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Introduction 

Over recent years the Food and Nutrition 

Service (FNS) has awarded multiple grants to 

community and faith-based organizations 

(CFBO) and public entities to reach out to 

people who are eligible but not participating in 

the Food Stamp Program (FSP). Grant amounts 

ranged from $100,000 to $350,000 and extended 

from one to two years. While grant proposals 

routinely address the question of whether and 

how projects will be sustained beyond the grant 

period, no follow-up information about the 

extent to which these projects have been 

sustained has been available to date. This report 

documents the extent to which CFBOs and the 

public entities that received food stamp outreach 

grants in 2001 and 2002 sustained their outreach 

projects up to three years beyond the funding 

period, challenges faced in sustaining their 

projects, and the factors contributing to their 

sustainability. 

Project Summary 

The projects were intended to: 

• Develop and test ways to help inform 

potentially eligible individuals and families 

about the benefits that may be available to 

them under the FSP. 

• Identify and document barriers that may 

prevent potentially eligible households from 

applying for benefits. 

• Use new technologies and improved service 

delivery methods to reach potential 

participants and improve service for existing 

recipients. 

• Develop community partnerships to reach a 

larger number of people and to help 

institutionalize resources beyond the grant 

period. 

A diverse set of grantees was selected to 

represent a variety of approaches and targeted 

populations across the country. In summary: 

• Grants were awarded to organizations in a 

variety of urban and rural locations. 

• Projects generally sought to improve FSP 

access for the elderly, immigrants, the 

working poor, and other hard-to-reach 

groups, separately or in combination. 

• Projects adopted a number of different 

strategies for outreach, including the use of 

technologies at various levels of complexity, 

targeted advertising campaigns through 

conventional media, new Internet web sites, 

and computer-based tools to pre-screen for 

food stamp eligibility. 

The grantees represented a wide range of 

organizations. Some were organizations that 

dealt strictly with food or hunger-related issues. 

About 25 percent were food banks or established 

anti-hunger organizations. Others were 

advocates for the elderly, low-income children 

and families, or health and human services 

groups targeting specific minority and 

immigrant populations. 

Some organizations had previous outreach 

experience specifically with the FSP; others had 

conducted outreach for social services like 

Medicaid or the State Children’s Health 

Insurance Program. A few sites had no previous 

experience with outreach. 

Projects focused on rural areas, larger 

metropolitan areas, or broader State populations. 

Target populations also varied across grantees -- 

focusing on broad groups of low-income 

individuals or more specific groups, such as 

seniors, Hispanics, and/or low-income working 

parents. 

The grantees organized their projects in different 

ways, using various approaches to outreach. 

Evaluations results were reported in Office of 

Analysis, Nutrition, and Evaluation (2004) and 

Zedlewski et al. (2005), and are available on-line 

at www.fns.usda.gov/oane. 

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE SUSTAINABILITY OF 

FOOD STAMP OUTREACH PROJECTS

Office of Analysis, Nutrition and Evaluation June 2006 
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Findings 

Most of the grantees are continuing 

operations but on a smaller scale. Of the 32 

grantees contacted, 28 participated in this 

follow-up study. Twenty-two of 28 grantees (79 

percent) continued their outreach project in 

some form beyond the funding period. About 

one-third (nine of 28 grantees) of the projects 

are operating on a significantly smaller scale 

than they were during the grant period. To 

accommodate their reduced budget, the majority 

scaled back staff and the range of services 

offered. One grantee reported that his 

organization is committed to the goal of 

reaching eligible non-participants with or 

without funding, so they have successfully kept 

their part-time outreach worker on staff. 

Of the 28 respondents, seven (25 percent) 

reported that their organizations have maintained 

the project at the same level of service after the 

grant award expired. These grantees successfully 

won a few small grants, primarily from 

foundations. They have maintained their initial 

partnerships and have established new ones 

since the grant ended. One grantee proudly 

reported that they are actually doing more 

because they have expanded their pool of 

partners. 

Six of the 28 (21 percent) respondents almost 

fully sustained their project. These grantees 

scaled back their projects but not extensively. 

One grantee reported that they aggressively 

pursued funding from multiple sources in order 

to maintain their project to the extent that they 

did. The intended next step is to seek 

participation in their State’s optional outreach 

plan. This organization scaled back from two 

full-time outreach coordinators to one 

coordinator. In order to maintain the food stamp 

outreach project, they folded it into other 

outreach projects for which they received 

funding. Additionally, they staffed the project 

with work study and service learning students. 

Other grantees reported that instead of offering 

multiple services that include food stamp 

education and application assistance, they have 

scaled back to information dissemination and 

prescreening. The latter activities are more 

readily incorporated into other services activities 

that the organization provides. 

Three grantees (11 percent of the respondents) 

sustained services at a minimal level, ceasing all 

outreach activities but maintaining their web 

site. One grantee reported that their web site 

allows for online application completion and 

submission to the Department of Social 

Services. Another grantee mentioned that 

during the grant period they had staff members 

who were dedicated to conducting training and 

education sessions about the FSP during which 

they would offer training on how to use the web 

site. They no longer have staff to carry out those 

duties so they are limited to the web site only. 

Few grantees discontinued all food stamp 

outreach activities. Approximately one-fifth 

(six of 28 respondents) of the grantees did not 

sustain their project. In contrast, although many 

grantees have not maintained the level of 

staffing and services they had during the award 

period, they are still conducting some food 

stamp outreach activities. Since the grantees 

routinely interface with populations that qualify 

for food stamp benefits and other assistance, 

staff has incorporated food stamp outreach 

activities into their work with these individuals. 

Some grantees who trained staff from other 

community-based organizations and volunteers 

to conduct food stamp outreach have stayed in 

contact with these partners, making it more 

feasible to support their partners’ food stamp 

outreach. Others built interactive web sites that 

allow potential program participants to conduct 

their own prescreening and to apply for benefits 

online. These web sites remain in place for use 

long after the grant period ended. The limitation 

is that resources are no longer available to 

market the web site to other service providers or 

to train service providers on how to use the site. 

The count of grantees by degree of project 

sustainability is summarized below. 
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Extent of Sustainability Among Outreach 

Grantees 

Sustainability Level Frequency 

Fully 7 (25.0%) 

Almost fully 6 (21.4%) 

Minimally 9 (32.1%) 

Not sustained 6 (21.4%) 

Total grantees responding 28 

All grantees faced situations that challenged 

their ability to continue project operations. 

The primary challenge was time-limited 

funding. Several grantees noted that it is 

difficult to integrate stand-alone grants into an 

organization’s funding structure. Some, 

however, managed to “stretch” ongoing funds, 

while others acquired small grants, typically 

from foundations, to help sustain the program. 

Other grantees reported that showcasing success 

increased the likelihood of project support 

beyond the grant period. Effective collaboration 

with local FSP offices also contributes to 

sustainability. Some grantees noted that such 

collaboration was not attained – usually when 

local FSP offices faced competing workload 

demands. 

Another challenge faced by the grantees was 

staff turnover, particularly in the partner 

agencies. As these partners changed staff, 

sometimes even within the grant period, 

incoming staff members often had less interest 

in the project. 

Grantees that fully or almost fully sustained 

their project share a set of characteristics that 

include: 

• long-standing service in their community, 

• strong partnerships with other CFBOs, 

• a good working relationship with the local 

and State FSP office, and 

• strategic fund development. 

These organizations are often well-known and 

trusted by both individuals and other 

organizations in their communities because of 

their permanence and consistency in meeting the 

needs of the community members. Strong 

partnerships are required for any organization to 

become established and entrenched in a 

community, which in turn helps the grantees 

maintain their projects beyond the funding 

period. A project is at significant risk of failure 

if the local or State FSP office is not working 

cooperatively with the grantee. These 

cooperative relationships help to make the 

projects more visible and provide continuity 

between the services the projects offer and those 

of the FSP offices. The projects that sought 

funding from a variety of sources and that began 

to seek funding prior to grant expiration were 

most likely to sustain their projects. This often 

requires acuity in timing and knowledge of 

diverse funding sources. 

Recommendations to Grantees 

 Start looking for funding sources such as 

foundations and local governments well 

before the grant award expires. It is more 

costly to restore the project than to maintain 

it. 

 Contact the State agency with the goal to 

become a provider of outreach funded by 

FSP administrative funds at State option. 

This would provide reimbursement of 50 

percent of project costs using FSP 

administrative funds. 

 Build strong partnerships with supporters in 

the community. Take the time to build 

relationships that will continue beyond the 

funding period. Select your partners 

carefully; consider who the more effective 

partners are and what will motivate them to 

stay the course. Some characteristics of 

better partners to approach are those that are 

offering ongoing social services to the 

community, those that have partnerships 

with other CFBOs and those that have been 

in the community for an extended period of 

time. 

 Involve as many partners as possible at the 

highest levels in each organization and 

promote their ownership of the project. 

 Allot sufficient time to build strong 

partnerships. Involve partners from the 

beginning of the project to ensure buy-in. 
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 Build the capacity of your partnering 

CFBOs so that they can conduct food stamp 

outreach on their own. 

 Develop a close working relationship with 

the local and State FSP offices. 

 Couple other related support services with 

food stamp outreach as this will make the 

project more attractive to funders. 

 Build an evaluation component from the 

onset or design of the project so that data 

will be available to substantiate the need for 

project services and/or the capability of the 

project to meet those needs. 

Grantee Recommendations to USDA 

 Allow grantees to combine other outreach 

activities with food stamp outreach activities 

as the diversity makes it easier to acquire 

funding to sustain the projects. 

 Consider meeting with grantees and States at 

the end of each grant period to show the 

States that food stamp outreach is a priority 

for USDA and to encourage the States to 

continue supporting food stamp outreach. 

Method 

A customized interview guide with a 

combination of open- and closed-ended 

questions was used to gather the information 

needed for this analysis. A total of 28 grantees, 

88 percent of those that were funded, were 

interviewed via telephone in small groups of two 

or three. To expedite the interview, the grantees 

often received the interview guide by e-mail 

before the actual interview so that they could 

peruse the questions ahead of time. No two 

interviews were identical as the discussions were 

often directed by the responses given by the 

interviewees. The four grantees that did not 

participate in the interview could not be 

contacted or did not respond to the request to 

participate. 

Conclusion 

The importance of sustaining these projects is 

reflected in the noteworthy efforts that grantees 

have made to sustain their projects. Most found 

some means to continue project operations; few 

completely ceased operations. Most grantees 

faced challenges to sustaining their food stamp 

outreach services but took several steps to avert 

or resolve them. Future grantees can profit from 

the lessons learned to support the sustainability 

of new projects. 

Acknowledgments 

This report was prepared by Rosemarie Downer, 

Office of Analysis, Nutrition, and Evaluation, 

Food and Nutrition Service. 

References 

Office of Analysis, Nutrition and Evaluation. 

Research Grants to Improve Food Stamp 

Program Access through Partnership and 

Technology: 2001 Program Evaluation 

Summary. Alexandria, VA: Food and 

Nutrition Service, USDA, September 2004. 

Zedlewski, Sheila, David Wittenburg, Carolyn 

O’Brien, Robin Koralek, Sandra Nelson, and 

Gretchen Rowe. Evaluation of Food Stamp 

Research Grants to Improve Access Through 

the Use of New Technology and Partnerships. 

Report prepared for the Food and Nutrition 

Service USDA. Washington, DC: The Urban 

Institute, October 2005. 

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