Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

1

ROUGH EDITED COPY

may not be a verbatim record of the proceedings

Learning Systems International

FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training, Session 1

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

CART/CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY:

Premier Visual Voice, LLC

CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

216-246-9477

MD
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

2

>> Hello everyone and thank you so much for joining us. Before we get started 

let's go over quick housekeeping notes. All lines are on mute and we will keep 

them on mute throughout the course of the call which means if you have 

questions at any time, let us know in the Q&A box. If you're having technical 

issues, drop us a note in the chatbox and our webinar facilitators will help you 

out. Let's test it out. If you can hear me and see the chatbox, can you please 

drop a yes in the chatbox making sure to send it to all panelists and attendees. 

Looks like you all can hear me, great. If you are having issues with audio, we 

recommend having the system call you. If you're having visual problems, just 

leave and come back and that should fix it. Lastly, we are recording the call and if 

you do not wish to be recorded, you could disconnect at any time. The recording 

and slides will be made available on the National Service website on the RSVP 

competition site.

>> This meeting is being recorded.

>> Welcome again everybody. It is my privilege to welcome you to the session 

which is the starting point of our grantmaking year and for those of you who don't 

know me or my voice, my name is Anne Otih and I'm officer training for -- it's a 

privilege to introduce you to the FY 2021 RSVP Comptetition Training: Session 1 

Introduction to CNCS this just kicked off at the beginning of this month. It's a 

wonderful time because we get to introduce ourselves to so many potential new 

people in our country and give them the opportunity to join the community and 

also to welcome and reaffirm and think so many of the wonderful organizations 

that have made the National Service community what it is. Organizations that 

have been carrying the banner of CNCS, Corporation for National and 

Community Service, and SeniorCorps and RSVP for many years. If you don't 

know what the terms mean, don't worry and you are in the right place and we will 

talk about that today. But first, using the chatbox if you haven't already, let us 

know the organization and state where your joining from today and making sure 

to send it to all panelists and attendees. It was great to see some familiar names 
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

3

in the list for today. Thank you so much and continue to let us know where you 

are calling in from and remember we will use the Q&A pod together questions 

that you may have, which leads me to my next introduction. I would like to 

introduce you to my wonderful colleagues, Courtney Sutton and Debbie who are 

on the call and you will see them in the Q&A box and I see that Collin joined. 

There are going to be a handful of questions we will not be able to answer today 

and the first question those that we simply don't have the answer to them. Or that 

are too specific to your situation or context. We have a little over 200 attendees 

on the line today and we want to make sure we get everyone the information they 

need. If you have a question that falls into either of those categories, we don't get 

to it today, feel free to send an email to the email address on the screen. That is 

where you could get additional information and assistance.. We have an FAQ 

document up that I will share later today. That's another place to go for 

questions. Another category of questions I will not be able to answer our because 

it is a competitive opportunity. So that means we need to make sure that we are 

treating everyone fairly so the questions that we cannot answer or things like 

should I put this on my application or that. Feedback on specific things that made 

give your application an advantage over others that we cannot answer. So we 

are going to focus on providing same information to everybody and that is what 

we will do here today. A few more preliminaries to get out of the way -- this is the 

first in our second cycle of a series of five sessions. We will continue for the next 

two weeks and if you aren't able to attend any of the upcoming sessions, don't 

worry. We will record them and we will post those on the website. Now we want 

to know a little bit about you. I will ask that we pull up our poll. The first question 

we want to know who has received a federal grant before including one from 

CNCS. Please fill out the poll that you see on the screen. We will give you a 

couple more seconds to fill that out.

It looks like a good percentage of you have received federal grant before and 

some of you are new so welcome. How well do you know the grant program of 
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

4

CNCS that I work for and for which RSVP is a part. Let us know your answers to 

that.

Looks like a good percentage of you are new to this. Next question -- how would 

you describe primary field of your organization, SeniorCorps and CNCS and 

National Service community are diverse and our organizations have different 

focuses. Probably consider yourself to belong to more than one of these 

categories and that's okay. Just pick the one that best describes you. Couple 

more seconds.

It looks like a little bit of everything. For the final question for right now -- how did 

you hear about us? This is good for us to know to get a sense of how you came 

together to learn alongside of us.

Mike, looks like a couple attendees were not able to see the survey and could 

you help them troubleshoot?

All right, thank you all for participating in our polls. No matter who you are and 

where you come from, you are welcome here today. Let's take a look at our 

agenda. A lot of what we will do today is explaining terms you have already 

heard me mention, what is Corporation for National and Community Service, 

SeniorCorps and RSVP. Specific program for which grant opportunity is now 

open. Many of you want to know as we just saw how many our current grantees 

and who are new but hopefully you will learn a little bit coming through this 

process, too. First, let's start by establishing basic facts about the competition so 

everybody is working from the same information. We are currently accepting 

applications now for the RSVP program in specific geographic areas. 

Applications are due by 5 PM, Eastern time, on September 1. To view available 

areas, you will look at a document called Appendix A. This is one of the most 

important documents related to this competition and list out specific geographic 

service areas that are open. The way this program works is that specific service 

area is open for competition and that is tied to a specific amount of funding and 

specific number of unduplicated volunteers that goes with it. Volunteer 

unduplicated means it's a unique individual. That individual could serve with one 
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

5

program in multiple ways but you only count that person once. If you look at 

Appendix A and that's appendix to a document called notice a fun and 

opportunity or NOFO. If you look at Appendix A of the document, it lists out all 

the currently available geographic service areas. It looks a bit like this. This is the 

first listing on the Appendix A but you will see an opportunity number, total 

funding amount, number of unduplicated volunteers and you will see areas 

affected. That is completed as a package. You will apply for the package of 

things. You will apply for a specific geographic service area for no more than 

specific amount of funding and to recruit and maintain that specific number of 

unduplicated volunteers. Package deal tying those three things together. We 

often get asked I don't see my specific geographic service area that I'm 

interested in. There are over 900 opportunities and -- in almost all 50 states on 

the list. If you don't see what you're interested in, that is because we go through 

a three year competition cycle and this is year number three. If you're still 

interested in SeniorCorps, we do have competitions coming up in our other 

programs and I will touch on that in a bit.

Let's talk about resources that you will use. Many of your first questions are likely 

along the line of what you will see on the screen right now. How long is the 

award, what kinds of projects CNCS hoping to fund much matching funds 

required, what is the review process? Use the vast majority of answer to this 

questions are included in the document called NOFO. This is your gateway to the 

competition. It is essentially your map to the competition that meets all the 

information you will need will either be available in this document or is linked in 

the document, the NOFO. This is where you will start to read it, you have to know 

it upside down and backwards. It's a very critical document. You may have 

noticed the second webinar in this series which is on Wednesday is a guided tour 

of the document so please come back as we go through it and remember it's a 

critical document and you could find it on the competition website.

In addition to the NOFO, there are other resources that will be important to you. 

The grant application instructions, step-by-step guide to navigating electronic 
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

6

grant management system, Appendix A which I've referred to and that is the list 

of available opportunities. We have Appendix B which explains national 

performance measures in-depth and that's another topic we will spend the whole 

webinar on later on going in-depth on that specific document in your national 

performance measure requirements. We have the work plan development 

worksheets which will be helpful to you when trying to think about how to claim 

your activities and your plans to us. And then we have a list of FAQs that we 

update throughout the process based on what gets sent to the 2021 RSVP 

mailbox. All of these resources are available on the 2021 RSVP competition 

homepage which Mike has posted in the chat.

If you don't get the information you need today and it's not in one of the 

resources, you can use that additional email..

That covers our competition overview. Now for the fun stuff, introduction to 

CNCS and SeniorCorps. If you're familiar with this, I hope you will think of it as a 

refresher and what your place in your [indiscernible] -- I am happy to share our 

work with you of our agency.

Corporation for National and Community Service is federal agency responsible 

for civic engagement. Service voluntary and grantmaking opportunities in the 

United States and we help millions of Americans improve their lives and the lives 

of their fellow citizens through service. We do that by working hand-in-hand with 

local partners to tap ingenuity and can-do spirit of the American people to it 

attack our country's most challenges. Despite the name, CNCS is a federal 

agency. We are small independent agency and civic engagement and 

volunteerism is at the heart of all we do. We lead service volunteering and 

grantmaking efforts in the US. Our mission and you could read along with me 

from the screen is to improve lives, strengthen communities and foster civic 

engagement through service and volunteering. National Service is an opportunity 

to volunteer your time and talent to make a difference in people's lives and get 

things done for America. Through AmeriCorps and SeniorCorps, individuals of 
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

7

any age serve their country and their community by putting their valuable skills to 

use.

CNCS overseas this through two major programs and handful of smaller 

programs. You may be familiar with AmeriCorps. Engages people in service 

often for set period of time where they often pick up and leave and go 

somewhere else to serve the set period of time. People of all ages can serve in 

different AmeriCorps programs but they tend to skew the younger in our 

program. SeniorCorps is geared towards volunteers 55 and older. CNCS also 

has a number of smaller programs, Martin Luther King Jr. Day of service and 

September 11 day of service in remembrance you may have come across and 

they are united under the banner of CNCS. If you want to learn more about 

CNCS, visit our website, nationalservice.gov to check out stats on National 

Service in your state, regional office and social media.

Today is about SeniorCorps. Nation's largest network of older American 

volunteers with more than 200,000 volunteers in every state in the country plus 

DC, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands serving a 23,000 locations. When you 

add that up, it's a diverse vibrant and powerful community.

Here are some of our favorite stats like I mentioned more than 200,000 

volunteers all across the country serving 50 million hours each year. They do 

things like helping older Americans live independently, mentoring students with 

exceptional needs, combating elder abuse and opioid addition and responding to 

COVID-19 pandemic relief efforts. It has effects on volunteers themselves, top 

right corner 84% of our volunteers report stable or improving health as a result of 

their SeniorCorps service.

We've got two other programs that are not RSVP that we would be remiss if we 

didn't provide information about them. First is Foster grandparent program. This 

program engages older Americans as role models and mentors to help children 

with special and exceptional needs. Volunteers in the program may receive small 

stipend to defray the cost of service. We have senior communion program which 

provides assistance and friendship to adults who have difficulty with daily living 
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

8

tasks such as shopping or paying bills, helping them remain independent in their 

homes and eligible volunteers in this program, again, may receive a small 

stipend for their service.

These programs are a bit different than RSVP in a couple ways. They have 

specific focuses and they have authority for volunteers who are eligible to receive 

a small stipend.

All of our programs engage individuals 55 and older in service and that is the 

core of SeniorCorps. And the RSVP program. RSVP program was established in 

1971 and engages individuals 55 and older in a wide variety of volunteer 

activities. If you could think of a volunteer doing it, there's probably RSVP 

volunteer that are doing it right now. It's built to meet community needs and built 

to be flexible and meet needs of your community. So RSVP volunteers to your 

children, renovate homes, assist victims of natural disasters and I could go on 

and on.

Before we get into how the program works, I will pause to see if you have 

questions about what we talked about so far with the exception of competition 

mechanics.

Debbie or Courtney, have any questions come in about CNCS or SeniorCorps 

outside of RSVP before we get into RSVP specifically?

>> There was a question -- organization needs to be called VISTA --

[indiscernible].

>> Volunteers In Service To America or VISTA joined CNCS when the agency 

was created as a part of the AmeriCorps programs so VISTA is one of the 

AmeriCorps programs.

>> I think that's it for the rest of the questions.

>> Thank you, Debbie. Moving ahead we have already mentioned court to 

SeniorCorps is engaging individuals 55 and older in service in a lot of ways. It's a 

program about connection. Connecting those volunteers to community needs 

and leveraging them to meet the needs. If your organization were to be awarded 

a grant through this RSVP competition, your organization would be responsible 
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

9

for implementing the RSVP project and awarded area. You would likely use the 

grant funds to support salary of RSVP director to run RSVP at your organization 

which would now be a sponsor or grantee. In your application, you will have 

explained needs in the community and how you recruit in place RSVP volunteers 

in the community to make an impact on meeting the community needs. 

Organizations where you place RSVP volunteers to serve would become known 

as volunteer stations and this could include sponsoring organization itself.

If you want to learn more about what being a SeniorCorps volunteer means or 

how the SeniorCorps program works in practice, we have a resource on 

nationalservice.gov called SeniorCorps stories. I will share two of my favorite 

stories from the website. One of them we have RSVP project sponsor --

community action agency in eastern Connecticut. Open the first veterans 

coffeehouse in Killingly, Connecticut in 2015. Coffeehouse offers venue for 

veterans to socialize while providing information on benefits available to vets and 

their families. Speakers present variety of organization serving veterans, soldiers, 

sailors and Marines, veteran service office of Connecticut Department of 

Veterans Affairs, Connecticut commission on human rights and United Way of 

Southeastern Connecticut. Through the connections made at coffeehouse, 

veterans have gained access to additional services and benefits for which they 

are eligible including housing, energy, medical and food assistance. Original 

coffeehouse is now self-sustaining and operates independently of the RSVP 

program with the support of 14 RSVP volunteers and the organization has

launched 4 additional coffeehouses in Connecticut. From April 2016 to January 

2018, total of 535 veterans have attended the coffeehouses throughout Eastern 

Connecticut. Another RSVP volunteer, when asked about his time volunteering in 

community, he summed it up best, there is no better place to meet people caring, 

happy people who lift me up. Jim retired early in order to stay home and take 

care of his wife and started volunteering because he was looking for flexible 

options away from home. He loves to meet people and help fill in need. He's a 

retired professor from Kansas State University. During the past five years, he has 
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

10

been organizing and managing the parking lot line of cars for harvesters mobile 

food pantry each month. Jim has also spent the past few years working with 

program in Junction City and national organizations related to his work in 

agriculture and engineering. These are a handful of examples. There are many 

more on the site so I recommend checking it out. We will add links to the chat but 

to learn more, you have the stories which are shared and we have impact videos. 

These are great because you see programs volunteers telling her story in their 

own words. I mentioned National Service earlier but for the question about how 

to get involved in National Service if your geographic service area is not on 

Appendix A, that's a great link to follow. Finally, we post the results of all of our 

competitions online at the transparency posting website. You will see in the chat 

you could go there and view successful and unsuccessful applications from the 

past on that site and that's another great resource to get to know RSVP.

Now that we've got a picture in mind, we could get more technical so we will 

spend time working with specific terms. There are two key terms you need to 

know to really understand how RSVP works. The first is sponsor which we use 

anonymously with grantee. Organization that receives RSVP funding and is 

legally responsible for the grant funds. If you submit application to this 

competition, you will need someone to sign, say yes that I accept responsibility 

for everything I am seeing in the organization that has that authority and that's a 

sponsor and they are legally responsible. Then there's another set of 

organizations called the station, community partner where RSVP volunteers will 

serve.

The stations are where volunteers serve. They could be nonprofits, proprietary 

healthcare facilities or public agencies. Some organizations may choose to 

operate like a volunteer matchmaker recruiting diverse group of volunteers and 

placing them at a wide variety of stations. Others may choose to focus on couple 

of stations. Organization that provides educational programs may choose to 

focus its efforts and its volunteers on education within specific schools that serve 

as stations. Your sponsor can serve as RSVP volunteer station so you could 
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

11

have volunteers serving your own program. If you are the organization applying 

for funds. The relationship between sponsors and stations is formalized in a 

memoranda of understanding, RSVP sponsors work with volunteer stations 

under a signed MOU and your RSVP project would assign RSVP volunteers to 

that particular volunteer station. What that means is if you have the grantee or 

the sponsor that is receiving the funds and if the station is out there in the 

community, grantee provides management of the grant and volunteers in the 

station provide on-site supervision and management and also performance data 

back to the grantee so they could enter it back to us at CNCS. That is formalized 

in the memorandum of understanding or MOU. To help us think through how this 

looks in practice, we will share couple models of what RSVP could look like. This 

is example of what RSVP program focuses on multiple issues with multiple 

partners. You could see SeniorCorps makes the grant to a sponsor which 

recruits volunteers and places them at external stations. They could be 

conducting a wide variety of activities. One of the small places could be a food 

bank and another could be a school.

Here is another example, SeniorCorps could make eGrant to a sponsor that runs 

its own programs. They may be focused working only an area of education and 

the sponsor could then recruit RSVP volunteers to work on its own programs.

At CNCS in SeniorCorps we provide funds to the sponsoring organization, the 

grantee, then becomes legally responsible for managing the grant. They recruit 

volunteers in their communities and they placed them at community stations.

Now that you know more about RSVP, you probably realize the benefits that 

RSVP could bring to your organization. If you were awarded a grant through this 

competition, RSVP volunteers can be used to build capacity of your organization 

through their service. Your organization would become part of the larger 

SeniorCorps and National Service network. RSVP project with strength and other 

organizations in your community enter out your service area. Your award would 

demonstrate that your application was strong enough to be awarded through a 

competitive grant process.
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

12

The benefits to the volunteer aren't hard to find. They get to make tangible impact 

on their communities making new friends and connections, enjoy flexible 

schedule and flexible opportunities. There's also a growing body of research 

indicates that being involved in something like RSVP can increase seniors health 

and happiness as they age. As a -- you could reimburse them for cost of their 

service.

We've got a couple poll question so let's look at the first question. Which of these 

reasons for applying for RSVP grant is more important to you? You could select 

all that apply. I will give you a chance to fill that out. Looks like we still have some 

answers coming in.

All right. Looks like we have a bit of everything which makes sense because it is 

about what is right for your community. For our next question -- if I receive RSVP 

grant, I am likely to what? Fill in the blank.

Couple more seconds to answer this one.

Awesome! Looks like majority of you like to have volunteers serve in programs 

managed by your organization. When we look at notice of an opportunity in the 

future webinar, you will see we have specific criteria in there that we used to 

evaluate applications and this is what we're looking for but not looking for any 

particular organizational structure or anything like that. We are looking for 

specific criteria that you will find in the NOFO.

Let's move on to the next subject.

All RSVP grants must measure their performance and report back to us. We 

have a system that we used to do that. It's maybe most complicated part of 

applying for an RSVP grant and that's why we will talk about it briefly. I will note 

we have a whole webinar about it planned later in the cycle.

Volunteers can be allocated to two kinds of work plans. National performance 

measure work plans which we call in specific outputs and outcomes, specific 

measurable things, or what we call other community priority work plans. That's 

more of a catch all for other activities that don't fit into the specific measures. 

There is a requirement that applicants must place at least one unduplicated 
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

13

volunteer in work plans for every $1000 in federal funding that you receive. What 

does that mean? How does this connect to other amounts of unduplicated 

volunteers that you have seen in Appendix A? Let's spend time on this. We have 

an example -- in Appendix A, you will see information that looks like this, a state, 

unduplicated, opportunity number, total annual funding available, start date 

number of unduplicated volunteers and geographic service area.

You have to apply to the specific amount of funding specific number of 

unduplicated volunteers for that particular geographic service area. In this 

example, you would apply for $75,000 if you reply to this service area and if you 

were doing that, you need to have at least 100 unduplicated volunteers. When 

you look at the requirements, we have the requirement you must program at 

least one unduplicated volunteer in national performance measure work plan. For 

every $1000 in federal funding that you receive. We have to do a bit of math to 

reconcile. First, you would divide this total funding amount by $1000. 

75,000÷1000 would give us 75 so that means if you are applying to this particular 

service area, you need to program at least 75 unduplicated volunteers in the 

national performance measure work plans. You need to program your other 

volunteers in this case at least 25 with no less than 100 total volunteers. This 

could be 75 or 77 or any number all the way up to 100.

So 75 must be placed in the work plans that result in national performance 

measure outcomes and remaining 25 could be placed in other community priority 

work plan or you could add the work plans that result in national work plan 

outcomes. The threshold $1000 per unduplicated volunteer is the minimum 

amount you need to program in a specific way. That is described in depth in 

these documents, Appendix B, and the work plan development worksheets.

At CNCS, our performance measures fall into six focus areas, disaster services, 

economic opportunity, education, environmental stewardship, healthy futures, 

veterans and military families and that we have a goal of capacity building. Here 

are screenshots from the performance measure instructions. You will see each 

output has a corresponding outcome or outcomes. To choose from from certain 
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

14

objectives. Here's another screenshot from the performance measure 

instructions and has definitions and ways to measure and collect data.

These are the components of performance measure work plans. We are barely 

scratching the surface of that today and we will talk about them in-depth for an 

hour later on next week. That's when we will dive into this question about 

performance measures. Just know for now that national performance measures 

and how you measure performance are important and focus on requirements that 

you see in these key documents.

We have another poll question -- the Townsville Council on Aging plans to apply 

for an area affected that includes north, south, east, and west counties. Appendix 

A listed with $85,000 of funding available and minimum number of unduplicated 

volunteers of 115, how many unduplicated volunteers must it include in national 

performance measure work plans?

 On Appendix A, they had total funding amountOf $85,000 and minimum number 

of unduplicated volunteers of 115. How many unduplicated volunteers must 

include in national performance measure work plans? My apologies that the 

numbers are not on the slide. All right, looks like majority of you got it. So 85, 

they must program at least 85 unduplicated volunteers in national performance 

work plans and that's because on Appendix A, total funding amount is $85,000, 

85,000÷1000 dollars gives us 85.

Next question -- assuming that they only include minimum number of volunteers 

required in national performance work plans, how many unduplicated volunteers 

with a need to include another community priorities? If they program the 

minimum which we all answered as 85 for the last question, there's a total 

number of unduplicated volunteers on Appendix A of 115, how many could they 

include in other community priorities? Looks like we are getting it. So 30. Last 

question true or false, they must include all of the national performance measure 

volunteers in a single work plan.

This one is kind of a trick question.
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

15

The answer I was looking for is false. They don't have to include all of those 

individuals into one workplan. We have all of our focus areas. We have lots of 

objectives and you can do multiple work plans but they need to include at least 

minimum number of unduplicated volunteers into a work plan that results in 

national performance measure outcomes.

Moving along -- couple of things to highlight before we take questions one more 

important piece of how RSVP works. Because we are federal program paid for 

with taxpayer dollars, we have to follow certain rules when we run these 

programs. They are collected in one is called the Code of Federal Regulations 

will stop 45 part 2553 and that's the source of requirements for RSVP. If you 

consider to apply for RSVP grant, I recommend reading the CFR for RSVP. If 

you want to look at it, you could go to the website and the reference. There's 

another part of CFR called uniform guidance and that governs how you could use 

financial side of your grant so if you have another federal grant, it's likely that 

some of the same rules used to govern that will be used for RSVP as well.I want 

to spotlight to regulations. First there's some activities that you cannot engage in 

so RSVP volunteers cannot replace paid staff, cannot have volunteer activities 

that are political in nature including influencing elections or voter registration 

activities, RSVP volunteers cannot give religious instruction or conduct worship 

services, also sponsor cannot use grant funds directly or indirectly to finance 

labor or anti-labor organizations or related activity. We also have specific 

requirement on the kinds of criminal history checks that your staff go through 

highlighting the importance of reading through the Notice of Funding Opportunity, 

NOFO.

On the screen, these are common types of costs that we see in the grant 

applications. These are just common things and not meant to be exclusive list. 

We have a match, match is a requirement for the grants and the way it works, in 

your first year you will getting an award, you are required to match 10% of total 

project budget and then for each of the first three years that increases by 10% 

until you get to 30%. If you are an incumbent, that means you are already RSVP 
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

16

grantee applying for the same service area that you currently serve, then you will 

start 30% level because you're already there. New applicants will look at the 

sliding scale but incumbents, you will be entering at the 30% of the total budget. 

One thing I will add is if you are current RSVP grantee and you're applying for a 

new geographic service area, in some states we have some expansion 

opportunities for that new geographic service area, you are at 10%.

The project period for grants for this competition is three years. CNCS generally 

funds one year of the three year award. And then they are eligible for 

continuation funding for years number two and number three as long as the 

grantee demonstrates satisfactory performance that indicates that the grant is on 

track to achieve proposed performance measures at the end of a three year 

period. They demonstrate capacity to manage grant, they are in compliance with 

requirements includes terms and conditions of the grant, requirement for 

biannual reporting of performance measures and securing the required 

nonfederal share of the budget. And of course availability of congressional 

appropriations. After three years, the grant may be renewed and noncompetitive 

process satisfactory performance and if renewed, competition begins again three 

years after that. Six years from initial award.

This is a graphical representation so if you were to successfully be awarded the 

grant you're applying to, your first budget period starts in 2021. In 2027 you could 

compete again and in between you have continuations pending congressional 

appropriation. And a renewal to start a new three-year project period.

That concludes our prepared content for the afternoon. While we get ready to 

transition into questions, I wanted to share our series calendar and hope you will 

join us as we delve specifically into the NOFO, performance measures and more 

our session started 3:30 PM, Eastern time. I think I saw the question in the 

chatbox. With that, I will open it up for questions. Debbie and Courtney?

>> Thank you. Some questions in different categories so I know we are about 

eight minutes out so an event you don't hear your question answered, feel free to 

email 2021 RSVP email. Just in case we cannot get to them and we will respond 
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

17

in the email. Couple questions related to Covid -- for applicants considering we 

don't know where Covid will be, with a plan for Covid in the application? How do 

they approach that? As well as gestation for volunteers have to be stationary or 

could be remote? I believe that's related to the Covid question.

>> We cannot tell you where to program your volunteers but service activities 

may be virtual. Look at Appendix B and look at output comparisons for service 

activities that you could do virtually. I will also add if you go to the website -- let 

me pull up this link but SeniorCorps recently released a memo that contained 

other service activities and ideas that fell into performance measures that you 

could do during this time.

Let me post a link to that in a second. While I am pulling up the link, Debbie, do 

you want to bring up other questions?

>> Sure. Couple questions if we are looking to apply for multiple geographic 

areas, anyway we could send it in application as one large application? I think 

you highlighted that application is required for each area as it's listed on the 

application. That is how you would apply for multiple different areas.

MOU, required at the time -- so sorry that somebody is hammering right now 

working from home -- required application and related to stations. For new 

applicants, if you don't have your stations already secured, you will be asked to 

submit your station roster at a later date. If you don't have it secured yet, as you 

plan out your application, you will be asked to submit later.

>> I will add quickly -- when we go through the NOFO tomorrow in the session, 

we will talk about required documents. New to the geographic service area 

applicants, a station roster is not required with your submission.

>> Thank you. Are you able to speak to the volunteers and how can volunteers 

serve one day and be counted or do they have to serve multiple days throughout 

the year to be counted?

>> For RSVP, we do not have a requirement for how much a volunteer should 

serve. That is something you need to figure out based on your community needs. 
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

18

I would recommend coming to I think session number three where we talk about 

RSVP and practice and we will talk about that at that time.

>> In reference to cost reimbursement, can you elaborate on how that would 

work and whether or not there's a stipend for the volunteers or reimbursement?

>> There is no stipend for the RSVP program, so that's different from the two 

programs I mentioned at the top of the hour, FGP and SEP but you may offer 

some cost reimbursements.

>> And then are volunteers required to have background check and if so, how 

would that be covered?

>> RSVP volunteers do not have to do the National Service criminal history 

check.

>> There was a question if your headquarters is based hypothetically in Florida 

but you have a partnering agency in Guatemala, with 80 able to apply?

>> The service areas that we have available on Appendix A, anyone can apply 

to serve those areas, however, if awarded, you have to serve the area as listed in 

Appendix A.

>> Let me go through the Q&A. Our that MOUs required at the time of 

submission?

>> No like I mentioned earlier, if you are new to the geographic service area or 

CNCS, you do not need to submit your station roster's.

>> Okay. Question, several cities listed as geographical area, do you have to 

provide services in all the cities?

>> Yes, you have to provide service to the whole geographic service area that is 

listed.

>> I'm going through a couple things.

>> I am scrolling through the Q&A pod and a lot of these questions are in the 

FAQs document and will be covered throughout this week and next week's 

session. One thing I wanted to highlight because I've seen it a couple of times, 

people have been asking about what the total amount of funding on Appendix A 

is for one year or three years, the total amount of funding is for one year. And 
Learning Systems International; FY 2021 RSVP Competition Training

Session 1

2020-08-04

PREMIER VISUAL VOICE

Remote CART, Captioning and Interpreter Services

www.premiervisualvoice.com

19

then you are eligible to apply for a continuation for year number two and number 

three pending appropriation and satisfactory performance. I also saw couple 

questions about new geographic service areas on Appendix A, at this time, we 

will not be updating geographic service areas on Appendix A so take a look at 

Appendix A. It has changed throughout July but this is our final version. Is there 

one question that we see for the good of the group before we close, Debbie or 

Courtney?

I think we touched on this and thank you for joining us today and learning with us 

and we hope to see you throughout the rest of this week and next week. 

Remember you could email 2021 rsvp@cns.gov if you have any questions you 

could bring them to the rest of our sessions. Thank you also much.

[End of session]