Hello readers. I am happy to be back from a great Fourth of July holiday (I’m a real sucker for fireworks). I hope you had a good Independence Day as well.

It was hard to pick a topic this week since there are many interesting RFP’s out there. I decided to go with a Federal opportunity to shake things up a little. I have mentioned before that the Improve Group is ready to partner with groups to apply for grants that have an evaluation component. This offering is all about evaluation.

This week’s pick: The Department of Health & Human Services Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Community Services (OCS) is granting funds to conduct ongoing evaluations of two programs administered by the agency: Community Economic Development (CED) and Rural Community Facilities (RF). If your organization is involved in these programs you can receive funds to evaluate the program effectiveness in the areas of:

(1) program purpose and design;
(2) strategic planning;
(3) program management; and
(4) program results and accountability.

Some of the funding goals of this Evaluation of Community Economic Development (CED) and Rural Community Facilities (RF) Programs are to develop a data collection system, assist in design of evaluation instruments and identify and document best practices. The Funding Opportunity Number is HHS-2007-ACF-OCS-EC-0046 and the estimated level of funding available under each area is: Community Economic Development (CED) for $200,000 and Rural Community Facilities (RF) for $75,000.
To learn more about it please click here.