APPLICATION PANEL CHAIR ORIENTATION

2015Community Economic Development (CED)

2015 CED- Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) Grant Application Review

Division of Community Discretionary Programs

Office of Community Services

Purpose & Goals• Panel Chairs will understand:

• Panel Roles & Expectations

• Panel Management for Panel Chairs

• Panel Summary Report (PSR) development & review

• Key resources

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Agenda• Panel Chair Roles & Expectations

• Panel Facilitation & Management

• Panel Summary Report (PSR) Development

• Panel Chair Logistics

• Review of Resources

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PANEL CHAIR ROLES & EXPECTATIONS

Panel Chair Responsibilities• Coordinate with SAM to establish schedule

• Facilitate panel kick-off

• Review applications

• Ensure panel members comply with guidelines

• Ensure panel members actively engaged

• Compile reviewer comments into PSR

• Ensure PSR adheres to guidelines

• Guide panel members to revise scores and/or comments

• Communicate regularly with SAM

• Address comments from SAM/PAM5

Panel Chair Expectations• Coordinate with SAM immediately (within one day of review start)

• Conduct panel kick-off call immediately (after SAM call)

• Respond to messages daily (including weekends and evenings)

• Establish schedule and communicate to panel and SAM (within two days)

• Notify SAM about conflicts or issues

• Update SAM daily

• Work with panel to complete and submit PSR

• Address SAM/PAM comments, resubmit PSR (within two days)

• Maintain confidentiality of applications and process6

Additional Guidance• Toolkit Resources:

• OCS Application Review Process Map

http://www.reviewerrecruitment.net/reviewerinfo/ocs/downloads/CED/Application%20Review%20Process%20Flow.pdf

• Roles and Responsibilities for Panel Members, Panel Chairs, SAMs, and PAMshttp://www.reviewerrecruitment.net/reviewerinfo/ocs/downloads/CED/Roles%20and%20Responsibilities%20Relationships%20Guide.pdf

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PANEL MANAGEMENT FOR PANEL CHAIRS

First Panel Meeting• Prepare for first panel meeting with SAM

• During meeting:

• Introduce yourself and get acquainted

• Establish schedule and exchange phone numbers

• Discuss member challenges (if any) to full participation

• Remind members to review FOA

• Remind members to review other relevant resources

• Define rules for discussion

• Establish time limits for each discussion

• Identify and resolve potential conflicts of interest

• Go over schedule for completing review and receive affirmations of commitment to complete review

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Facilitating Panel Meeting• Set meeting tone and direction

• Ask open ended questions

• Watch group dynamics, address challenges immediately

• Ask reviewers to expand on comments to facilitate further discussion

• Practice problem solving and consensus building

• Develop panel summary report as a team

• Summarize points discussed

• Remind the group about pre-set time limits

• Reiterate panel objective and goals10

Building Consensus & Managing Conflict• Consensus building:

• Good-faith effort to meet interests of all members

• General agreement to accept final outcome

• When conflict arises:

• Diffuse pressure by looking for commonalities in discussion

• Ask person to support their comments with specific citations in this application only

• Remind member that reaching consensus is a Panel requirement

• Ask SAM for help

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Building Consensus & Managing Conflict• Include all panel members:

• Direct questions to more reserved members

• Ask more dominant members to “hold their thought”

• Assign a panelist as a “discussion starter” for each application

• Communicate with dominators or quiet members separately

• Relatively easy to replace a reviewer, especially early in the process

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The Panel’s Comments• Remind Reviewers that comments should be:

• Based ONLY on criteria in the program announcement

• Specific, detailed, and concise

• Consistent with individual reviewer’s scores

• Evaluative and constructive

• Remember, applicants will use them to strengthen their applications

• Written in complete sentences with proper grammar

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PANEL SUMMARY REPORT (PSR) DEVELOPMENT & REVIEW

FOR PANEL CHAIRS

PSR Development• PSR produced inside ARM system

• PSR is an important tool for making and justifying funding decisions

• Thorough and well-written assessment of application

• May be reviewed by Congress or staff

• Two areas of focus:

• Content

• Quality

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PSR Content• PSR addresses each of the FOA criteria and subcriteria

• PSR accurately reflects panel’s review

• Guidance:

• Reviewers and Panel Chairs must read FOA and understand intent, design, and nuances of the Program

• Scoring and comment form for each criterion is included in Application Review Module (ARM)

• Checklist of FOA Evaluation Criteria and Subcriteria available to Reviewers and Panel Chairs to facilitate review

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FOA Criteria and Sub-criteria Checklist

• Excerpt from toolkit resource:

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Ex: Objectives & Need for Assistance

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Criteria Critical To Project Success• Criteria that address financial viability

• Project Viability • Project Implementation • Financial Strategies • Budget and Budget Justification

• Guide your panel in looking for:• Clear and reasonable request for CED funds• Cost per job requirements clearly met• Financial feasibility clear, thus ensuring sustainable jobs will be

created• All sources of funding (CED and non-CED) clearly identified

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PSR Quality• Panel member input

• PSR scores

• PSR comments

• PSR document quality

• PSR style guide

• Toolkit Resource: Checklist for Reviewing the Panel Summary Reports (PSRs)

• http://www.reviewerrecruitment.net/reviewerinfo/ocs/downloads/CED/Checklist%20for%20Reviewing%20the%20PSR.pdf

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Panel Member Input• Chair’s responsibilities

• Comments reflects a thorough review

• Scores commensurate with comments

• Chair checklist for each panel member

• Full points = no weaknesses

• Zero points = no strengths

• Weigh scores and comments

• Full range of points

• SAM’s responsibility = confirm with chair

• PAM’s responsibility = confirm with SAM

* Toolkit Resource: Checklist for Reviewing the Panel Summary Reports (PSRs) 21

PSR Scores

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PSR Scores• Scores reflect application’s overall strength or weakness

• Review the scores and comments

• Review the application

• Panel has general consensus

• Modest variation possible (and desired):

• 4 points for 20 point criterion

• 3 points for 15 point criterion

• 2 points for 10 point criterion

• 2 points for 5 point criterion

• Example of unacceptable scoring range:

* Toolkit Resource: Checklist for Reviewing the Panel Summary Reports (PSRs)23

PSR Scores (cont)• Variation may include mix of zero and non-zero scores, or perfect

and non-perfect scores

* Toolkit Resource: Checklist for Reviewing the Panel Summary Reports (PSRs)

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PSR Comments• Relevant comment

• Addresses FOA criteria, sub-criteria, requirement• Belongs to the section• Separate statements for strengths and weaknesses

• Each sub-criterion, at least one comment• Duplicative

• Multiple comments per criterion okay, but must be distinct• One comment should not appear under more than one criterion

• Constructive • Factual – evidence from application• Objective – no opinions or inappropriate comments• Specific – no combining of subcriteria statements

• Toolkit Resource: Checklist of FOA Evaluation Criteria and Subcriteriahttp://www.reviewerrecruitment.net/reviewerinfo/ocs/downloads/CED/Checklist%20for%20FOA%20Evaluation%20Criteria.pdf

* Toolkit Resource: Checklist for Reviewing the Panel Summary Reports (PSRs)25

PSR Document Quality• Final document

• One voice• Well-written• Summary of the application

• General statement about application quality, applicant and project information, amount requested, project summary

• Under Objectives and Need for Assistance section

• Page number citation• Consistent Applicant reference

• Chair as Editor• Revise comments• Consolidate, separate comments• Contribute to report

* Toolkit Resource: Checklist for Reviewing the Panel Summary Reports (PSRs) 26

PSR Style Guide• Proofreading

• Spelling, grammar, punctuation

• Formatting • Page citations

• Multiple page numbers separated by commas (e.g., 1, 3, 17)• Page ranges hyphenated (e.g., 16-20)• If no citation available, use NA• No symbols, “pg”, “pp”, “page”, etc.

• Acronyms (spell out first time only)• Numbers (spell out 1 – 9)• Symbols

• Panel should not copy/paste text from Word• Use Notepad to copy/paste text

* Toolkit Resource: Checklist for Reviewing the Panel Summary Reports (PSRs) 27

TOOLKIT RESOURCES & WRAP-UP

ResourcesOverview

• Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) for CED and CED-HFFI• OCS Application Review Process Map• Roles and Responsibilities for Panel Members, Panel Chairs, SAMs, and PAMs

Communication and Coordination

• Kick-off Call Agenda template• Contact Information template• Schedule/Timeline template

Application Review and Panel Summary Report

• Checklist of FOA Evaluation Criteria and Subcriteria• Panel member and Panel Chair training slides• Checklist for Reviewing the Panel Summary Reports (PSRs)

ARM System

• ARM System training

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Wrap Up & Next Steps• Read and understand FOAs

• Review Application Review Toolkit & resources available at:• CED: www.reviewerrecruitment.net/reviewerinfo/ocs/ced.html

• CED-HFFI: www.reviewerrecruitment.net/reviewerinfo/ocs/cedhffi.html

• Respond to SAM request for kick-off call

• Schedule panel kick-off call

• Review all assigned applications

• Get comfortable with ARM system

Thank you!

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Questions?

Contact the OCS Grant Review Team

OCS@reviewops.org

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