undertake three data gathering strategies to assess the most common errors and points of confusion for new and inexperienced BFRDP applicants. To get a broad overview of the issues involved, we will meet with USDA BFRDP program staff to identify the themes and issues they have seen in unsuccessful proposals, and learn about which topics they think are most important to address in a structured outreach and education program for potential applicants. Additionally, we will undertake a national survey to identify the extent to which these issues and challenges exist, which will allow for a prioritization of issues to be addressed. This survey will also allow us to learn about issues faced by organizations that wanted to apply to BFRDP but were unable to do so. Similarly, we will conduct follow-up interviews with organizations to better understand the responses received in the survey and to develop useful training strategies and tools.The desired outcome from these efforts will be to have a clear picture of the needs of new and inexperienced organizations from which to develop a framework for outreach and training resources. This will allow us to prioritize and develop a work plan for development of targeted resources, educational programming, and outreach. The proposed outcome measures and targets will be the completed survey and interviews. The survey invitation will be sent to at least 700 organizations nationally and our goal is to have at least 100 quality responses. For the interviews, we will conduct 10-20 interviews as follow-up to the survey.Objective 2: Expand number and availability of training materials, resources and webinars designed to support inexperienced applicants with submitting BFRDP applications. To help prepare inexperienced applicants to complete BFRDP funding proposals, we will develop training materials, resources and webinars geared towards inexperienced BFRDP applicants to guide them through the application process. These resources and webinars will be publicly available to any organization interested in utilizing them. These resources will be created in collaboration with partner organizations and BFRDP program staff to ensure usefulness and wide applicability. In particular, we will work closely with BFRDP program staff to create detailed resource guides translating technical language into layman's terms for new applicants. Potential webinar and resource topics include BFRDP program planning, adult education learning theories, project evaluation, and strategic resource and partnership development for required matching funds. Other ideas will come from conversations with BFRDP program staff and from the evaluation of past applicants in year 1.The desired outcome is to have a range of materials, resources and webinars available to support inexperienced applicants at various stages of readiness to seek BFRDP funding. The proposed outcome measures and targets are to host 4 - 6 webinars/year on topics pertinent to inexperienced BFRDP applicants, and to make at least 700 organizations nationally aware that these resources and webinars are available to them through our outreach partners.Objective 3: Develop online tools to help inexperienced applicants understand their level of readiness to apply for BFRDP. Many inexperienced applicants are unfamiliar with the complex process of applying for BFRDP funding. To facilitate this understanding, we will design an online self-assessment tool (OSAT) that will allow organizations to determine their level of readiness to submit an application to BFRDP. We will provide detailed instructions on organizational requirements to register for grants.gov, building a strong project team and managing a complex collaboration, ability to generate required matching funds from non-federal sources, as well as other relevant resources specific to each organization's level of readiness to help them prepare an application, or provide them with the tools to be better prepared in a future year. We will work with BFRDP program staff to understand additional areas where support is needed.The desired outcome is for inexperienced applicants to have a better understanding of what the BFRDP application process requires, and to have a realistic understanding of their readiness to apply. The proposed outcome measures and targets are to make at least 700 organization nationally aware of this resources and to have at least 15 prospective applicants in year one and 50 applicants in year two use the tool to determine their readiness. This will be evaluated through an online resource evaluation link provided in the document.Objective 4: Develop an online portal for public questions and answers with BFRDP program staff to streamline the RFA and application process. Any applicant, but particularly an inexperienced applicant, will have many questions for the BFRDP program staff throughout the application process. An online portal (FAQ Portal) will be created to serve as a dynamic question and answer page that will allow applicants to input a particular question for response and to see what questions have already been asked. BFRDP program staff will be able to respond to questions in real time and the online portal will be able to capture and track the most frequently asked questions to inform future resource development, outreach, and educational programming to assist BFRDP applicants. We will work closely with BFRDP program staff during development to ensure usefulness for their staff.The desired outcome is to decrease the amount of time that BFRDP program staff need to spend answering similar questions and allow inexperienced applicants to benefit from the variety of questions already being asked by other applicants. The web portal will be a publicly available resource, so all potential applicants have access to the same (fair and impartial) information. The proposed outcome measures and targets are to make at least 700 organizations nationally aware that this resource exists and to have at least 75 applicants ask a question through the portal over the course of the grant period.