Illinois Welcoming Center Capacity Building, Training, and Technical Assistance Program Narrative (25-444-80-1493-01)

Item Description
1. Grantee Name Indicate the agency's name
2. Grantee Address Indicate the address where the agency's administrative offices are located (include phone number and website)
3. Service Location(s) If the program location is different from the administrative office address indicated in Number 2, indicate the address where program services are delivered, include phone number and website.
4. Grantee FEIN Provide the agency's FEIN
5. Agency Head, Title, Telephone, Email Address Provide information specific to the individual whom the agency designates as the Agency Head.
6. Program Contact Person, Title, Telephone, Email Address Provide information specific to the individual whom the agency designates as the Program Contact. This person must be familiar with program services provided.
7. Fiscal Contact Person, Title, Telephone, Email Address Provide information specific to the individual whom the agency designates as the Fiscal Contact. This person must be familiar with the agency's fiscal policies and expenditures allocated to the program.
8. Contract Contact Person, Title, Telephone, Email Address Provide information specific to the individual whom the agency designates as the Contract Contact.
9. Funding request Indicate the total dollar amount of funding being requested
10. Application type Capacity Building, Training, and Technical Assistance

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (5 pts)

The Executive Summary will serve as a stand-alone document that may be shared with various state-level stakeholders and others requesting a brief overview of each funded project. It will also be scored for completion. Therefore, applicants should be concise and direct in their description.

Provide a one-page summary of the proposal, including the completion of the information below.

  1. Geographic coverage of the entire application
  2. Target population served:
  3. Language capacity in-house (languages covered at the agency, must identify bilingual staff and languages spoken):
  4. Indicate number of years of experience the applicant organization has delivering immigrant, refugee and Limited English Proficiency (LEP) services:
  5. Indicate number of years of experience the applicant organization has collaborating with other community agencies to achieve a common goal:
  6. Specific deliverables for the grant period:
    1. Number of organizations and staff impacted and/or served by initiative
    2. Number of group trainings conducted
    3. Number of individual consultations completed
    4. Number of materials created and distributed
    5. Number of workshops held

2. AGENCY QUALIFICATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY (25 pts)

Capacity Building, Technical Assistance, Training

  1. Provide a brief history of the organization and its accomplishments, outlining its primary programs and services offered to immigrants, refugees and/or LEP communities. Describe how those services connect to the overall mission of Illinois Welcoming Centers. Describe the organization's cultural and linguistic capacity.
  2. Describe your agency's qualifications and track records in the following applicable areas: technical assistance, organizational development, training/education, or research and evaluation. Discuss any appropriate certifications that apply.
  3. Describe number of years of experience the applicant organization has providing capacity building, training and technical assistance to immigrant and refugee serving agencies.
  4. Describe the type of capacity building training and technical assistance the applicant organization has experience providing, include whether the agency will utilize internal staff or external entities.
  5. Describe the internal staffing expertise the applicant organization has to provide capacity building, training and technical assistance.
  6. Describe management's process for insuring agency compliance with service outcomes, interagency policy agreements, and timely submission of both fiscal and programmatic reports.
  7. Describe how the agency collects and maintains data, measure activities versus outcomes, how data is used for program planning, evaluation, and improvement.
  8. Describe the applicant's fiscal capacity and experience managing state and/or federal grants.
  9. Provide an implementation plan and timeline as Appendix 3 for service provision commencing on the contract start date (July 1, 2024). The implementation plan must include the following:
    1. Describe the applicant agency's plan for staffing to carry out and execute this program. Provide a description of qualifications of key staff who will be responsible for the delivery of the services including their educational background, years of experience, language capacity and other relevant information. Include resumes and/or job descriptions of the staff responsible for implementing this program as Appendix 5.
    2. Discuss the applicant agency's readiness in terms of the physical/virtual space where program activities will be carried out.
    3. Describe the training program staff have had and will receive to ensure their ongoing ability to successfully perform the duties of their position.

3. COMMUNITY IDENTIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION OF NEED (15 pts)

  1. Provide a description of need as it pertains to the IWCs services delivery.
  2. Discuss why you believe the partners may benefit from the training, evaluation, support and/or technical assistance you are proposing to deliver.

4. EQUITY AND RACIAL JUSTICE COMITTMENT (10 pts)

The purpose of this section is for the applicant to demonstrate understanding of the history and impact of racism and inequity on Immigrant, refugee, asylee and LEP communities and to describe the organization's response to address racial inequity. The applicant should provide a clear picture of its work to counteract systemic racism and inequity and to prioritize and maximize diversity and equity throughout its service provision process.

  1. Describe the applicant's commitment and actions to address equity and racial justice. Examples of commitment and activities may include but are not limited to, having leadership (board and/or executive staff) that is reflective of the community/population being served; having (or an intention to have) a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)/equity and racial justice plan that outlines how the organization ensures equity in access to its supports/services as well as equity in outcomes; having a plan to identify and address implicit bias in all areas of the organization, including programming; having (or an intention to have) an equity and racial justice training plan.
  2. Describe how the applicant will intentionally and deliberately analyze the delivery and/or impact of the program on underserved and marginalized groups (including communities of color, people with disabilities, gender nonconforming people, etc.)
  3. Describe how the applicant will provide trauma informed behavioral health services to address the disparate impact of immigration, discrimination, and racial profiling on communities of color.
  4. Include demographic information of program staff and agency leadership (board and/or executive staff) and discuss if these demographics match the designated community(ies). Describe plans to continue to increase diversity and representation within the agency.
  5. Based on racial demographic data, provide the number, and briefly describe policies, practices and procedures that have been implemented, revised, or repealed to reduce racial disparities at your agency.

5. PROGRAM DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION (25 pts)

The purpose of this section is for the applicant to provide a comprehensive, clear, and accurate picture of its intended services.

  1. Describe how the organization will develop the following:
    1. Comprehensive plan for delivery of Capacity Building and Technical Assistance within first quarter. The plan must include list of activities and meetings scheduled to occur throughout the year.
    2. Pre-implementation survey to measure systems improvements, organizational development, and/or training, education, and skill-building activities.
  2. Discuss the following in relation to program execution:
    1. Methods and strategies to provide technical assistance, organizational development, education/skill-building, or program evaluation.
    2. Process for evaluating program goals: SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) goals.
    3. Ability to provide required data/information reports to monitor progress towards SMART goals.
    4. Follow-up of activities, lessons learned, goal attainment, and recommendations.

6. BUDGET AND COST JUSTIFICATION (15 pts)

Applicant needs to submit a budget for the period for which the services are anticipated to be delivered, within the State Fiscal Year 2025.

  1. Thorough and clear justification for all proposed line-item expenditures.
  2. All expenditures and program costs are reasonable and allowable.
  3. Proposed staffing is sufficient to address client projections and client language needs.
  4. Where available, supplemental or companion funding is clearly identified.
  5. Budget Narrative is clear and provides context. In this section provide a detailed Budget Narrative of the items allocated within your proposed budget. Identify the source of those funds and detail how the specified resources and personnel are being allocated to ensure the tasks, activities, goals, and objectives described in your proposal will be implemented. If you plan to use additional state or federal funds, or other funds to support the program, please also describe how these additional funds will be utilized to implement the program.

7. PRIORITY CONSIDERATION (5pts)

Applications from not-for-profit community-based organizations (501c 3) may submit, a "Statement of Priority", if they are led by immigrant, refugee and LEP individuals that share the same linguistic and cultural background of the community being served.

Include a "Statement of Priority" as Appendix 10 for review and consideration as part of the application process. If the applicant organization is an otherwise qualified applicant under this funding notice, and is able to demonstrate and attest to being led by immigrants, refugees or LEP individuals and/or individuals that share the cultural background of the community being served, as defined by the make-up of the Board of Directors and the Organizations' leadership and management being more than 50% led by immigrants, refugees or LEP individuals and/or individuals that share the cultural background of the community being served, the applicant will receive up to 5 priority points as part of the application review/scoring process.