An Example: Five
Steps Through an
Online Small
Grant Program Cycle
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Step 1: Set Up
a Grant Program Online
A Coordinator logs
into the Administration Website to set up a list of Reviewers, and at least one backup
Coordinator. S/he will compose information
about the small grants program to appear on the Public Website, prepare the appraisal criteria
against which all proposals will be assessed and, if desired, set differing relative weights
for the criteria. S/he will compose a Call for
Proposals (or multiple CfPs), and each CFP may include additional unique appraisal
criteria. Finally, s/he will compose
default text for notification letters to accept, further discuss or decline proposals (the
letters can be individually customized
later).
At this point,
anyone who goes to the Public Website will be able to see information about the small grants
program, read about a Call for Proposals, and find out all they need to know to prepare and
submit a proposal. Proposals may be submitted
online through the website, via email with an attachment in any format, or via courier, post
or fax.
Step
2: Receive and Review
Proposals
When a proposal is
received electronically or in hard copy, the Coordinator initiates the review process for each
new proposal record by selecting Reviewers from the
list. This automatically sends the proposal out
electronically for review. Each of the selected
Reviewers will receive an email that contains an attached copy of the proposal, and a link to
its appraisal page. When a Reviewer logs onto
the Administration Website, s/he will see only the proposals to which s/he has been
assigned.
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Selecting one of
the proposals, s/he is presented with the list of criteria that apply to the particular CfP,
each associated with a ranking scale and a field for
comments.
S/he completes and
submits the form,
and this review
information is added to the proposal record in the
database.
Coordinators can
monitor the status of the entire process from the Proposal Tracking and Review
page. Reminder emails can be automatically sent
to Reviewers who have not yet submitted
reviews.
Step 3:
Summarize Proposal Reviews for Committee
Decision
With all reviews
completed for a proposal, the Coordinator will generate a Review
Summary. For each criterion, OPA assembles
Reviewers’ comments, and calculates the average weighted score (rank)X(weight) given by all
the Reviewers. It automatically flags
individual criteria for which scores are less than the minimum established by the Coordinator
for proposal approval. It also compares the
overall average score to the
minimum.
As the Coordinator
sets a proposal record to “awarded”, OPA compares the program budget to cumulative grant
amounts to assess the impact on the budget of the small grants
program. The Coordinator could fractionally
raise or lower the minimum ranking, and re-generate the summaries to avoid over or under
utilizing the
budget.
When a viable
portfolio of proposals is assembled, the one-page Review Summaries can be printed and/or
attached to the
original proposals,
and presented to Program
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Committee
members (in-person or online) who have responsibility for final selection and decisions on award
amounts.
Step
4: Select Proposals, Track Budgeting, and
Notify Proponents
When the Program
Committee finalizes selections, the Coordinator updates the status of each proposal as
“awarded” or “declined”. For each proposal, an
addressed letter can be generated from the default texts of the notification letters that were
prepared during setup by the Coordinator. Each
of these letters can be edited by the Coordinator to suit
circumstances. Notification letters can be sent
to proponents by email, or formatted for printing to send by post or
fax. At this point, grant arrangements would be
finalized with the Proponents who have had their proposals
accepted. Accepted proposals can be made
available on the Public Website, giving the opportunity for public threaded discussions of the
issues raised at all stages of the supported
work.
Step 5: Accept
and Review Reports
The cycle continues
with the submission of interim and/or final reports by each recipient of a
grant. The Coordinator circulates a report to
Reviewers (defaulting to the same Reviewers who appraised the proposal, although this list can
be revised). The Reviewers make comments
online, and the Coordinator can prepare a message to the report author with details from these
comments. Multiple drafts of the report can be
submitted and reviewed following the same
procedure. When appropriate, the Coordinator
marks the report “accepted”, and again, it can be automatically made available
on the Public site for public access and
discussion.
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