Notes for VOCA Project Grant Regional Facilitators 2002
Materials needed:
· Regional review sheets for each reviewer
· Grants – including your own score sheets (for your reference only – not included in scoring)
· Dry erase board & pens (optional)
· Legal pad for notes (you should take notes in addition to Cindy’s documentation)
· Calculator
Process:
1. Explain that the responsibility of the regional reviewers is to score and rank the grants within each category in order to make recommendations for funding to the VOCA Advisory Committee.
2. Identify those people or persons who also serve on the VOCA Advisory Committee and ask one of them to serve as the regional presenter to the VOCA Advisory Committee. They will be responsible for being able to justify regional review decisions to the larger group and must be very familiar with the grants in their region.
3. Ask reviewers if anyone has a conflict of interest that needs to be declared. If there is a person on the regional review who is also the director of a program whose grant you are reviewing, their scores should not be included in the totals and they should leave the room when their grant is discussed. Others that have affiliation with a program (on the board, former director, etc.) they can still score and discuss the grants, but need to declare the conflict at this time.
4. Remind reviewers that, as a courtesy, they should not repeat comments of other reviewers outside of the review. Notes made by the reviewers will be shared with grantees if requested, but the identity of the reviewers will remain confidential.
5. The actual funds available for each category is not relevant since each region is scoring by category and won’t know what grants and the amounts of the other grants the other regions are recommending. Funding benchmarks for each category will be set at the VOCA Advisory Committee meeting.
6. Strongly encourage reviewers to either recommend a grant for full funding or not at all. The regional reviewers should not be proposing to cut up grants or reduce funding.
7. Consider beginning with grants that seem to have the overall lowest scores and see if the reviewers can agree to stay with their scores – thus carving out the lowest ranked grants.
8. Next, consider reviewing the grants that seem to have the overall highest scores and see if the reviewers can agree to stay with their scores –thus carving out the highest ranked grants.
9. You will then be left with the middle grants that will most likely need discussion and may have disparity between some of the scores.
v For any grants (even overall high or low scores) that have reviewers scores that are separated by a point spread of 3 or more, bring the disparity to the attention of the reviewers and ask them if they want to stay with their score or if the high or low scorers want to speak to their reasons for scoring that way.
v If there is no discussion, the score remains as originally presented and is ranked accordingly. If discussion leads to a reviewer or reviewers wanting to change scores, that can be done at their discretion. Be sure Cindy captures the change in score. Reviewers must not feel compelled to change their scores. It is ok for them to stick with their original scores even if they differ from other reviewers.
v If there is no disparity of 3 points or more, and the reviewers are in agreement, the score can stand as originally presented.
10. When all of the scores have been agreed upon, point out to the reviewers what the ranking for recommended funding is, based on the scores. It is at this time that reviewers can change the rank of a grant in order to effect funding recommendations if they feel it is necessary based on, for example, geographical distribution or need for services in a particular area. DO NOT CHANGE THE ORIGINAL SCORE TO MATCH THE RANK! Make sure Cindy has the change in rank and note the reasons that the reviewers wanted to change rank so we have a good record of it. This might be a good time for a break so you can go over the score and rank decisions with Cindy and she can print out a final copy for the reviewers. After the break to double check the final recommendations and make sure you have captured the right scores, ranks and any notes.
11. In general, try to discourage reviewers from bringing personal views or issues in to the discussion. Also, try to keep reviewers focused on the quality of the application and the project that is proposed. That way the process remains more objective.
12. Collect grants and score sheets from reviewers with the exception of those that are also members of the VOCA Advisory Committee. They can keep theirs until the August 9th meeting.
13. Have fun! J