Senior Corps RSVP NOFO Application Process Market Research
Part A: Justification
Necessity of the Data Collection
The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) seeks approval to conduct a study to understand how Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) grantees and potential grantees view the application process, what factors are important in the decision to apply, and how the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) can be written to generate a higher response rate from potential grant applicants. The study will contribute to CNCS’s ability to market the Senior Corps RSVP program, identify and ease application burdens for grantees and potential grantees, and increase competition in the application process for the NOFO—an element of the Senior Corps 2011-2015 Strategic Plan.
Purpose of the Data Collection
CNCS has contracted with GMMB to implement the study of the RSVP grant application process in order to better understand the positive and prohibitive factors associated with the RSVP NOFO application process. This study involves a survey of grant applicants, non-applicants, and potential applicants for the 2014 RSVP NOFO.
Potential survey respondents will be drawn from four sources: successful non-incumbent applicants, unsuccessful non-incumbent applicants, potential applicants that filed a notice of intent to apply but did not file a grant application, and potential applicants (non-profits and public agencies) that have not yet applied or filed notice of intent letter. The targeted universe of survey respondents is 300 people, and survey data will be collected using an online survey program. This figure depends heavily on the survey’s response rate, and a previous survey and this proposed survey’s response rates were low (24 percent and 31 percent, respectively).
Data analysis will focus on identifying and understanding factors associated with the decision to apply, factors associated with the decision to not apply, and perceived and real barriers to completing the grant application. Analysis will include descriptive statistics and inferential analysis of survey responses by respondent and organization characteristics.
Use of Electronic Media
The survey instrument will be administered through Survey Monkey, an online survey program. Using this online program will enable a broad universe of respondents, as it uses information technology to reduce burden for the respondents.
Identification of Duplication
The survey instrument builds on a more limited survey instrument conducted after the 2013 NOFO. The 2013 survey instrument was limited only to organizations that submitted a letter of intent to apply for the 2013 NOFO. This survey instrument, for the 2014 NOFO, seeks to expand the respondent universes to include successful and unsuccessful applicants and desirable non-applicants, in addition to the letter of intent signee universe surveyed in the prior year. The 2014 NOFO survey seeks to elicit 300 responses, compared to the 67 completed surveys in 2013. The survey instrument also expands the number and depth of questions, aiming to identify desirable attributes of grants for organizations in order to inform CNCS’s efforts to better market the RSVP NOFO.
Impacts on Small Businesses
The proposed data collection will require input from grantees and potential grantees that are often small, non-profit entities, but will not impact small businesses.
Consequence to Federal Program or Policy
CNCS’s 2011-2015 Strategic Plan outlines the agency’s commitment to increasing the impact of national service on community needs, strengthening its national service programs, maximizing the value CNCS adds to grantees, and sustaining a responsive organization. The proposed data collection will provide information to CNCS on how to better market the RSVP NOFO, creating more competition among grantees, thereby strengthening its role as a national service program. Further, the data collection will facilitate CNCS’s efforts to be responsive to grantees, as data will be used to analyze how to better ease administrative burden and inform a more effective NOFO application process.
Special Circumstances
There are no special circumstances that would require the collection of information in any other ways specified.
Publication in the Federal Register and Consultation with Other Agency
An agency’s notice in the Federal Register was completed. The 60-day Federal Notice was published on Friday, January 3, 2014 in the Federal Register, volume 79, number 2, pages 387-389. No comments were received.
Gifts or Payments
Respondents will not receive any payment or gift for participating in the study.
Assurance of Confidentiality
The survey instrument provides for respondents assurance of confidentiality and anonymity. No answers will be attributed to individuals in the data analysis or final report.
Respondents will have the option to enter their email address upon completion of the survey and for the purposes of removal from the survey distribution reminder list. Respondents will be informed that entering their email address is not mandatory, and only serves to give CNCS permission to take a given email address off of the distribution list. Survey responses will remain confidential and anonymous—no attempt to pair email addresses with answers will be conducted.
Questions of Sensitive Nature
The survey instruments do not include any questions of a sensitive nature. However, some respondents may feel that their responses could impact the propensity for future funding of their organization from CNCS. During the consent process for the surveys, respondents will be informed of their anonymity, confidentiality, and right not to respond to any of the survey questions, as well as the fact that their response will not affect future funding possibilities in any way.
Burden Hours
The burden hours for each category of respondents subject to this clearance are described in the table below. These burden hours are based off of an anticipated participation time of 20 minutes per respondent. This figure is derived from five completed surveys from a pretesting process. GMMB research staff conducted this internal pretest of the survey instrument, sending eight different versions of the survey to 16 prospective respondents in the letter-of-intent signing non-applicant and desirable non-applicant universes. Applicants did not receive the pre-testing survey, as their universes for the actual round of testing are not large enough to open the groups to pretesting. The pretesting survey was open from February 21, 2014 through March 5, 2014.
Five respondents completed the pre-testing survey, and their median time for completion was 17 minutes (time of completion was not given as a mean as one respondent spent only four minutes on the survey with many questions omitted, and one respondent did not submit the survey until five days after he or she started it). Because the two versions of the survey that were not subject to pre-testing are slightly longer than the two versions that were, the anticipated participation time per respondent, used for calculations below, is slightly longer than the median participation time, at 20 minutes.
Category of Respondent |
Number of Respondents |
Participation Time (Minutes) per Respondent |
Burden Hours per Respondent |
Burden Hours All Respondents |
Survey Respondents |
300 |
20 |
0.33 |
100 |
Estimated Total Annual Cost Burden to Respondents
The collection of this information does not have any capital and start-up cost; and it does not have any operation and maintenance cost.
Estimated Annual Costs to Federal Government
For the survey design, implementation and analysis of the data collected, the estimated annual cost to the Federal government is $124,928.36. This number is based on the contract with GMMB.
Explain Any Program Changes
This is an application for new collection. There are no program changes.
Dissemination of Information
The data will be analyzed and a final report will be submitted to CNCS, but not published.
Different surveys will be distributed to each of four universes: applicants who were successful and non-incumbents, applicants who were unsuccessful and non-incumbents, non-applicants who signed a letter of intent, and non-applicants identified by CNCS as desirable future applicants. Survey instrument data will not undergo complex statistical analysis due to the small sample sizes of the universes, but will undergo cross-tabulation and descriptive statistics to identify frequencies by non-profit characteristics and universe type.
Activity/Task |
Date |
Commence data collection |
05/12/14 |
Commence data analysis |
06/03/14 |
Complete data collection |
06/12/14 |
Complete initial data analysis |
06/23/14 |
Delivery of final report to CNCS |
08/11/14 |
Display of Expiration Date for OMB Approval
The expiration date for OMB approval of the information collection will be displayed on the first page of the instruments.
Explanation of Exceptions in Item 19, “Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions”
There are no exceptions claimed in Item 19, “Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions” of OMB Form 83-I.
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| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | ageorges |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-27 |