HU000121USU0001_WWSDP_FOA_03Dec20.pdf

FY2021 Wounded Warrior Service Dog Program (WWSDP) Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) HU000121USU0001

A. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

This FOA establishes eligibility, procedures, and requirements for the FY2021 WWSDP.

Applicants must be nonprofit organizations who have been established for the purpose of training and providing service dogs. Pass-through entities will not be considered. The prime objective of the WWSDP is to support service members and/or veterans across diverse geographic regions and population demographics by funding nonprofit organizations committed to advancing the service dog industry through continued learning, innovative training programs, and superior industry standards. Service dogs are to be provided no cost to the service members and/or veterans with disabilities including any reimbursable costs to the grant award such as application fees, training fees, etc.

In FY2015, Congress appropriated $1,000,000 for the WWSDP to fund a competitive grants program. This program will continue in FY2021, subject to Congressional appropriation, with an approximate budget of $10,000,000 under the authority of the Defense Health Program, Operations & Maintenance, Therapeutic Service Dog Training Program. The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) is authorized by 10 U.S.C. 2113(g)(1)(A) to make grants to any nonprofit entity. Historically, USU has solicited grant applications from nonprofit institutions committed to connecting service dogs with service members and veterans.

Under this FOA, USU is continuing that practice and intends to award multiple, 12-month grants, subject to availability of funding, to eligible nonprofit organizations in support of this program in FY2021. The WWSDP defines a service dog as any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability.

B. FEDERAL AWARD INFORMATION

USU plans to award approximately $10,000,000 in grants to successful applicants for the FY2021 WWSDP. While the number of grants to be awarded and the amount of funding per grant will be determined based upon the quality of the applications and availability of funds, USU does not intend to award any single grant in excess of $1,000,000. To that end, the Government reserves the right to request adjustments to proposed budgets as a condition of award. Funding provided through this FOA is not intended to finance new programs or initiatives, but to support existing operations and programs. The planned period of performance for the FY2021 WWSDP is June 2021 through June 2022. Past recipients of WWSDP grants are eligible to apply and compete for FY2021 WWSDP grants; however, applications for renewal or supplementation of existing awards will not be considered.

C. ELIGIBILITY INFORMATION

WWSDP applicants must meet all of the following eligibility criteria by the application deadline

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stated herein (see Section D.4). Failure to do so will preclude USU from making an award to the applicant.

1. Eligible Applicants.

To be eligible to receive a WWSDP grant, an applicant must:

a. be a nonprofit organization that is subject to 26 U.S.C. 501(c)(3) of the tax code and was established for the purpose of training and providing service dogs to service members and/or veterans with disabilities;

b. have an active registration in the System for Award Management (SAM), and;

c. submit a complete and responsive application by the application deadline outlined herein. See Section D.2 for additional information.

2. Cost Sharing or Matching.

There is no required cost sharing, cost matching, or cost participation for this opportunity.

Applications with cost sharing will not be evaluated more favorably.

3. Other.

a. Organizations that have been found to be in violation of a Federal statute are ineligible.

b. Organizations may submit only one application under this grant program (one application per CAGE code).

c. All Recipients must agree to Government auditing, 6-month and 12-month progress and expense reports, and site visits by USU officials as needed.

d. All Recipients must ensure that service members and/or veterans applying for participation have their disability documented by their physician and submitted to the Recipient organization before participating in the program,

e. All Recipients must ensure that all service dogs to be placed with service members and/or veterans have passed the public access test(s) described herein.

D. APPLICATION AND SUBMISSION INFORMATION

1. Address to Request Application Package.

This document contains all requirements to submit a response to this solicitation. No additional forms, kits, or other materials are needed except as referenced herein.

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2. Content and Form of Application Submission.

Applications that do not comply with the content, format, and submission requirements outlined herein may be deemed non-responsive and removed from consideration. Applicants should consider the evaluation criteria listed in Section E.1 when developing their applications and tailor a comprehensive plan to provide service dogs to service members and/or veterans with disabilities. Applicants must demonstrate that they are not pass-through entities, i.e., outsourcing essential training or animal husbandry services. For application purposes, applicants should use an estimated period of performance of 15 June 2021 to 14 June 2022.

All applications must be submitted electronically through the grants.gov website (https://www.grants.gov). See Section D.6 for additional instructions.

Complete application packages consist of the following elements:

o Standard Form (SF) 424 Application for Federal Assistance o Project/Performance Site Location(s) Form o SF-424A Budget Information for Non-Construction Programs o SF-424B Assurances for Non-Construction Programs o SF-LLL Disclosure of Lobbying Activities (Only include this form, if applicable) o Project and Budget Narratives (a mandatory template is provided as an attachment to this FOA and must be used in the submission. The template contains specific instructions regarding the elements that must be addressed in the narratives.)

All application documents must be in English and, other than the Standard Forms (SF), formatted as single-spaced, 12-point Calibri (or similar) font, with a minimum of 1-inch margins and pages sequentially numbered. The project narrative may not exceed 10 pages excluding resumes.

All forms must be completed (as applicable for each applicant) and the narratives kept concise and emphasize details over anecdotal or general statements. All budget/cost information must be consistent across all parts of the application including the SF-424, SF-424A, and Budget Narrative. Grants awarded under this FOA will not exceed the Federal Funding amount listed on the SF-424 and SF-424A. All budgets must be in whole US dollars.

3. Unique entity identifier and System for Award Management (SAM).

USU cannot make a Federal award to an applicant until the applicant has complied with all applicable unique entity identifier and SAM requirements. Each applicant is required to (a) provide a valid Tax Identification Number in its application; (b) have an active SAM registration before submitting an application; (c) maintain an active SAM registration with current information at all times during which the applicant has an active Federal award or application under consideration by a Federal awarding agency

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4. Submission Dates and Times.

Applicants are warned that submission deadlines as outlined herein will be strictly enforced.

When planning a response to this FOA, applicants should take into account that some parts of the submission process may take days or weeks to complete (e.g., registering for a Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number or in the System for Award Management (SAM).

Note: grants.gov recommends submitting application packages at least 24-48 hours prior to the due date to allow time to correct any potential technical issues that may disrupt the application submission.

Applications must be submitted in accordance with the submission instructions outlined herein and received no later than 11:59 PM (Eastern) on 03 February 2021. Late applications will neither be reviewed nor considered.

5. Funding Restrictions.

a. Budgeted costs must be allowable, allocable and reasonable in accordance with

Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards 2CFR 200- parts 200.403, 200.404 and 200.405.

b. Budget items not related to support for the operations of existing programs will not be approved (e.g., construction costs for new facilities, equipment purchases greater than $5,000, etc.).

c. Pre-award costs (expenses associated with activities prior to award) are not authorized and will not be reimbursed.

6. Other Submission Requirements

As stated above, all applications to this FOA must be submitted electronically through the grants.gov website. Applications submitted by any other method (e.g., the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Application Submission System & Interface for Submission Tracking (ASSIST) website or other electronic portal, hand-carried, US Mail, email, fax) will not be accepted.

Instructions for submitting and tracking an application are provided at http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/applicants/apply-for-grants.html.

Important note: applicants must complete a one-time registration process on grants.gov before an application can be electronically submitted. If applicants have not previously registered, this process can take up to four weeks so registration should be done in sufficient time to ensure it does not impact an applicant’s ability to meet required submission deadlines. To avoid missing deadlines, Grants.gov recommends that applicants submit their applications to grants.gov 24-48 hours in advance of the application due date

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to provide sufficient time to complete the registration and submission process, receive email notifications and correct errors, as applicable.

Grants.gov provides applicants 24/7 technical support via the toll-free number 1-800-518- 4726 and email at support@grants.gov. Grants.gov recommends that applicants experiencing difficulties with their submission call the Support Center and get a ticket number. The Support Center ticket number will assist with tracking the issue.

E. APPLICATION REVIEW INFORMATION

1. Evaluation Criteria.

Eligible applications will be evaluated for technical merit and programmatic relevance using the following criteria:

a. Technical Merit

i. Overall quality of the applicant’s proposed programs for both the dogs and the service members and/or veterans to include:

Training Public access training/test Outreach Aftercare

ii. Trainer qualifications to include selection requirements, experience, expertise, and stability

iii. Adequacy of the training facilities and, as applicable, the animal housing facilities including consideration of the applicant’s demonstrated commitment to humane standards for animals.

iv. Budget realism assessment of whether the proposed budget for each budget category is appropriate, balanced, and realistic for the proposed work.

b. Programmatic Relevance

i. Relevance and feasibility of the applicant’s proposed approach: assessment of how well the overall application meets the prime objective of the WWSDP:

to support service members and/or veterans across diverse geographic regions and population demographics through nonprofit organizations committed to advancing the service dog industry through continued learning, innovative training programs, and superior industry standards.

ii. Past performance related to the placement and retention of service dogs

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with service members and/or veterans. Note: an applicant with no past performance to evaluate will receive a neutral rating for this criterion.

iii. Budget reasonableness assessment of whether the overall proposed budget is fair and reasonable for the proposed work.

2. Review and Selection Process. Eligible applications will be evaluated by two separate and independent committees: one focused on technical merit and the other focused on programmatic relevance. Review committee members will individually evaluate each application as presented in its entirety. Applications that do not comply with the content, format, and submission requirements outlined herein may be deemed non-responsive and removed from consideration. The findings of the technical and programmatic relevance review committees will be presented to a Selecting Official who will determine which applications to award and the amount of each grant.

3. In accordance with 2 CFR 200.206, prior to making any award under this FOA in excess of $250,000, USU will review and consider any information about the applicant that is in the designated integrity and performance system accessible through SAM (see 41 U.S.C. 2313). The applicant may, at its option, review information in the designated integrity and performance systems accessible through SAM and comment on any information about itself that a Federal awarding agency previously entered and is currently in the designated integrity and performance system accessible through SAM. USU will consider any comments by the applicant, in addition to the other information in the designated integrity and performance system, in making a judgment about the applicant's integrity, business ethics, and record of performance under Federal awards when completing the required review of risk posed by applicants.

4. Anticipated Announcement and Federal Award Dates. The Government anticipates making awards no later than June 30, 2021. Unsuccessful applicants will be notified via email after all grant awards have been made.

F. FEDERAL AWARD ADMINISTRATION INFORMATION

1. Federal Award Notices. Successful applicants will receive an email notification with a copy of the fully executed grant award. Work may not begin until the signed grant agreement is received by the Recipient.

2. Administrative and National Policy Requirements. All grant awards issued as a result of this opportunity will be subject to the DoD R&D General Terms and Conditions and Uniformed Services University (USU) General Terms and Conditions for Assistance Awards. In accordance with the USU Terms and Conditions, Recipients will be responsible for invoicing as specified in the award.

3. Reporting. Recipients of an award under this FOA shall be required to submit two (2)

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comprehensive progress and financial reports (6-month interim and 12-month final report). Both reports shall be reviewed to ensure grant funds are used for the purposes stated in the grant application. The progress report shall include the status of any plans, processes, or general elements described in Section D.2 above.

Recipients of an award under this FOA where the Federal share is in excess of $500,000 may be subject to the post award reporting requirements reflected in 2 CFR 200, Appendix XII—Award Term and Condition for Recipient Integrity and Performance Matters.

G. FEDERAL AWARDING AGENCY CONTACT

All questions related to this funding opportunity must be emailed to the WWSDP mailbox at wwsdp-ggg@usuhs.edu. Submission to any other address may result in a delayed or no response. For questions related to technical support for grants.gov, see Section D.6.

H. OTHER INFORMATION

1. The Federal Government is not obligated to make any Federal award as a result of an announcement.

2. Only a warranted Grants Officer can obligate the Federal Government.

3. Recipients who do not achieve proposed outcomes or adhere to the terms and conditions of the grant may not be eligible to compete in any similar future announcements.