Request for Applications Information

UNITED WAY OF BROWARD COUNTY - REQUEST FOR APPLICATIONS

Request for Applications Information

For Fiscal Year 2019-2020 Services

COMMUNITY IMPACT AREA: EDUCATION

Available January 10, 2019 Closes February 20, 2019

Page 1

UNITED WAY OF BROWARD COUNTY - REQUEST FOR APPLICATIONS

REQUEST FOR APPLICATIONS

I. BACKGROUND

Founded in 1939, United Way of Broward County (UWBC) is an 80 year old community-based nonprofit with an established long-standing history as a human services leader. UWBC meets critical community needs by uniting organizations, donors, and volunteers to achieve measurable initiatives and results with the greatest impact and outcomes. We serve as the convener, service provider, and funding acquisition roles. UWBC advances the common good by participating in community change. UWBC engages in program procurement and service provision positively impacting people's lives. Our initiatives address health, educational innovation, and financial stability.

UWBC is committed to being a community leader in funding innovative programming resulting in positive impact and outcomes for our community. With a dedicated board of local volunteers, supported by United Way staff, UWBC has been raising funds for 78 years to allocate to our community partners to meet our residents' diverse service needs.

Following an initiative created by United Way Worldwide, UWBC has moved toward a collective impact model. This model attempts to remedy or eliminate social problems that are the root causes a community faces while trying to enhance the quality of life for all its members. Collective Impact theory holds that to address community issues, funding organizations such as UWBC need to begin looking at programs and services using a wider lens. Therefore, this new model investigates opportunity for broad partnerships (e.g. local governments, civic organizations, businesses, and educational institutions) in order to leverage resources, access and develop relationships with the community, while taking a holistic approach to service delivery. While the traditional model has been to look at the specifics of one area (e.g. policy, resource development, and investor relations), the Collective Impact model encompasses all areas in order to have a greater effect on the community. Furthermore, this theory explores the effects on the community as well as the individuals who receive services. Figure 1.0 provides an overview of the model.

Collective Impact - Human capital, partnerships, resources, technology, expertise, and funding

Organizing communities and

provider partnerships

Produce meaningful and sustainable change in the

community conditions

Provide supportive services to individuals

and families

Improving community well being

Direct Impact- Human capital, financial resources of businesses and community partners

Figure 1.0: Collective Impact Model

Page 2

UNITED WAY OF BROWARD COUNTY - REQUEST FOR APPLICATIONS

For the collective impact model to be effective there must be five conditions present to ensure success of social service delivery systems:

Common Vision--All the partners share a common understanding of the challenges and barriers as well as a shared vision as to how to address those identified issues through actions all the partners agree upon.

Joint Measurement--An agreement on the approach for collecting data and measuring results, which are consistent across all partners to ensure that program activities remain aligned and hold each partner accountable to the process.

Mutual Activities--Program activities may be differentiated while still having a degree of coordination through a common action plan.

Continuous Communication--Partners need to be open to communication and the sharing of information in order to maintain a common vision, build trust, ensure mutual objectives, and to maintain common motivation.

Backbone Organization--requires a commitment of human and financial capital from the partner agencies and requires a separate organization and staff to serve as the coordinating body for the initiative and the partner agencies.

Using collective impact as the foundation of this Request for Applications (RFA) and in effort to meet our strategic education goal, UWBC is interested in contributing to the community results in Education by funding programming that enhances the access and opportunities for children in the areas Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) during out of school time.

Therefore UWBC is releasing this RFA seeking established evidenced based, promising, or replication of successful local models, which are results oriented and have a clear set of measurable goals, tasks, and objectives. The models may be incorporated into any age child population as well as special populations of children.

Each application must target an underserved population and needs to be clearly defined in the agency's submission. For the purposes of this RFA we are identifying underserved learners who are defined as students who do not receive equitable resources as other students in the academic pipeline. Specifically this definition encompasses students who have at least one of the following characteristics:

Minority: race/ethnicity is African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Hispanic/Latino or Native Hawaiian/ other Pacific Islander

Low Income: Combined parental income is less than or equal to $36,000 First Generation in College: highest parental education level is high school diploma or

less

This definition is consistent with what is used in current research and state and federal intervention programs.1 The three characteristics appear to have a cumulative suppressing effect on college readiness.

1 ACT (2014). Understanding the Underserved Learner: The Condition of STEM. Available at:

Page 3

UNITED WAY OF BROWARD COUNTY - REQUEST FOR APPLICATIONS

In other words, the greater the number of characteristics a student presents with, the lower their math, science and STEM benchmark attainment rates.

II. Purpose

UWBC is seeking creative, evidence-based, promising practice or replication of successful local programming to expose and provide access to STEAM opportunities and support the social/emotional development of struggling students attending Broward County Title I schools. Services must be results-oriented with clear measurable goals, tasks, and objectives. Programing must focus on one or more components of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics, and include strategies to enhance the social and emotional development and resiliency of youth. Proposed programing should either align with the Broward County School Year Calendar for 2019/20 or be planned as a summer program.

Applications must demonstrate a knowledge of current educational supports in schools or communities where services would be provided, coordination among those community stakeholders and a clear description of how UWBC funds and resources will be leveraged to ensure that expected gains in performance outcomes are met or exceeded. For school-based programs, a Letter of Support signed by the School Principal must be submitted with the Application for Funding.

Applicants must show they implement a cultural competence program to ensure that services are provided in a manner that respects the diversity of Clients and provides for equal access to quality services. Diversity includes differences in race, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, culture, religion, socioeconomic status, educational level, and physical and intellectual abilities.

For the purposes of this RFA, UWBC will be accepting applications from non-profit agencies that have been determined by the Internal Revenue Service to be categorized as agencies created for a charitable cause--most commonly referred to as 501(c)(3) organizations. It is expected that successful applications will implement STEAM programming. Services proposed can be evidenced based, promising, or a local innovative program model, which has proven through evaluation that it is an effective practice that will benefit the proposed target population. If an agency is proposing a local innovative program, the applicant must submit a copy of the program's evaluation report. Evidence based and promising practice resources are located in the service strategies section of this document.

A. Scope of Work

As a pivotal community partner, UWBC is committed to addressing service gaps complementary programming, rather than duplicate other efforts to support student achievement. Currently funded UWBC Education programs with demonstrated success that meet or exceed performance expectations are eligible to apply for funding under this procurement.

Applications should address one or more of the following:

1) Serve underserved learners attending Title I Schools.

A. New programs may propose services at Title I Schools with 50% to 79% Free/Reduced Lunch (FRL) participation. This aligns with the current commitment by the Children's

Page 4

UNITED WAY OF BROWARD COUNTY - REQUEST FOR APPLICATIONS

Services Council of Broward County to serve Title I schools with 80% or higher FRL participation. B. Identified schools must also demonstrate a lack of community resources available that augment teaching strategies during and after the regular school day.

2) To align programming with the School District's renewed emphasis on social/emotional development and resiliency and its impact on academic success, all programs must demonstrate the ability to promote positive student social/emotional development and resiliency, and utilize evaluation tools to be provided by UWBC to assess performance for this program component.

3) All programs must demonstrate an understanding of the family strengthening continuum of care and the ability to ensure that family strengthening supports for parents are available, where needed (see Section II.C.6. below).

4) Programs may elect to demonstrate the capacity to provide activities during the summer months, when school is not in session.

A. Statement of Need

1.

The case for STEM//STEAM: It is no secret that innovation drives the 21st Century economy

and globalization has resulted in jobs leaving the United States. It is essential that all children

are exposed to opportunities in STEM/STEAM especially in communities that are underserved.

One of the biggest cross-national tests is the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), every three years measures reading ability, math and science literacy and other key skills among 15-year-olds in dozens of developed and developing countries. The most recent PISA results, from 2015, placed the U.S. an unimpressive 38th out of 71 countries in math and 24th in science. Among the 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which sponsors the PISA initiative, the U.S. ranked 30th in math and 19th in science.

Another long-running testing effort is the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a project of the U.S. Department of Education, the 2015 NAEP rated 40% of fourth-graders, 33% of eighth-graders and 25% of 12th-graders as "proficient" or "advanced" in math2. Figure 2.0 provides an overview of the 2015 results.

2 U.S. Department of Education (2015). Available at: Page 5

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download