As we’ve written before, it’s important to carefully follow RFP directions when writing any proposal. Still, many RFPs are poorly written, repetitive, and often contradictory. If one finds a significant issue in the RFP, the only recourse is to contact the Program Officer listed in the RFP and ask for clarification in writing. If you get a response at all, it’s likely to be along the lines of “read the RFP.”
While this becomes pretty frustrating pretty fast, stay cool and use common sense in writing your proposal narrative and developing the budget. Let’s think about cost-per-participant issues as one example. In responding to RFPs for most human services project concepts, it’s pretty easy to figure out the capitated (“per head”) cost of delivering the proposed service. For example, if you propose to provide job training to 100 folks over three years and request a $1,000,000 grant, the cost per trainee is $10,000. The key is to make sure that your proposed service delivery model and budget are in line with funder expectations.*
Some RFPs provide specific guidance on the cost per client, such as the DOL’s YouthBuild program, which specifies around $17,000/trainee. Until about 10 years ago, when HUD stopped administering YouthBuild, it was about $30,000/trainee. The primary reason for the dramatic drop was that DOL finally figured out that grantees could easily satisfy the remedial education/GED component of YouthBuild by using a partnering charter school that receives Average Daily Attendance (ADA) funds—at no cost to YouthBuild.
This also creates a nice way of covering the required YouthBuild match. The YouthBuild match requirement has become sort of a legal fiction. Many SAMHSA RFPs include capitated funding ranges that vary by type of service (e.g., outpatient, intensive outpatient and so on). To have any hope of being funded, the budget has to hit those targets.
In some cases, however, the RFP doesn’t directly state a capitated rate. Often, it’s possible to figure out what the funding agency expects, if the overall impact is discussed (e.g., train 10,000 veterans) and dividing this info into the total amount available. In contrast, the ED Student Support Services RFP mandates the maximum grant and maximum number of participants, so it’s fairly obvious what the capitated rate should be, even though the RFP doesn’t explicitly state the capitated rate. One could propose a lower capitated rate, but why would you?
If you have no clue from the RFP regarding an appropriate implied capitated rate, you’re back to using common sense. Let’s say you’re a one high school local education agency (LEA or school district) in rural California with 500 students and one counselor. The counselor’s salary is $50,000/year, so the district is in effect spending $500/year/student on counseling, but wants to expand counseling because of a school gun violence incident, bullying outreach or whatever.
As luck would have it, the Elementary and Secondary School Counseling (ESSC) grant program does just that. In developing your ESSC proposal and budget, however, it’s a good idea to keep reality in mind and use common sense. If you propose a $500,000 annual ESSC grant, that would be a ten-fold increase over current service delivery levels and probably would not be well-received, even though the ESSC RFP does not specify a capitated rate for expanded counseling services. Instead, a $200,000 annual grant, along with an innovative approach to counseling, would be a more reasonable approach.
* You’ll learn how to calibrate expectations for cost through experience and through looking at a lot of RFPs.