Considering Which Path to Take When Addressing Travel

Sometimes when walking down a path, you may come to a fork in the road and must decide which path to choose. After a certain time of reflection and consideration, you settle on your best option and follow that path. The disruptions caused by the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) are forcing some federal agencies to stray from their singular procedural path and revise their grant programs to create new options and flexibilities that would normally not be considered.

For example, for several grant programs offered by the Department of State, the agency is requesting that applicants take a new approach when submitting their grant proposals. In light of the restrictive travel and public gathering environments resulting from the response to COVID-19, DOS has revised its notices of funding opportunity to include a special provision requesting that applicants submit proposals that address two scenarios.

One proposal may be based on “business as usual” environments, where international travel, large public gatherings and other programming parameters are unaffected by public health constraints. A second proposal, which is optional, would describe the applicant’s ideas on how to execute the desired project goals in a manner that accounts for restrictions on public gatherings and travel, as well as public health concerns. DOS states that it encourages creative ideas for remote/online content delivery, online/virtual promotional activities and virtual participant/audience follow-up.

Among the DOS programs in which this provision applies includes the National Education Advising Agent program; Regional Startup Network program; Working Together to Combat Human Trafficking: Call Your Government to Action program; Building a Strong, Vibrant and Culturally Connected Indo-Pacific program; and several others. If you are applying for one or more of these programs, consider how the current travel difficulties would affect your organization as determine whether to submit the optional proposal along with the traditional proposal.

And remember, Thompson Grants has provided a free Grant-Specific COVID-19 Links roundup to enable the grants community to find federal government links addressing COVID-19 and grant programs.

Join us for our following Federal Grants Forums:
Federal Grants Forum: Chicago, IL | August 12 – 14, 2020
Federal Grants Forum: Denver, CO | October 7 – 9, 2020

Learn more at http://grants.thompson.com/conferences.aspx.