Att. D

Date

Dear OCS Grantee,

I am writing to request your participation in an evaluation questionnaire for the Office of Community Services, recently named the OCS Evaluation Initiative. The evaluation is being conducted by the Academy for Educational Development (AED) under the direction of Dr. Rose Ann M. Rentería.

Your perspectives as an OCS grantee are very valuable to us as we investigate how OCS can better support the Community Economic Development (CED) and Job Opportunities for Low -Income Individuals (JOLI) projects in the United States as well as the dissemination, translation and use of research findings for program impact, management and practice.

The evaluation questionnaire’s primary purpose is to document and systematically evaluate the program performance of the OCS discretionary grant programs—CED and JOLI—in qualitative and quantitative terms to capture key information about program and grantee-level performance in four general areas: (1) program purpose and design; (2) strategic planning; (3) program management; and (4) program results. The data collected with this questionnaire will provide guidance in program evaluation so that future CED and JOLI grantees continue to have effective plans. Only current information is needed for this data collection. Grantee staff is not required to collect new data for the performance measures or retain information beyond the performance measures as defined by OCS in the program announcement. Finally, with the results OCS hopes to be able to target evaluation training at specific levels of grantees and to make adjustments to the requirements based on the grantees capabilities.

The OCS questionnaire is web-based and can be accessed at the OCS Evaluation Initiative web site at: www.ocsevalinitive.com. To begin the questionnaire, please use the following user name and password:

U sername:

P assword:

Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1.5 hours including the time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. OCS grantees should not use more than 3 hours in total to complete the questionnaire. Should you encounter technical difficulties towards the completing of the questionnaire, please call 202-884-8608 for assistance.

Your participation is voluntary and you may refuse to answer any specific questions. While, all reports based on these data will combine your comments with those of other respondents so that they cannot be traced back to you, your grantee location name by region and by OCS program type may be used to present a general overview of the major findings. If during the course of the questionnaire, however, you share ideas for which you wish to receive credit, your contributions will be acknowledged. Thank you for considering your participation in this important evaluation. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Debbie A. Powell
Acting Director
Division of Discretionary Programs

Office of Community Services
Administration for Children and Families

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
370 L’Enfant Promenade, S.W – 5th Floor West
Washington, D.C. 20447
Phone (202) 401-6968

Fax (202) 401-5726

Email: dpowell@acf.hhs.gov

April 24, 2006



First, Last Name of OCS Grantee

Title of the Person

Name of the Grantee Organization

Address

City, State ZIP



Dear <<Insert Last Name of OCS Grantee posted above>>,

On behalf of the Office of Community Services (OCS), I would like to invite to participate in the OCS Evaluation Initiative, an effort to learn more about three of the programs administered by OCS—Community Economic Development (CED), Job Opportunities for Low-Income Individuals (JOLI), and Rural Community Facilities (RF). The Initiative’s main goal is to develop and institutionalize a performance monitoring system to assist OCS in consistently demonstrating program success and results.

Last year, evaluators from the Academy for Educational Development (AED) visited 13 OCS grantees to learn about OCS projects and assess performance. The next phase of the initiative will involve a total of 25 on-site visits between May and July 2006 with CED, JOLI, and RF grantees. We would like to invite to be one of these sites.

During the on-site visit, AED staff will conduct a discussion group with project staff at . AED staff will also document grantee performance and outcomes; identify lessons; and present recommendations for an OCS evaluation strategy that will meet congressional and executive objectives for each program. Should you agree to participate, AED staff will work directly with the project staff at to plan and conduct the evaluation work and discussion group. AED staff will be contacting you within the next two weeks to determine if you are interested in having your OCS project participate in this important initiative.

Thank you for your consideration, and please feel free to contact me or Dr. Rentería, AED, directly with questions about the initiative and the on-site visits. I may be contacted at (202) 401-9356 and Dr. Rentería may be contacted at (202) 884-8608.

Sincerely,

Debbie A. Powell, Acting Director
U. S. Department of Health and Human Services
Administration for Children and Families
Office of Community Services
Division of Community Discretionary Programs

Contact Information

The contact persons for the OCS evaluation initiative are:

OCS, Federal Program Officer:	AED, Project Director:
Debbie A. Powell Acting Director U. S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families Office of Community Services Division of Community Discretionary Programs 370 L’Enfant Promenade, S.W – 5th Floor West Washington, D.C. 20447 (202) 401-9356 Email:	Rose Ann M. Rentería, Ph.D. Senior Research and Evaluation Officer Academy for Educational Development Center for Applied Behavioral and Evaluation Research 1825 Connecticut Ave., NW Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 884-8608 Email: rrenteria@aed.org

Academy for Educational Development (AED) Information

AED has extensive experience and a long track record working with a wide range of HHS and other federal government agencies and their grantees to develop total quality evaluation systems that improve their performance monitoring and impact assessments of their programs. The AED Center for Applied Behavioral and Evaluation Research, leads this effort with a multidisciplinary team of staff proficient in evaluation and performance assessments, data analysis, training design and implementation, and dissemination of lessons learned and best practices. AED also brings extensive, substantive experience in community economic development, workforce development, and natural resource management. Since 1997, AED has been providing on-going technical assistance, evaluation capacity building, and evaluation implementation to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Mid-South Delta Initiative (MSDI). MSDI is a long-term, rural economic, community development, and leadership initiative focusing on 55 counties and parishes in Western Mississippi, Eastern Arkansas, and Northeastern Louisiana.