Participant Research Innovation Laboratory for Enhancing WIC Services

The objective of this opportunity was to announce the availability of funds to establish the Participant Research Innovation Laboratory for Enhancing WIC Services. The role of the PRIL is to support and evaluate local efforts to develop interactive t

The grant is to be used to establish a cooperative agreement to identify, develop and undertake projects to meet Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) program needs and the food, nutrition, and health needs of WIC eligible participants.

All Accredited Colleges/Universities were eligible to apply to this opportunity. The awardee may benefit from this assistance as well as the WIC local agencies and WIC participants that benefit from the work conducted by the awardee and the products developed from the sub-grant awards.

Assistance is used to fund State agency projects for innovative WIC practices.

The total time period for this cooperative agreement is 5 years. Cooperative agreements may not be awarded for more than 60 months. Funding will be made to successful recipients as specified in the terms of the cooperative agreement with Food and Nutrition Service or as applicable under federal regulation requirements. The total funds will be released incrementally over the award years.

The following selection criteria and weights were used to evaluate applications for this RFA. All applicants were notified whether their proposal has been accepted for an award by FNS. The recipient of this cooperative agreement was required to demonstrate a thorough understanding of: barriers to retention and participation in WIC that have been previously identified in peer-reviewed literature or local, state, or Federal reports, personal factors, attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions WIC participants and eligible populations have regarding WIC, and the diverse communities WIC serves. The recipient also had to demonstrate an understanding of the services provided at local WIC agencies as well as the relationship among the Program and its approved vendors. Scoring for Grant Applications: 1. Overall Approach (45) 2. Management Plan (20) 3. Staffing (20) 4. Budget (15) Total Possible Points = 100

FNS pre-screened all applications to ensure that they contained the required documents and information, including but not limited to: all supporting documentation, the narrative proposal, Letters of Commitment from established partners specified in the application, and Agreement to Cooperate with FNS. Complete applications needed to be submitted by eligible applicants, meet all other eligibility requirements stated in this RFA, submitted on or before the required deadlines, and had to be in the required format. If an application did not include all appropriate information, FNS considered the application to be non-responsive and eliminated it from further evaluation. Following the initial screening process, FNS assembled an evaluation panel to review and determine the technical merits of each application. The evaluation criteria discussed below was applied by a panel and used to score proposals. The proposals were ranked by score starting with the highest score. The panel presented their recommendation to the selecting official based on this ranking. Awards were considered based on rank order; however, the selection official reserved the right to make an award out of rank order to meet agency priorities, program balance, geographical representation, or project diversity. FNS reserves the right to use this solicitation and competition to award additional grants in the next fiscal year should additional funds be made available through future appropriations. FNS also reserves the right to fund successful applications at an amount less than requested if it is judged that an application can be implemented at a lower funding level. At the completion of the review and awards process, FNS provided funding for the approved applicant upon receipt of a properly executed agreement.