Note: this is the first post written by our new Associate, Liz Rego (erego@seliger.com).
Some federal agencies, like the Department of Education and the Health Services and Resources Administration (HRSA), but not all, publish forecasts of when certain funding opportunities will be issued, usually before the start of the federal fiscal year on October 1.
Case in point: Last July 3, HRSA published a forecast on grants.gov that the FY 2024 New Access Points (NAP) Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO, which is HRSA-speak for RFP), would be published on December 12 with a February 2024 deadline. A new NAP NOFO is a big deal, as they are only published every three years or so and NAP is the best way for an FQHC to expand or for a nonprofit healthcare provider to become an FQHC. Unsurprisingly, when the NOFO did not appear on December 12, our FQHC clients started sending “what gives” e-mails. We guessed it had something to do with the screwed up FY ’24 federal budget process, and this was confirmed when one FQHC client reached out to her HRSA Program Officer and received the following response: “Although FY24 NAP funding has been forecasted, HRSA does not currently have a NAP funding opportunity open and does not plan to post it until we have a better sense of the FY 2024 budget.” So, when congress finally reconciles the different versions of the FY 2024 budget passed in December by the Senate and House, there will be a deluge of RFPs published quickly, with grant-writing chaos ensuing. HRSA recently undated their grants.gov NAP forecast, with the NOFO now expected to published on February 12 and has an April 12 deadline. Potential applicants can curse the federal government and those lying forecasters, but the sad reality is that the “Golden Rule” of grant seeking is that those with the gold make the rules.
To be fair, many forecasts are not any more accurate than projected RFP issuance dates. Meteorologists, for example, get a bad rap. For as long as the “TV weatherman” has existed, meteorologists have been the subject of ridicule in rain or shine, quite literally. Growing up in the Northeast, there was nothing more exciting for a kid than a snow day, and nothing more disappointing than a “false alarm.” All too many times, however, Mike Seidel* told us we were expecting a massive blizzard, schools announced closures, we pulled out our snowsuits** and sleds for the next day, and by 10 o’clock the next morning it was clear that we wouldn’t see even an inch of snow that day. As upsetting as this was for those of us hoping to make a snowman, at least we kids still got the day off from school; it was infinitely more upsetting for our parents, who were now stuck home with their children on a Tuesday for no reason, and those children now had absolutely no desire to go outside in the snow-less 25-degree weather. My father reserved some choice words for Mike and his fellow meteorologists on days like these, but to paraphrase sans expletives, he always said something to the effect of, “Those idiots are the only people who get paid to guess, and they get paid whether they are right or wrong so why would they care?!”
Okay, so the G-rated paraphrasing of my blue-collar “Masshole” father sounds absolutely nothing like him, but I’m sure you and your parents have said some variant of the same thing. I learned at a young age not to get my hopes up for snow, no matter what the weatherman says. Now having lived in Southern California for 14 years, ten of which were “dry years,” I’ve learned to apply that same “snow day” logic to rain forecasts. Whenever a friend says, “It’s supposed to rain this weekend!” my response is invariably, “Yeah, we’ll see.” Sometimes it does, but it seems that most of the time, it doesn’t. Since entering the world of grant writing, however, I have found that I can no longer agree 100% with my father’s sentiment; I need to give meteorologists a break- they are definitely not the only people getting paid to make predictions that seem to be inaccurate more often than not. It’s now part of my job to learn when “snow day” reasoning is required. There are some things that are just impossible to predict: Kanye West, the weather, and the government.
A forecasted RFP is not only similar to a questionable weather forecast, but also a bit like a film preview. How many of us got excited in 2019 for the last Bond film, No Time To Die, only to see its release delayed six times until October 2021? Maybe you’re not a Bond fan, but I think no matter what, we all became frustrated after being fed two full years of marketing for the film before it actually came to theaters. Life doesn’t always go as planned. In the case of, well, every film produced in the last four years, the Covid-19 pandemic was to blame for throwing a wrench into the works. In the case of recently forecasted RFPs, the federal government is to blame for the holdup. Yes, I know, you’re shocked!
When we research available grants, there is a reason that Seliger + Associates usually does not pay heed to “forecasted” RFPs- they aren’t real yet, and we know better than to create hype over the hypothetical, with the exception of opportunities like NAP, which are so highly anticipated by FQHCs (and we work for many FQHCs). A forecasted RFP is well-intentioned, and everyone appreciates a heads-up, but in the nonprofit world and the world of grant writing, it doesn’t do much good to plan for a grant opportunity that doesn’t yet exist. It’s a bit like being “engaged to be engaged,” if you know any of those couples (apologies if you are one of those couples). You either have a ring, or you don’t- no one cares if you “want to, you know, get a ring in six months maybe,” after you “figure some things out.” Funders are like significant others. They are the best. But letting us know in July that they plan on having funds for us in December, after they figure some things out, doesn’t help much. Then, December comes around after we waited patiently, but they still don’t have the ring- I mean funds- there’s no marriage proposal- I mean RFP- and we’re extremely disappointed, but we have no right to be because we’re the dummies that got our hopes up for nothing instead of going out and finding another S.O.! I mean, another grant.
RFP forecasts usually come out close to the start of the federal fiscal year on October 1 because, of course, that is when the federal budget used to be adopted. As you may know, that’s not how it really works anymore.*** For the last quarter of a century, Congress has funded the federal government through a series of Continuing Resolutions (CRs), rather than passing actual budgets, so the federal budget is never set in stone. Congress passed a CR last week, the third short-term spending bill approved in FY 2024, essentially buying them time until March to actually pass appropriations bills, since this of course has taken a backseat to holiday vacations and disagreements resulting in the now-constant threat of a “government shutdown.” So if you’re wondering what is going on with the federal budget, you’re not alone- no one knows! And if you’re wondering what happened to the RFPs forecasted for FY 2024, the answer is, the federal budget. At this rate, we will be close to halfway through the fiscal year before our government agrees on a budget for the fiscal year. No publicly traded corporation would be permitted to operate without a budget, but refer back to the Golden Rule of grant seeking.
In defense of you forecasters out there- meteorologists, government agencies, economists, psychics, etc.- I’ll point out that the definition of a forecast is a “prediction or estimate of future events” (i.e., an educated guess). Though “forecast” sounds more definitive than “prediction” or “estimate,” it is just that, not “a promise” or “an unconditional statement of fact regarding future events.” When a forecasted RFP doesn’t end up coming to fruition, our first instinct may be to blame those idiots that forecasted it for getting our hopes up, but as we all should have learned from Mike Seidel and The Weather Channel, some things are predictably unpredictable, and if we confuse forecast with fact, we might be the real idiots.
* A long-time TV weatherman is the Weather Channel’s Mike Seidel.
** If you didn’t look like Randy from A Christmas Story, you were doing it wrong.
*** Since 1998, Congress has funded the federal government via a series of CRs, rather than passing actual budgets. The CRs use a “baseline budgeting” concept and mostly continue funding levels for discretionary grant programs from the previous CR, adjusted for inflation. Since a CR is a resolution, however, and not a budget, Congress can and sometimes does change funding levels during a FY by passing a new CR. Again, see the Golden Rule of grant seeking.