Strategy 6: Address challenges in grant-making and procurement processes
Understanding needs and challenges faced by CBOs in the grant-making process — and where flexibility might exist — is the key to lowering barriers to funding. State administrators can work with legal counsels and other important state officials such as state attorney generals’ offices, state procurement offices, and legislators to adapt grant processes and understand where CBOs might need additional support.
Policy levers include:
Engage applicants and grantees to identify opportunities for grant process improvement:
Hosting a discussion in community listening sessions and other forums on specific challenges and barriers in the grant process can help administrators avoid pitfalls and develop technical assistance approaches for working with CBOs
Strategy in action: Grantees funded by Rhode Island’s Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee are provided with ongoing organizational and capacity-building support in partnership with their health department agency. By leveraging the Rhode Island Health Department’s Health Equity Zonesinitiative, quarterly “learning communities” provide funded partners with trainings, networking opportunities, and specialized capacity-building supports such as grant writing.
Additional example: Post-grant application, the Oregon Health Authority distributed a survey to all applicants, regardless of whether they were funded or not, to ask what went well and what could have gone better in the application process. Following the survey, the state developed a “lessons learned” document that now guides a cross-agency workgroup to address grant application barriers.
Simplify application processes and reporting requirements for grant opportunities:
Many grant application processes reward an organization’s skill in grant writing over its capacity to deliver needed services, which favors organizations with sufficient resources to hire grant writers. Relatedly, simplifying reporting requirements and shifting emphasis from detailed written reports to regular ongoing touchpoints and an emphasis on storytelling can also help reduce reporting burdens while maintaining oversight.
Strategy in action: Several states reported that small changes, such as removing a length requirement for applications or shifting the application deadline to later in the evening (e.g., midnight), resulted in an increase in applicants.
Additional examples: States can review requirements for document submission, ensuring fund administrators ask for the minimum necessary to complete due diligence. Listing documents required for submission in a checklist format can also assist with ensuring complete applications are submitted.
Ensure accessibility of local data to help inform and support justification of community-level projects:
Needs assessments can help identify gaps in services at the state and local levels. However, they can require significant resources related to data collection and analysis. States have unique capabilities and resources for collecting and analyzing a range of public health, health system, social service, and other data that can help identify community needs and responses. States can work to include community voices and perspectives in the needs assessments, while also making the data easily accessible to CBOs for informing potential projects or efforts at the local level.
Strategy in action: Georgia’s Opioid Crisis Abatement Trust, which is responsible for approving the majority of funding allocated from the state share, made available regional and statewide reports on gaps in the continuum of care in an effort to assist applicants in developing targeted approaches and justifying their proposed projects. The gap analysis reports were developed by the state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities.
Considerations for Implementation
- Pain points faced by CBOs are not unique to opioid-related funding. Facilitating cross-agency approaches to lowering barriers across state-administered grant programs can help streamline approaches.
- Considering innovative alternate forms of applications, such as submitting a thought concept, conducting interviews with applicants, or allowing video submissions, may facilitate participation from more organizations.
- States must consider tradeoffs when altering grant reporting requirements; though simplifying reporting decreases the burden for award recipients, it also may lead to a decrease in oversight on expenditures.
- Depending on the source of funding and its restrictions, work with legal counsels, procurement offices, risk management offices, or other key officials to determine feasibility of strategies. Engaging these offices early can often shed light on funding vehicles or strategies used previously to decrease procurement barriers.
- Intermediaries can alleviate pressure on CBOs by assuming risk for compliance with requirements. These organizations may also have additional flexibilities to serve as a translator and help support organizations through the application process, including helping organizations with any documentation needed to meet financial requirements (e.g., 501c3 status).