2019 Health in All Policies Mini-Grant Eligibility Requirements and Frequently Asked Questions

THIS FUNDING OPPORTUNITY HAS CLOSED. NCHH ANNOUNCED THE GRANTEES ON JANUARY 16, 2019.

The National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH,) in collaboration with the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA), the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), will offer support to local governmental agencies to implement a Health in All Policies strategy as part of their lead prevention implementation program and activities. This effort is supported through cooperative agreements with CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health (CDC-RFA-OT18-1802: Strengthening Public Health Systems and Services through National Partnerships to Improve and Protect the Nation’s Health).

Up to three entities will be awarded a maximum funding amount of $20,000 each, as well as technical assistance from these national partners along the way. The purpose of these grants is to advance local efforts to reduce lead exposure and its effects and build capacity to use a Health in All Policies approach for future efforts.

Eligibility Requirements

Who is eligible?
Local governmental agencies housing their jurisdiction’s childhood lead prevention programs (i.e., local, tribal, or territorial health departments and/or environmental agencies). Local applicants from jurisdictions not currently receiving state or local CDC Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program funds (Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and all U.S. territories and federally-recognized or state-recognized tribal jurisdictions) are especially encouraged to apply.

How much money is available?
Applicants can apply for up to $20,000 in funding for events or other activities to support the implementation of a Health in All Policies strategy as part of their lead poisoning prevention efforts. Up to three awards of $20,000 each will be available for work starting in 2019.

What is technical assistance and are there related grantee expectations to note?
Technical assistance will be provided to grantees both remotely and in-person over the duration of the project period. Opportunities may include but are not limited to grantee participation in: a project kickoff webinar; monthly TA calls with applicable national partners; an on-site visit by applicable national partners; an in-person, project wrap-up convening in DC; submission of a final report; and other TA activities as needed (e.g., additional topic-specific, capacity building webinars or TA calls with peer mentors).

Can an organization submit more than one application?
An organization may submit more than one application; however, it may not receive funding for more than one award.

What types of activities can the funding support?
Funding should be used to support activities that focus on using a Health in All Policies approach to reduce childhood lead exposure. For the purpose of this funding opportunity, activities should focus on strengthening linkages of lead-exposed children to recommended services (e.g., medical follow-up, early childhood interventions) and strengthening targeted, population-based interventions (e.g., primary prevention, identification and removal of lead hazards).

Examples of activities include but are not limited to:

• Cross-sector coalition-building (e.g., establishing or strengthening a lead-focused coalition, embedding lead exposure follow-up as a priority for another established coalition);
• Workforce development, training, or cross-training (e.g., increasing capacity of code enforcement to identify and address lead hazards, educating public health nurses on local resource pathways for lead exposure follow-up);
• Initiatives to promote the use of data in connecting lead-exposed children to follow-up services or identifying and removing lead hazards;
• Coordinating sustainable financing streams (e.g., establishing a low-interest loan program to assist low-income property owners with repairs, working with a hospital community benefits program to invest in connection of lead-exposed children to follow-up services);
• Activities to develop systems or policy changes (e.g., proactive rental inspection programs; strengthening enforcement).

Communities may apply to use funding for either a new activity or one that that is already in the planning stage. The expected period of performance is January 15, 2019 – July 19, 2019. Final reports will be due by July 26, 2019.

Note: Applicants may NOT use funds to support attempts to influence legislation through direct or grassroots lobbying. For example, funds cannot be used for signage that endorses pending legislation or an elected official.

What outputs or outcomes will successful applicants be expected to demonstrate?
Given the relatively short project period (roughly six months), communities will be expected to articulate a long-term goal and measure progress towards that goal. It is expected that these awards will be used to foster the following outputs and outcomes:

• Agencies implement a Health in All Policies approach or produce significant progress towards the implementation of a Health in All Policies approach with the goal of improving their childhood lead poisoning prevention program activities and outcomes within the communities they serve.
• Agencies use at least one of the seven Health in All Policies approaches to connect more children with elevated blood lead levels to follow-up care, increase the number of follow-up services available to families with children identified to have blood lead levels above the state’s blood lead action level, or implement innovative population-based lead poisoning prevention strategies in high-risk communities.
• Agencies demonstrate how the activities proposed will result in the implementation of a Health in All Policies approach or significant progress in implementing a Health in All Policies approach related to connecting families of children with elevated blood lead levels to follow-up care and/or innovative childhood lead poisoning prevention strategies, such as moving from project concept to the achievement of activities and pre-identified milestones. The applicant agency must describe the expected outputs and outcomes the project will achieve during the project period and must identify which of the following strategies will be used to advance Health in All Policies:
  1. Developing and structuring cross-sector relationships;
  2. Incorporating health into decision-making processes;
  3. Enhancing workforce capacity;
  4. Coordinating funding and investments;
  5. Integrating research, evaluation, and data systems;
  6. Synchronizing communications and messaging; and
  7. Implementing accountability structures.

Evaluation Criteria

How will award recipients be determined?
This is a competitive grant award. Applicants will be evaluated based on need, readiness, workplan, and relevance. Applications must demonstrate the following:

• Need (5 points):
  Does the applicant’s community have a significant burden of lead poisoning or risk factors associated with lead poisoning? Or are there disparities in lead poisoning and follow-up care coordination within the community or among specific subpopulations at greater risk? Is there a gap in services, messaging, political will, policies, or cross-sector partnership that the proposed work will help to address? How will the community be affected if the applicant does not get the award?
• Readiness (5 points):
  Does the applicant have experience in successfully conducting similar activities? If relevant to the proposed activities, does the applicant have an established coalition or relationships with appropriate partners/influencers to achieve the proposed outcomes? Is the applicant connected to other CDC-funded partnerships in the community (e.g., PICH, REACH)? Is there adequate staff, community, and/or partner capacity and expertise to carry out the proposed work?
• Workplan and partnerships (5 points):
  What is the objective of the proposed activity? Is the plan reasonable? How and to what extent does the workplan support the implementation of a Health in All Policies strategy? Are there strong internal and external partners to support the proposed work? Will the local Environmental Health Director and state lead point of contact be involved in the work?
• Relevance and sustainability (5 points):
  Does the proposed work advance the goal of strengthening: (1) linkages of lead-exposed children to recommended services; (2) targeted, population-based interventions? How will the proposed work build internal capacity to use a Health in All Policies framework in the future?
• Bonus point (1 point):
  One bonus point will be given to local applicants from jurisdictions not currently receiving state or local CDC Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program funds (Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and all U.S. territories and federally-recognized or state-recognized tribal jurisdictions).

What information do I need to apply?
NCHH accepts grant applications ONLY through online submission; it does NOT accept the application in PDF format. Applicants can preview all of the application questions here (PDF copy of full application).

NCHH recommends preparation of the application responses in advance, as the online application must be completed and submitted entirely in one session. NCHH also recommends printing a copy of the completed application before submitting it.

When are applications due?
This is a competitive grant process. Applicants must submit their online application by 5 p.m. ET, Thursday, December 13, 2018. Awardees will be notified via email by January 4, 2019. Applicants not selected to receive an award will be notified via email by January 11, 2019.

Where can I get more information?
For more information about the project, contact Laura Fudala (lfudala@nchh.org) or Jo Miller (jmiller@nchh.org), or call NCHH at 410.992.0712. As inquiries are received and answered, FAQs will be posted for public reference below.

Join the funding announcement listserv to be notified of new developments for this grant opportunity.

Questions about the Health in All Policies Mini-Grants

When will the grant awards be announced?
The award announcements are scheduled for January 2019. Update: The grantees were announced January 16.

Can I just send you my application as a PDF?
The grant submission is online only. We cannot accept your application in PDF format. You can fill out the application here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LGZLLLK. There’s a button at the bottom of that SurveyMonkey page to begin your application.

Can we submit letters of support from our partners?
We don’t have a mechanism for collecting letters of support, since they are not required; however, you may indicate that they’re available upon request in your application if you would like the review committee to know that they exist.

I’m having trouble filling in the survey boxes. What should I do?
For issues with SurveyMonkey, review the help page for taking surveys. Most issues seem to be related to a network or firewall that may be blocking some SurveyMonkey domains. You can add SurveyMonkey domains and subdomains to your whitelist so that they aren’t blocked.

Question 16 asks to describe how we would use the $20,000. We’ve reviewed the types of activities the funding can support. In our response, are you asking us to summarize the cost of the proposed activities and not to submit a detailed line-item budget?
Yes. Please summarize the cost of the activity(ies) and how you will use the mini-grant. Touch on budget categories such as labor, indirect costs, and other direct costs for materials, space rental, trainings/trainers, software, or other items as appropriate to your proposed activities. The budget does not need to be itemized but should be detailed enough to demonstrate that the costs are reasonable and justified.

Can an applicant propose to pay the costs for a representative to attend the in-person convening in Washington, DC, instead of this cost coming from the mini-grant budget?
Yes. Per the FAQ above, grantee travel to and participation in the project wrap-up convening in Washington, DC, is expected and should be included in the general description of how the grant funding will be used (Question 16). However, as long as these funding source for these costs is clearly acknowledged and explained in Question 16, applicants can propose leveraging other funding sources to supplement mini-grant funding to cover costs for required elements of the project.

Will funding for a required trip to DC come out of the grantee budget?
Yes! Grantee travel to and participation in the project wrap-up convening in Washington, DC, mentioned in the “What is technical assistance and are there related grantee expectations to note?” section of the RFP, should be included in the general description of how the grant funding will be used (Question 16).

Can any of the Health in All Policies mini-grant funds be used toward staff salaries for an event or activity?
Yes, funding may be allocated for staff salaries to support eligible grant activities.

Are territorial- or tribal-level government agencies eligible to apply?
Yes. Applicants for this opportunity must be local, tribal, or territorial governmental agencies housing their jurisdiction’s childhood lead prevention programs (i.e., local tribal, or territorial health departments and/or environmental health agencies). However, note that partnerships with, and the involvement of, lead points of contact in state health and environmental agencies are encouraged. They will considered in the evaluation criteria related to “workplan and partnerships.” Additionally, one bonus point will be given to local applicants from jurisdictions not currently receiving state or local CDC Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program funds (Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and all U.S. territories and federally-recognized or state-recognized tribal jurisdictions).

Are state-level government agencies eligible to apply?
No. Applicants for this opportunity must be local, tribal, or territorial governmental agencies housing their jurisdiction’s childhood lead prevention programs (i.e., local tribal, or territorial health departments and/or environmental health agencies). However, please note that partnerships with, and the involvement of, lead points of contact in state health and environmental agencies are encouraged. They will be considered in the evaluation criteria related to “workplan and partnerships.”

Are state-level government agencies who don’t currently receive CDC Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program funds eligible to apply?
No. State-level governmental agency applicants are not eligible for this opportunity. Local, tribal, or territorial applicants can be from any jurisdiction, however, one bonus point will be given to local applicants from jurisdictions not currently receiving state or local CDC Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program funds (Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and all U.S. territories and federally-recognized or state-recognized tribal jurisdictions). Additionally, please note that partnerships with, and the involvement of, lead points of contact in state health and environmental agencies (regardless of CDC funding) are encouraged and will be considered in the evaluation criteria related to “workplan and partnerships.”

Our local health department/environmental agency does not have a formal lead poisoning prevention program but does conduct lead investigations in our jurisdiction and/or works with our state health department on lead poisoning prevention efforts, and/or is developing a more robust local response to lead and no other agencies or entities in our jurisdiction have primary responsibility for lead poisoning prevention activities. Are we eligible to apply for the grant?
Yes. If you are active in lead poisoning prevention efforts in your jurisdiction, with or without a formal “lead poisoning prevention program” per se, you would be eligible to apply for this opportunity. However, if you are not actively involved in lead poisoning response and prevention efforts in your community, you would not be eligible as the primary applicant and should explore partnering with others in your community and/or state who could develop and submit an application.

Are there general character limits for the short answer questions that do not have a character limit noted?
Yes. Our apologies as there do seem to be a few open response/other fields that do not have the character limit noted in SurveyMonkey. The online application and the PDF have been updated to reflect the limits.

How will the applications be reviewed and scored? Will the reviewers read and score the entire application, or will the reviewers only score certain questions and not look at other questions? Furthermore, should we refer to information in an answer to another question or repeat information when needed for each question?
Applications will be reviewed and scored in their entirety. This means that each individual reviewer will read and score the full submission of every application that they evaluate. Further, each application will be reviewed by multiple individuals. Feel free to refer to another question in one of your answers if you wish to avoid redundancy.

Will an application be eligible/considered for award if the submitted structure includes a partner organization applicant acting as a fiscal agent for the local governmental agency?
Yes, as long as the local governmental agency is the public health authority for the childhood lead poisoning prevention efforts in the relevant jurisdiction and will be the implementation agency for the activities outlined in the application. There are multiple reasons arrangements with an external fiscal agent may be beneficial to local governmental agencies seeking to apply for this opportunity. In such cases, the applicant must (1) provide a letter from the local government agency describing the delegation of authority (as specifically related to Health in All Policies) to the partner/agent and how the partner/agent will maintain its relationship with the local government agency and the childhood lead poisoning prevention efforts; and (2) include a brief statement in the comment box for Question 3 notifying reviewers of the arrangement/letter and includes the document file name. Letters should emailed to Laura Fudala/NCHH (lfudala@nchh.org) at the time of application submission and be named using the following convention: ApplicantOrganizationName_ApplicationSubmissionDate_FiscalAgentStatement.pdf