HEALTHCARE DEVELOPMENT CENTER

Transcription

1 HEALTHCARE DEVELOPMENT CENTER Partnership Guide Hanover Research s Health Care Development Center (HDC) was founded in response to overwhelming demand from Hanover Research clients for assistance identifying best-fit grant opportunities and procuring grant funds. HDC meets these needs by providing fullcycle grants support and writing solutions, including prospect research, program development consultation and grantsmanship training, and proposal writing. Federal agencies and private foundations announce an average of 25 new grant opportunities each day, and HDC s services are individualized to help clients leverage their unique strengths, independent of their organization s size or grants staff, so that they can achieve their external funding goals. This guide is intended as a reference to help clients maximize their partnership with HDC H S TREET N W, 2nd FLOOR, W ASHI NGT O N, D C P F

2 PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT A project consists of any product delivered to the client. Examples include a prospecting report, a grant proposal narrative, a proposal review, a budget narrative, a post-award report, an RFP analysis, etc. The annual fixed fee covers all labor costs across each partnership year. Additional expenses related to a particular request (e.g. on-site visits or other travel, relationshipfacilitation expenses, etc.) will be detailed in full prior to undertaking the effort. We request each invoice to be paid net 21 days of issuance. GRANTS SOLUTIONS AND TERMS Hanover Research s Heath Care Development Center (HDC) provides comprehensive grants solutions to hospitals, healthcare organizations, higher education institutions, public school districts, municipalities and other non-profit organizations. All services are delivered on a fixed-cost, annual contract basis, with clients receiving support on an unlimited number of sequential activities across the partnership term. Grantseeking Strategy HDC will survey staff, program directors, and faculty to identify organizational strengths in the context of the grants climate and current funding trends. HDC will use information gathered during the onboarding process to produce a memorandum proposing a grants strategy for the organization. Research-Based Grants Prospecting HDC will develop customized grant-prospecting reports for areas of particular need. Reports may include government and/or private opportunities, and will propose strategies for maximizing all available funding streams. HDC will conduct feasibility assessments of open grant opportunities to ensure clients' projects or initiatives are eligible and competitive. Program Development Consultation HDC will provide guidance on the development of both new and existing programs based on years of relevant industry expertise. HDC will identify model programs, analyze their strengths and weaknesses, and suggest refinements which reflect the unique characteristics of the client organization. HDC will incorporate secondary research to strengthen proposed methods and activities, and mine program data to demonstrate effectiveness Hanover Research 2

3 Grant Proposal Development HDC's Grant Proposal Development services include grant application development, writing, review, and rewriting. HDC will also fully construct Letters of Inquiry for private grantmakers. HDC can serve as the project manager for your internal team of subjectmatter experts as they generate a grant proposal, and contribute to the production of pre-proposal data analysis and other content such as best practice and literature reviews. Grant Alerts HDC will deliver weekly alerts that outline industry-specific funding opportunities and funding-related news items. Grantsmanship Training HDC can develop and conduct customized on-site grant training workshops. Training content will be determined in consultation with an HDC grants expert and may be comprised of sector-specific and/or general curricula. YOUR FIRST YEAR OF PARTNERSHIP The first year of partnership will be tailored to your organization s current infrastructure and experience in grant seeking, as well as your organization s specific funding priorities. All new clients are encouraged to complete the HDC Capabilities Assessment Survey which will guide our initial conversations as well as our partner onboarding process and the Grantseeking Strategy memo. For clients with limited infrastructure and experience, HDC will establish milestones for developing grant-readiness and establishing funding priorities, and will often begin with a more rigorous assessment of organizational strengths and weaknesses with regard to grant seeking. For those clients with extensive infrastructure, experience, and funding goals we typically jump right into proposal development. PROGRAM OFFICE CONTACT POLICY Often in the process of analyzing an RFP or writing a proposal, questions arise regarding eligibility, budget, etc., that are not addressed on the grantmaker s website. HDC encourages our clients to contact program officers with these questions. If preferred, HDC will reach out to program officers on behalf of clients. HDC does not mention clients names or specifics of their proposals when speaking with program officers, but if asked will state that they are an associate of the questioning client institution. It should be noted that program officers typically prefer to hear directly from those seeking funding Hanover Research 3

4 GRANT SUBMISSION POLICY HDC assists clients with proposal development but cannot submit proposals or applications on behalf of client organizations. HDC s policy is that client institutions, as the fiscal agent for grant applications, submit grants autonomously. HDC also does not login to any federal or state agencies or foundation grant submission portals on behalf of clients. HDC will coach clients though the process but clients must perform the application submittal. HDC s submission assistance is not intended to supercede requirements or instructions provided by the funding agency or portal operators, and all clients must contact the appropriate officials directly to obtain final guidance on submission questions. All clients are responsible for registering with the necessary submission portals and for obtaining all information required for a successful and timely submission. In some cases, registration and approval for these portals may take more than 3 weeks. Completion of online forms associated with federal funding opportunities often takes several days and requires the cooperation of the organization s business office, grants office, administrators, and other officials. HDC encourages clients to begin completing these forms well in advance of submission deadlines. PROSPECTING AND GRANTS RESEARCH Prospecting for grant opportunities involves two types of research. The first type comprises general, broad prospect research that demonstrates to an institution the types of grants currently available for which the institution is both a good fit and eligible. The second type is program or project-specific prospecting, in which HDC creates a detailed prospect report of the various grants currently available that are suited to fund an institution s particular need or program. Prospecting requests are one of the project types HDC will undertake for clients and do not generally receive priority over proposal development in the client s project queue unless the client specifies that the prospecting project has priority. GRANT SUBMISSION TIMELINE POLICY HDC works with clients to ensure the timely submission of each proposal. To accomplish this, each proposal requires the client and HDC to establish a project timeline or calendar. Together the client and HDC will agree upon an internal deadline for completion of all project pieces, and it is critical that both HDC and the client stick to these timelines to ensure that quality proposals are submitted by the proposal deadline Hanover Research 4

5 BUDGETS AND BUDGET DEVELOPMENT HDC can work with financial and programmatic staff to assist in budget development and justification. In particular, HDC can provide guidance on strategy in budget development that is more likely to be acceptable to reviewers. Additionally, HDC can provide budget review, budget line-item cross-checks with the application narrative, and comments on the reasonableness of budgetary cost projections and totals. Compliance with all application regulations is the responsibility of the applicant, both at the time of submittal and post-award. HDC recommends that the grant team and financial staff maintain a strong familiarity with applicable regulatory documents that may include sponsor/grant-maker guidelines, program templates, OMB circulars, etc. If a question arises regarding the interpretations of said guidelines or written documents, HDC recommends that these questions be directed to the funder or funding agency. PARTNERSHIP GRANTS AND MEMOS OF UNDERSTANDING (MOU) In today s competitive funding climate, partnerships can sometimes make the difference between a proposal that is funded and one that is not. Grantmakers may require partnerships between various types of entities as a condition of eligibility. In other cases, HDC may recommend that a client consider partnering to enhance its competitive position. However, negotiating partnerships and managing those relationships are best done at the institutional level. HDC will help facilitate this process with the following guidance: Clients should consider partner relationships as far in advance as possible to allow time for discussion among the appropriate institutional personnel. Partnerships often require written documentation in order to be recognized. Depending upon the specific grant opportunity or funding agency, this documentation is sometimes referred to as a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), a Letter of Intent, or a Consortium Agreement Letter. Regardless of what this documentation is called (referred to here as an MOU), the purpose is the same to define the proposed relationship between the parties and to ensure that the relationship has appropriate institutional support. HDC believes that successful partnerships must be defined by the parties involved based on knowledge at the institutional level; therefore, HDC does NOT negotiate such agreements, draft MOUs, etc. Most institutions have staff who are familiar with policies for drafting such agreements, and HDC recommends that the institutional grants office or equivalent be consulted as early in the process as possible. This will ensure that MOUs are 2013 Hanover Research 5

6 acceptable to your institution, and will avoid delays in obtaining institutional signatures. Clients should always review the specific partnership requirements outlined in the RFA or in the funder s guidelines. Where templates are provided, HDC recommends adhering to them as closely as possible. PREPARING GRANT PROPOSALS INVOLVING PARTNERSHIPS Relationships with partners can be complex and subject to change. While HDC values partner relationships, our first responsibility is to you, our client. Typically, this will mean that our client should be the fiscal agent, applicant, prime contractor, or Principal Investigator. When working with grants involving partnerships: Negotiation of contracts, establishment of partner roles, allocation of budgets, etc., are the responsibility of the client. For NIH Program Project grants or other similar proposals that essentially require separate grants under a single structure, HDC will work with the client to establish the overall framework, assist with the client s portion of the proposal, and integrate the separate sections submitted by the partners. HDC will not write content for other institutions with which it does not have a contract, but HDC may agree to review and revise partner sections on behalf of the client if the client is serving as the lead institution. However, each section will be considered a project in the client s queue. THE CLIENT-LIAISON AND HDC DIRECTOR RELATIONSHIP HDC Clients work through an appointed Client Liaison who is the one person within your organization responsible for managing the HDC contract. Likewise, HDC will name one Relationship Director and one Content Director as your central points of contact. Before HDC begins work on a project, the Client Liaison should provide his or her consent. Project schedules are then approved in consultation with both parties. This process thus facilitates the transition from one project to another within both organizations. The goal of HDC partnership is to maximize production output. Service provision has been planned to minimize rush projects, though we understand that unforeseen circumstances occur. Your HDC Directors can assist you in the creation of an annual grants timeline to help you plan projects within a reasonable timeframe and gain necessary support from stakeholders Hanover Research 6

7 HDC RELATIONSHIP AND CONTENT DIRECTOR DUTIES Act as the official voice of HDC, regardless of the number of HDC team clients assisting on a project. Explain the range of grants solutions in a welcome call with the Client Liaison. Thereafter, the Directors will help the Client Liaison balance priorities and flow of projects to maximize their contract. Priority will be on projects that have external deadlines set by funders, such as grant proposals and reports, over projects that only have internal deadlines like prospecting reports. If the Client already has the maximum number of projects in the queue, and a project of a higher priority arises unexpectedly, the Directors will explain the courses of action available to the Client. Note that HDC cannot guarantee to meet multiple deadlines if projects are interrupted once underway. HDC will only undertake projects that fall within a reasonable timeline for service provision. Your Content Director serves as your primary project manager and will assign our grant writers, referred to as Grants Consultants, to work with you and your staff to develop and submit proposals. Grants Consultants are assigned to projects based on their expertise and personal experience with funding agencies and organizations. AWARD NOTIFICATION POLICY At HDC, we want to make the most of each opportunity to improve the services we offer to all our clients, and part of this internal improvement process includes tracking our successes and learning from the materials generated by grantmakers during the review process. To aid us in this process and ultimately improve the level of service we provide to all clients, we ask that you notify your HDC points of contact when you receive funding or refusal notifications from grantmakers, and where possible, we ask that you send us a copy of the reviewers comments and other review materials. As is our policy regarding all confidential client information, these materials are for internal use only. Such copies only serve to aid HDC in improving future grant applications on behalf of the client and thus will not be distributed to anyone outside of Hanover Research Hanover Research 7