now. And, uh Good evening,
Rockville. We are beginning our
meeting on AUGUST 3rd, 2026,
and all virtual, and we thank
you for joining us here today.
I
m gonna start with the pledge
of Allegiance. I pledge
allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America. Into
the Republic for which it
stands, one nation under GOD,
indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Thank you,
MISS Sarah Taylor Farrell, uh,
have there been any changes to
the agenda. MADAM Mayor and
council members, there are no
changes to this evening
s
agenda. Thank you. Excellent.
Thank you. We
ll now have the
city manager
s report, MR. Jeff
Mahalik. Mayor Ash and members
of city council, ladies and
gentlemen, good evening. I only
have 1 item tonight, and that
s
just to invite people to
participate with our economic
development strategic plan.
We
re just starting that
process right now. We
ve loaded
that project up onto engage
Rockville and we have the new
survey also show you a hard
copy of it. There it is. The
surveys available for people to
go online or to hit the qr code,
they pick it up live and please
provide their comments. They
can track the progress of the
of the economic development
plan, strategic plan
development and provide other
comments, we would appreciate
it. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you
very much, and I just wanted to
flag 1 thing between the city
manager
s office and the city
clerk
s office, we did have
several agenda items added on
Thursday for consent, uh, they
were trying to get busy and
make sure that we get a lot
done before the recess. I just
wanted to flag that if you
downloaded your agenda earlier
in the week to please feel free
to check that out. Excellent.
Thank you, MR. City Manager.
Thank you, uh, city clerk.
We
re now moving on to boards
and commissions appointments
and reappointments, we do have
a few, and I wanted to make
sure that, um, uh, it
s at
least for the human rights
commission that we can move
forward. Would anyone like to
make the motion, Council member
Valeri. Sorry, MADAM Mayor, I
just had, uh, I was raising my
hand, um, for the previous, um
Section, I just wanted to, no,
it
s ok. I just wanted to, I
just wanted to remind folks
that tomorrow night is National
Night Out. So that if they
don
t know of a gathering, um,
you know, you can, you can, uh,
check it out. Um, apologies, I
don
t know what
s going on here.
Um, we do have, I, I will just
note that we are gonna have a
proclamation for that and we
ll
speak to that a little bit more,
but please feel free to go
ahead if you have any, no, that,
that
s totally fine. I, I
forgot we had a proclamation.
That
s great. Thank you. No
problem. Thank you. Teamwork.
Does anyone want to make the
motion for our human rights
commission appointees. MADAM
Mayor, I
m happy to do that as
well if that
s helpful. Please
do thank you. Not a problem.
Let me just pull it up real
quick. I apologize. I
m having
some slow connectivity issues.
And I can as as you
re doing
that, ok, perfect. Thank you.
Yup, not a problem. Um, MADAM
Mayor, I would like to Uh, Why
I moved the appointment of Anna
De Leon. To serve an expiring
in 3-year term, a new
appointment to serve an
expiring 3-year term until
APRIL 1st, 2027. And Richard
Kaufman, a new appointment to
serve an expiring 3-year term
until JULY 1st, 2028. Excellent.
Do we have a second? Second,
Thank you. All those in favor,
please raise your hand and say
aye. Hi. Alright, thank you.
Thank you all very much. Ok,
we
ll now move back to our
proclamations, and we have 2
for this evening, uh, 1 is for
National Night Out, and the
other one is for SEPTEMBER 11th
as National Day of Service and
remembrance. Um, I will get
started with the first, uh,
National Night Out, and I see
Chief West is on here. I want
to just echo and say thank you
to all the previous thanks that
we
ve given to the Rockwell
City Police Department. Here is
another one, there are. Over 20
events across the city that are
happening, uh, on every corner
of the city, uh, some are large
events, some are block parties,
and I want to encourage
everyone to get out and meet
your neighbors. Uh, this is an
event that is designed to have
neighbors meet each other, talk
about what, what we
re doing
for safety, but also our police
department is going to be
getting out to all of these
events, uh, to meet folks and
just to create more
opportunities for uh community
trust. Trust, partnership and
relationship building, uh,
there, like, as I said, more
than 20 events across the city
tomorrow. It will be starting
somewhere around 5 o
clock
until 9, so feel free to get
your running shoes on with all
of us as we try to crisscross
the city. I do want to say the
following, we try to get out to
as many as we can, uh, but
because we have to get all
across the city, we are not
able to get to all of them, so
please know that every single
community is in our hearts and
our minds, and we appreciate.
Every community member that
s
helping to plan this event. Uh,
with that, I
m going to, uh,
read the proclamation. Whereas
the National Association of
Town Watch is sponsoring a
unique nationwide crime and
drug prevention program on
AUGUST 4th, 2026 called
National Night Out, and whereas
the 43rd annual Nationalite
provides an opportunity for
Rockville residents to join
with thousands of other
communities across the country
to promote cooperative police
community crime and drug
prevention efforts. The city of
Rockville will be celebrating
National Night Out 2026, and
all residents of Rockville must
be aware of the importance of
crime prevention programs and
the impact that their
participation has on reducing
crime and drug abuse in the
community. Now, therefore, the
mayor and council of Rockville,
Maryland, do hereby proclaim
AUGUST 4th, 2026 as National
Night Out and encouraged the
entire Rockville community to
be a part of this special event
and participate in the fight
against crime and drugs. And
someone moved the proclamation,
COUNCILMAN Valeri moves the
proclamation, do we have a
second? Councilor Van Grak
seconds. All those in favor,
please raise your hand and say
aye. All right. Excellent. And
we have a recipient here with
Chief West. Chief West, please
proceed. Uh, MADAM Mayor, thank
you very much, uh, our
department. Um, plans for this
all year long, uh, the entire
department will be out tomorrow
night. Uh, we look forward to
connecting with all the
residents of the city, and we
will hit just as many of those
parties, the, the police
department will be at every one
of them, so it
s a great
opportunity for us to get out,
uh, let our residents, uh, meet
our police officers and and
know us on a personal level, so
thank you for all your support
and we look forward to it.
Excellent. Thank you so much
and thank you to the entire
team. I know there
s a lot of
coordination that goes around
with reaching out to residents
and helping them to plan for a
great national night out. And
thank you to our community
partners. This would not be
possible without you. Please
join us tomorrow. Ok, we have
our next proclamation, which is
to recognize SEPTEMBER 11th,
and that will be by Council
member Jackson. Thank you, uh,
mayor. Uh, so this is, uh,
proclamation that needs no
really introduction. So let me
jump right into it. Whereas
people of all ages and walks of
life across America and around
the world collectively
witnessed an immense tragedy on
SEPTEMBER 11th, 2001, and the
events of that day instantly
transformed nearly everyone
s
lives through some through
personal loss and many through
an unfamiliar sense of
individual and national
vulnerability and whereas an
unprecedented historic bonding
of Americans arose from the
collective shock, unifying the
country in an outpouring of
natural. Spirit, fried,
selflessness, generosity,
courage, and service, and now,
therefore, the mayor and
council of the city of
Rockville, Maryland, do herero
proclaim SEPTEMBER 11th, 2026
As 9/11, day of service and
remembrance in Sherbert to the
victims of the 9/11 terrorist
attacks, and to the many who
rose in service in response to
the attacks, and we urge the
Rockville community to reserve
SEPTEMBER 11th, 2026, as a
voluntary day of service and
remember, Madamir, I moved the
proclamation. Thank you. Do we
have a second? I
ll second.
Thank you. All those in favor,
please raise your hand and say
aye. Hi, bye, thank you. Uh,
just to note, uh, we do still
not only do a proclamation but
have an event, so please join
us on SEPTEMBER 11th from 9 to
10 at Courthouse Square Park,
and if you didn
t know we have
a bench for each person, uh,
that is from the Rockville area,
uh, who has, uh, passed away as
a result of that event and in
remembrance of them, so please
join us on that day. Ok. MADAM
City Clerk, I think that we
didn
t have anyone signed up
for community forum, can you
just please confirm? At a mayor
and council members, that is
correct. There is no signups
for community forum so we can
move forward. Excellent. Thank
you. We
re now moving on to our
consent agenda item 9, we have
several on the list for today.
I will read the titles. 9a is a
award and authorize the city
manager to execute a contract
with Ferguson Enterprises of
Tyson
s, Virginia for request
for proposal 30-25. This is, uh,
in relation to the advanced
metering infrastructure project
associated with our water
system, and everything is safe.
It
s just a system upgrade and
that is what we
re talking
about in that item. B. A proven
authorize the city manager to
execute a change order for
contract with Boulevard
Contractors Corp of Owings Mill,
Maryland for the Lincoln Park
Community Center renovation
project in the amount not to
exceed 316,000 on, on or about,
uh, just to note there we will
be opening up that Lincoln Park
Community Center very soon and
that supports that project.
Item c, approval of an
authorization for the city
manager to execute a moderately
priced dwelling unit rental
program agreements and approval
and authorization of the city
manager to execute the
declaration of restrictive
covenants for Twinbrook Place
between the mayor and council
of Rockville and Twinard
Limited Partnership, subject to
approval as to legal form by
the acting city attorney. This
is new housing that is being
developed in Rockville and with
projects of this size, there
are new, uh, Molly Price
dwelling units. That are for
rents coming online. D.
Authorization for the city
manager to execute a grants
agreement with the us
Department of Transportation,
Federal Highway Administration
for fr 2023, active
transportation infrastructure
Investment Program for the
Maryvale Park to Red Gate Park
shared youth Path study. This
is in alignment with our Vision
Zero plan and we have been
working to create this
connectivity and this study
will help us advance those
efforts. E is an award at the
Metropolitan Washington Council
of Government s, Montgomery
County, Maryland cooperative
led in invitation, lead
invitation forbid, uh, for road
deicing to more in salt of
Chicago, Illinois, and the
amount not to exceed 1 million
each year with no arrogate, not
to exceed 5 million.
Authorization for the city
manager to execute a settlement
agreement with Engineering
Corporation. This is related to
water infrastructure as well.
Colleagues, does anyone have
any questions about these
consent agenda items, or shall
we move to your proof? Ok. Who
can make the motion? Councilor
Van Gra. MADAM Mayor, I move to
approve consent agenda items a,
b, c, d, e, and f. Excellent.
Thank you. Do we have a second?
Seconds. Councilor Jackson
seconds, all those in favor,
please raise your hand and say
aye. Aye. Aye. Ok. Thank you
very much. That Uh. We will now
move on to our work session, a
work session for grants to
nonprofits. I would like to
welcome Nick Shushka. She is a
collective impact manager in
the Department of Housing and
Community Development, as well
as Sarah Maisel, Program and
grant specialist from the
Housing Community Development
Department and we also have a
panelist, Ryan Trout, who will
be supporting. He is the
director of housing Community
Development. Welcome. We look
forward to your presentation.
Good evening, everyone. Thank
you for having Sarah and myself,
Nick Suka, tonight we are
looking forward to our grants
work session about our city
s
grants nonprofits. As you said,
my name is Nick Sushka. I am
our collective impact manager
here in the city of Rockville.
I work in the Department of
Housing and Community
Development, where I support
the city
s grants to nonprofits
as well as partnership work
such as our Bank on Rockville
Coalition and our Rockville
goes. Efforts. I
m joined this
evening by my colleague Sarah
Mizell, who will introduce
herself. Good evening. My name
is Sarah Meisel. I
m the
programs and grant specialists
under the Department of Housing
and Community Development, um,
and I
m very excited to share
what Nick and I have been
working on today. So 4 our
presentation this evening. We
will be requesting feedback on
a few items, we
ll provide
background and a little bit of
overview of the grants programs
in question, as well as program
design changes, review next
steps if those design changes
are adopted and then have time
to hear the requested feedback
from mayor and council this
evening. We have 3 questions
this evening that we
re
requesting feedback on should
the city adopt 5 proposed
impact focus areas to guide
future grant funding. Decisions
should 1 or 2 of these impact
focus areas be prioritized in
fiscal year 28, and should the
city provide a streamlined
renewal pathway for
high-performing programs. So
some background about our
grants programs to nonprofit
organizations, we
ve provided
grants through 2 primary
programs are Human Services
grants and community
organization grants. These are
reorganized into a single
community services and
enrichment grants managed by
dhcd in fiscal year 25, and the
city
s community empowerment
matching grants were also moved
under dhcd and fy26. There have
been several benefits of this
reorganization, including
stronger nonprofit partnerships
as we have worked to not only
connect nonprofits that receive
grants more to city departments
and provide greater support
from a single grant management
team, but also to one another
through efforts like our
community partner cafes and our
nonprofit symposium, that
s
also allowed us to connect
nonprofits to more resources
across the region, like
nonprofit Montgomery and the
Maryland nonprofit Navigator.
We
ve worked To improve
outcomes tracking and
accountability through this
streamlined single grants
program, and through that we
ve
identified opportunities to
standardize and improve
administrative processes. Most
recently, we
ve been able to
make some changes about right
sizing requirements for smaller,
lower complexity grants up to
$10,000 and Sarah will share
more about the benefits of
those new requirements on the
following slides. Thank you so
much. Right, so, like Nick was
saying, um, we have already
begun a little bit of this
process transitioning, um, into
this model for the lower,
smaller, lower compre
complexity grants that are
$10,000 or under, um, so we
already have a model like this
in place with the community
empowerment Matching grant,
which will now be the Community
Empowerment mini grants. Um,
this model includes one-time
upfront payments, one-time
post-project reports. For the
quality assurance, um, and the
reason why this model is in
place, um, many of these
organizations are smaller
volunteer ran, and they
re
operating on very tight budgets
to put on events, maybe 1 to,
maybe 2 events a year. Um, so
they really rely on this
funding within their budgets
that are already constrained,
um, and 2 right size this model,
we do require a quality
assurance, but it would be a a
post-project report on the
metrics that they would submit
in the grants process in the
application process. Um, so for
fy 27. The Community
Empowerment Matching grant
would be administered by JUNE
2027, um, but for the current
fy27 Community Services and
Enrichment grant for awards
that are $10,000 or less. We
ve
already shifted this model a
little bit, um, in the next
slide, you
ll see, um, we have
these organizations that fall
within the $10,000 threshold,
um, so for example, we have f.
Scott Fitzgerald, literacy.
Literacy, um, festival, um, as
well as the village Support
Network, um, next slide, please.
And so for the fy28 proposed
budget, we would include this
smaller shift from the
community services and
enrichment grant program to the
Mini Grant Program. So the mini
grant program for fy28 would
accept $10,000 request, that
would be the cap, and we
anticipate about 15 to 10
applicants, um, for that grant
program. The application would
open in MARCH of 2027 and close
in APRIL, and in that time, we
would also convene the panel to
review those applications. So
then by MAY, um, we would have
a selection and recommendations
to the city manager
s office,
um, and then by JUNE 2027, we
would have the approval via
consent agenda item. So, with
that, I will pass it back over
to Nick. Um, thank you, Sarah.
Uh, this is, uh, as Sarah and I
noted, and process that we
ve
been able to begin to implement
in the current grant you
benefiting some of those
grantees who
ve already
received awards, as we
ve been
preparing their grant
agreements. We
ve been
notifying them about this shift,
letting them know that they
ll
be able to request that full
grant award upfront, um, that
has, as Sarah said, been
welcome news for some of these
organizations, particularly
those volunteer-run Stations,
and this shift to the fiscal
year deadline also allows us to
now have both grant programs on
the same timeline, and further
improve transparency, as Sarah
noted by including those
approved grants on the consent
agenda for mayor and council so
that you can see which grants
the community panel has
selected for these many grants.
So as we move into the rest of
tonight
s work session, we
ll
be talking about 2 further
program design changes that
we
re proposing, those are
primarily about the community
services and enrichment grants
program, so a little bit of
overview about this program,
last fiscal year, which we have
just finished closing out, we
supported 40 programs run by 34
nonprofits with their total
funding of $1,781,110 as we
move into this. This fiscal
year, Sarah and I are in the
process of setting up our grant
agreements and preparing to
support 48 programs that will
be managed by 40 nonprofits for
a total of $184,500,790. These
grants are run by nonprofits
that meet community needs and
enrich the lives of Rockville
residents through a number of
different service approaches,
providing programs, events that
connect residents to one
another and help improve things
like access To needed community
services. For this particular
grant program, we require
quarterly reports, and we also
conduct an annual site visit.
This helps us to measure how
each grant is achieving its
outcomes, which are identified
by the grantees in their
application. It also has the
benefit of our staff being able
to support nonprofits if they
are encountering challenges, if
they need further support from
the city or from other
resources, and we can identify
opportunities from
collaboration between nonprofit
as I noted last year we were
able to resume the opportunity
to regularly convene nonprofit
partners, both that have grants
and that partner with the city
in other ways through our
community partner cafes and our
annual nonprofit symposium, and
Sarah and I provide ongoing
staff support throughout the
year, providing those
connections for nonprofits to
resources and helping to raise
more awareness for Rockville
residents of the opportunity to
benefit from these services,
attend nonprofit events. And
participate in the programs
that they lead. We have
continued to identify further
opportunities to strengthen
this program, as I mentioned,
we
ve seen benefits of the
reorganization so far, but we
believe there are still
opportunities to streamline
requirements, improve the
evaluation process, increase
alignment with the hoped for
outcomes of this grant program,
and importantly invest in more
long-term outcomes, even though
this grant program is a single
year of funding, we know that
many of our nonprofit
organizations apply for funds
year to year. And they
re doing
that with the understanding
that many of our community
goals and community needs are
going to take more than a year
to support or implement if
you
re running a youth
development program, you
re
working with elementary school
students through high school,
you have multi-year goals, of
course, and so we
ve identified
some opportunities for the city
to further support long-term
outcomes that we know that many
of our partners are also aiming
for. The program design changes
that we
ll discuss this evening
have been formed by many
different sources. The primary
of them being the city of
Rockville
s 5 guiding
principles. In addition, we
looked at the recently
completed Rockville Human
Services needs assessment,
which provided opportunities
for community members,
nonprofit organizations and
members of our Human Services
Advisory commission to help us
understand the evolving needs
of Rockville residents, we
ve
received feedback from multiple
grantees. Who have continued to
provide feedback to us both
directly as city staff and to
mayor and council as we noted,
we complete annual site visits
with our grantees, and we
ve
had many other opportunities to
look beyond the city as well as
we consider grantmaking best
practices and the
evidence-based practices that
are outlined in frameworks like
the upward mobility framework
and the economic mobility
catalog. Our first
recommendation for this evening
is to adopt impact focus areas.
This is arising from a few
different needs. One need that
we see is for well-defined
criteria to help our community
panel evaluate them the many
worthy projects that we receive
requests for. As I noted in the
year that we are headed into
will be funding about $1.8
million in grants for 48
projects, but our community
panel received requests for 2.8.
Million dollars in projects, so
we expect those applications to
continue to greatly exceed
available funding, we think
that we will be best able to
support organizations and
prioritizing applications when
they know what those grants are
going to be evaluated against,
and we want to make sure that
our community panel has clear
criteria that they can use to
help them recommend among many
worthy projects. Under this
framework, proposals that are
most Aligned with the impact
focus areas would be
competitive for the highest
ratings, but importantly, we
wanted to maintain flexibility
for proposals beyond the focus
areas as well. And so we
ve
proposed to continue to
prioritize our service areas,
as you can see on the bottom of
this slide, the city has going
into this grant year, 9 service
areas, including adult
education, arts and culture,
housing services, senior
services, and we
re proposing
in the next grant cycle to
continue to ask organizations
to identify one or more service
areas, as well as describe the
program and program output.
Outcomes. This is something
that
s been standard in our
application for the last couple
of years. What we would like to
add our 5 recommended impact
focus areas that are more
outcomes-focused and will help
us to establish clear criteria
for the community panel to
evaluate how well a proposed
project aligns with a hoped for
outcome. These 5 impact focus
areas are housing stability,
economic mobility, Youth and
family success, service access
and navigation and community
enrichment and belonging. These
5 impact focus areas if adopted,
would allow us to incorporate
them into the application and
evaluation, and would allow
organizations to identify how
their services would align with
one or more of those impact
focus areas. So for example, if
we look at the impact focus
area community enrichment and
belonging, Preferred strategies
that we can solicit in fy28
applications could include
programs that help reduce
social isolation. Or proposals
for arts, culture, or community
building activities that
increase belonging or civic
connection and an organization
that
s proposing a program
could identify that they
ll
provide an arts and cultural
program that supports community
enrichment, and they could
include how they would measure
how well their programs are
increasing belonging. Or, for
example, an organization that
s
providing food distribution
services might select youth and
family success if the primary
outcome of their program is
meant to support youth in
schools, and reduce hunger in
families. So it will really be
up to the organizations to, um,
identify how they measure the
outcomes of their programs and
how those would align with one
or more of our 5 impact focus
areas. And then I want to
emphasize that we would
continue. To ask organizations
to identify a service area that
aligns with our current service
areas. We will also continue as
we currently do, to ask and
assess how proposals support
our city
s Jedi priorities.
We
ve just recently adopted a
strategic plan for Jedi at the
seti, and this is a great
opportunity for us to align
those applications with the
Jedi priorities, and we would
continue to ask how applicants
would improve access
opportunity, and outcome. For
Rockville residents, that would
be across any of these 5 impact
focus areas, but what would be
different is that we would be
able to integrate the impact
focus areas into the
application and provide a way
for our community panel to
evaluate how well a proposal
would achieve those outcomes.
Our second recommendation for a
program design change this
evening, it
s to streamline
renewal for high-performing
programs. As we mentioned, many
of our applications come from
organizations that are trying
to achieve outcomes that
necessitate more than 1 year of
funding. We know that many of
the needs that our residents
have or the community goals
that we
re trying to support
need more than 1 year of
funding. We also are aiming to
reduce the application burden
for high-performing programs
that are requesting renewal
funding. What we mean by
renewal funding are the
applications we receive each
year, for existing programs
that are asking for the same
amount of funding. We do
receive a significant number of
those applications each year.
So the second recommendation
that we
re seeking your
feedback on this evening would
be to allow a streamlined
renewal for high-performing
programs that are seeking
funding to maintain that
program. We would recommend
that we allow those
high-performing programs up to
2 years of renewals. We could
include a modest cost of
service adjustment, subject to
available funding in the city
budget, and after 2 renewal
years, those programs would
need to resubmit a full
application and part
participate in the review
process again. Importantly,
this doesn
t mean that
organizations are never
reviewed, you would always
begin with a full application
that is reviewed by the
community panel, recommended
for funding, and then we would
use the site visits and the
quarterly reports to help us
identify high performing
programs that are meeting their
performance metrics and are
achieving their program
outcomes. We would begin that
process in the year ahead,
which would allow us to then
identify high-performing
programs that could seek a
renewal. For next year. If we
adopt this approach, we can
focus our annual competitive
review process on other
applications, such as
applications from new
organizations, proposals for
new programs or organizations
that are undergoing significant
changes, and we can provide
more consistent support to
organizations that are seeking
to continue a program with
largely the same amount of
funding who have already shown
that They are achieving the
outcomes of that program. If
these changes are adopted,
staff will finalize program
changes based on mayor and
council feedback this evening.
We
ll communicate to current
and prospective grantees
through the application
materials are technical
sessions, and our next
community partner cafe, that
would take place in SEPTEMBER
next month, when we launched
the fa28 Community Services and
enrichment application, we
would incorporate those 5
impact focus areas, again, that
application will launch next
month, and when our community
Panel convened it would review
the applications with impact
focus areas incorporated into
the evaluation criteria. This
would allow us over the coming
year to then measure those
high-performing programs that
are achieving their outcomes,
and we could offer streamlined
renewals next AUGUST before the
launch of the fy29 application
cycle. So we look forward to
hearing your feedback this
evening again on those 3
questions, should the city
adopt 5 proposed impact focus
areas to guide future grant
funding decisions, household
stability, economic mobility,
youth and family success,
service access and navigation,
and community enrichment and
belonging. And should we
prioritize 1 or 2 of these
impact focus areas in the next
grant cycle, fy 28, and lastly,
should the city provide a
streamlined renewal pathway for
high-performing programs. We
look forward to hearing your
feedback. I want to say thank
you very much for thinking so
critically about the programs
and the grants so that we can
continue to evolve as a city. I
know that this has been a
progression and things have
changed to make things more
effective, uh, and, uh,
targeted over time. I also want
to just thank the nonprofit
community members who are doing
such incredible work that
s
really an extension where
government can
t do, but we can
support and lift up, uh, and to
really respect and recognize
them as third party. In Mary
s
intermediaries that are doing
really good social safety
network programming on behalf
of the city, uh, and I know I
speak on behalf of my
colleagues that were just so
thankful that we have
incredible nonprofits. Uh, I
also acknowledge that times
have been really hard with a
lot of changes that are
happening in the federal space
that are impacting, uh, grants
and payment schedules, etc. And
there
s been more uncertainty,
so thank you for having the
nonprofit roundtable so we can
wrap our arms around what is
happening, what is the
Realistic, uh, life cycle of
some of the products that
nonprofits are working on and
what are their challenges and
what are the opportunities that
we can be better and more
responsive to our community, so
i
ll just say thank you on
behalf of all of us. I
m going
to, I have several questions,
uh, but more about just fine
tuning and figuring out, um,
how do we adjust some of these
items, but I really just say I
agree with, with the concept
and love what you have done
here. I wanna, I
m gonna call
on as if we were starting from
the right of me on the dais, uh,
and then we
ll move. To the
left of where we normally sit.
So with that, I
m gonna turn it
over to Councilor Van Grack.
Thank you, Mayor, and, uh,
thank you guys for putting this
together. I know a lot of us
have talked, um, significantly
over the past number of years
about trying to make this
entire process more smooth,
more smooth for the nonprofits
to understand more streamlined
and better understanding and
focused. So this is exactly
what I think we want to see,
and I think with the nonprofits
in the community want to see,
um, with regard to the feedback
first, and I think your number
3 is really critical. A
streamlined renewal path path
path pathway path for
high-performing programs, we
ve
heard it continually from the
nonprofits that sometimes going
through the process, I mean,
I
ve heard from nonprofits
where the person who was in
charge of it missed the packet,
you know, and all of a sudden,
they
re behind the eight ball
and things get off track. So
providing a streamlined renewal
pathway, I think is critical
and exactly the right way of
thinking about this. Um, with
regard to kind of your 1st 2
questions, um, I, I, I wanna
understand a little bit about
essentially what we
re doing
here, because I know we
ve got
some significant nonprofit
partners that we work with, are
we just talking about those who
are regularly have been under
$10,000 because we
ve got some
significant partners I know who
have been a Above $10,000 who
are significant partners that
do amazing things. I know
there
s community reach. I know
there
s a Rockville Volunteer
Fire Department. I know there
s,
you know, sister cities, are we
talking about some of these
large partners as well, or we
solely talking about some of
these larger grants, or a
combination of both. Yeah,
thank you for that question. Uh,
just to make sure that I
understand you referenced the
grants above 10,000 and below
10,000, um, are you asking if
the program design changes for
the impact focus areas would
affect the $10,000 above grants,
or are you asking if the
streamlined one-time payment
upfront and one-time project
report at the end would only
affect those grants under
10,000. I, I
m actually asking
about both. I
m trying to
understand this process that
we
re trying to get at, and are
we reforming a certain section
of them? Are we looking to
reform all of them? How is some
of the decisions and the focus
that we
re doing here, going to
apply to all of our nonprofit
partners, both the ones before
under 10,000 and the ones above
or below and above. Thank you
for that. I understand the
questions. So the changes that
are underway are to the
community empowerment Matching
grant program that was
previously a very small
neighborhood focused, uh,
program that some nonprofits
participated in, awards were
typically 500 to $1000 we are
shifting that to a community
empowerment mini grant program
that will accept proposals up
to $10,000 now, and that aligns
with the city
s other fiscal Go,
uh, thresholds where we can do
gx payments, for instance,
through procurement up to
$10,000 so we
ve aligned those
smaller, lower complexity
grants and have taken the
opportunity there to streamline
so that we can do a single
upfront payment up to 10,000
and just require that one end
of project report, but you
re
correct, that would be limited
to proposals that are $10,000
or less for the new community
apartment mini grants. Exactly
my understanding, I just want
to make sure because I know
there have been some questions
that I
ve gotten from folks
with regard to uh the
understanding. Um, here
s
another question I had. You,
you might have recall, we
ve
had a number of conversations
from the dais with regard to
grants and proposals with
regard to projects that either
the city might be able to
provide it, or there
s other
avenues. I know one of the
examples I know MADAM Mayors
talked about it, I
ve talked
about it, deals with some of
the um Legal Services, um, that
I know that there are other
avenues out there with regard
to, um, with regard to In
absence of our funding, has
there been some Discussion with
regard to guiding our future
grant funding decisions with
regard to what other
opportunities are out there
when choosing which grants
we
re gonna go forward with the
limited funds that we have. So,
thank you for the question
about have there been
discussion of guiding those
applications when there are
other services that are being
provided, that
s not something
that was discussed per se in
these program design changes,
although the evaluation
criteria do currently ask if
there is a community need or a
gap that
s being met, and I
would anticipate that
continuing to be a part of the
evaluation, but to your
question, that specific
conversa has not taken place.
Um, and so I guess, uh, one
more question, um, I know that
a number of the nonprofits that
have come to us from the city.
Are uh squarely within helpful
issues, but might not be
squarely within one of these
impact focus areas. Are we
treating these impact focus
areas broadly to ensure that
we
re covering what
s needed,
and I guess my worry here is,
first of all, I love the idea
of the impact focus areas. I
think that
s absolutely our
right to make sure they
re in
some focus areas. My one worry.
I accidentally hit my mute
button. Um, my one worry is
that we
re necessarily, I don
t
want these to be prohibitive
with regard to a program, and
just one example that I
m, I
would be thinking of, and I
know that they
ve been a little
bit outside of $10,000 but I
m
using it as an example because
it works. The Rockville,
Science Center. Rockville
Science Center, I would believe
there
s youth and family
success, and there
s community
enrichment and belonging, but
one could have it as a separate.
Whole category for what they
provide to the city, and I just
wanna make sure that These
ideas of these impact focus
areas aren
t necessarily going
to be a hurdle if one does an
organization doesn
t fall 100%
behind 1 or 2 of the proposed
funding areas. Nick, you want
me to take that one? Uh, sure,
go ahead, Jeff. Ok, thanks. Um,
COUNCILMAN Van Grak, I wanna
want to move back. I
m gonna
break a rule that I always say
to the team about going back to
a question that
s been asked
and answered, but, um, you and
a couple other members of
council had talked to me about
services that people have
requested for grants such as
legal services that can be
provided through other means.
We have talked about that a
little bit, um, we are going to
make sure that when people are
applying for grants this year,
we
re gonna make sure that one,
they
re trying to hit these 5
impact areas, but secondarily,
If we know there
s another
entity that provides funding
like for legal services, we
re
gonna try to steer them there,
because what that
s gonna do is
it
s gonna provide funding for
some other programs, so I heard
that loud and clear from
counsel, and I
ll talk to the
team about that. Um, the other
thing I
ll mention is just to
answer your more recent
question is, yes, the goal is
to really try to make sure that
grantees are looking very
diligently at those 5, impact
areas that are on your screen,
but yes, there are going to be
broad enough that people People
can make an argument to us, and
I can
t stress that enough, of
where they think their grant
falls into one of those
categories. And then the
evaluation committee is really
gonna kind of slice it and dice
it and say, yeah, we agree, or
it falls a little bit short,
and if it
s a little short,
it
ll be ranked lower relative
to the ones that we know are
right on point, so hopefully
that answers the question. No,
that
s perfect. Uh, you guys
have both answered the
questions. So that, that helps
me with my feedback. So, with
those answered, number 1,
should the city adopt the 5
proposed impact focus areas?
Yes, focusing answers, and
there are nonprofit partners to
those areas are good, however,
that leads me to the number 2,
where I actually am not in
favor of that. Um, I think that
we should be allowing folks and
allowing nonprofits to be
within those, the impact. Focus
areas because we don
t know
what
s out there and what
programs are going to be
proposed, and I would hate to
say that we
re going to
prioritize 2 out of the 5, only
to find out that because we
didn
t prioritize one of those
other areas we
ve lost out on
supporting a fantastic program.
So I think you guys are
absolutely right to be focusing
and ensuring that our nonprofit
partners are focusing in areas,
but I don
t want to necessarily
just limit it to 1 or 2 per
year, I want to give them the
opportunity to say, hey, We
re
gonna support our community in
one of these 5 ways. But
fantastic, I love your, the
thinking, I love the direction,
and I love the focused energy,
so fantastic job. I really
appreciate what you guys have
done. Thank you, council member.
We now move on to coman Shaw.
Can you hear me? We can hear
you. Thank you. I also wanna
Echo my There
s a Echo. Mhm.
Can you, uh, come back to me. I
think there
s some tech issues.
No problem. I
ll come back to
you after Council member
Jackson. All right, thank you,
uh, mayor. So first of all, let
me say, excellent presentation
and excellent work, um, I
ve
been, uh, uh, talking about
this with city manager and with
my colleagues for a long time
and, you know, the subject of
nonprofits and, um, working
with the city is something
that
s near and dear to, I
think, all of our hearts, and
we
ve really done, or you guys,
sorry, not we, you have really
done a stellar job and doing
outreach to nonprofits, um,
holding. Um, uh, seminars and
the, the, the, uh, the recent,
uh, meeting that was held at
the second sem uh um Oh, summit,
or whatever it was, uh, I
ll
call it a summit, but the
second one was, it was great,
and then the nonprofit cafes
con continue in that mold, and
I know that I
ve been talking
about, um, having a priorities,
uh, for, uh, the grants that we
give, sorry, uh, the cat and
dog are fighting, so ignore
that background noise, um, but
I
ve been talking about, uh,
having these, uh, uh,
priorities, and I think this is
right in the right direction,
um. I, I, so number one, I say
yes. Um, number 2, I
m a little
bit with uh council member Van
Grack on, on the answer there,
um, not really for any other
reason other than, I think it
s
probably too soon, uh, to, um,
uh, drill down into these areas
and, and which one should be
funded. I think we need some
more data, um, uh, to look at,
uh, that, and then prioritize
the areas. So I think when you
another year or 2 years to
actually, um, you know, uh,
prioritize, uh, the, the focus
areas. Um. I also had a little
question and, and, uh, this is
for, for, uh, um, neck or, uh,
maybe, uh, the city manager,
but Are we taking care that we
in an attempt to put parameters
in place and make it, um, uh,
easier for, uh, grantees to, uh,
understand what we
re asking
for, um, are we in fact making
it harder and will there be
assistance for, for them, uh,
to navigate this new process. I
appreciate that question very
much, thank you, yes, we
definitely want to make sure
that not only do we provide
that assistance through the
application instructions and
our technical sessions, which
will provide over a number of
different options and days as
well as recorded so they can be
accessed after the technical
sessions, but we want to
provide that support,
especially to anyone who might
be, um, returning and
encountering a different
process, uh, also The materials
that Sarah has prepared, I
think do a really good job of
showing how the application as
it is currently designed where
the nonprofits are identifying
a service area really connects
to the impact focus areas, so
we
re trained to do our due
diligence to show that this
isn
t, um, a completely new, um,
requirement, it
s asking them
to make that connection between
their current program, their
current services, and the
outcomes that they
re proposing.
So that we can see how it maps
to one of these 5 impact areas,
so we hope that it will be both
a very straightforward change
and we
re planning for how to
support the organizations as
they navigate the new
application. All right. No,
that, that
s perfect. Thank you.
So, the, the question on number
3, you know, what, and I, I,
maybe you addressed it in your
presentation. I just wanna, uh,
go back to it for a second.
It
s what is a high performing
grant or program. Yeah, thank
you for that question. So we
currently have our quarterly
reports that are nonprofits
provide, um, they show us in
those quarterly reports, if
they
re on track to reach their
program metrics, these are
metrics that they propose in
their application when the city
awards them a grant if it
s,
for instance, less than the
amount requested, they have an
opportunity to adjust those
metrics, but they tell us what
they will be tracking this year,
and each quarter they tell us
if there are On track to reach
those metrics. We also have
some qualitative questions
where they can provide a
narrative of, you know, what
s
going well, what are some
challenges they
ve encountered,
and if they need any assistance
or support, so we do that
through each of the quarterly
reports, and during the site
visits, we actually have a
virtual or in-person site visit
where we dive deeper into those
program outcomes and if they
re
on track or if they
re not, and
what they
re doing to adjust so
that they can meet the goals of
their grant and they can Serve
Rockville residents in the way
that they said they would, um,
so we
ve currently already been
doing that. What we haven
t
done in the past is, um,
assigned, um, a, a way of
telling the organizations if
they
re meeting those metrics
and then letting them know
overall how they
ve done. It
s
been more of a, yes, thank you
for your support, it meets the
goals. Thank you for the site
visit. It meets the
requirements, uh, what we would
do in the year ahead is create
a threshold. So that we could
tell nonprofit organizations,
for example, if you
re reaching
80% or more of your metrics and
you
re in compliance with the
grant requirements, then you
can qualify as a high
performing program, so we look
to use the current process
that
s in place just to
establish more of a feedback to
the nonprofit throughout the
year so they know where they
re
at, and then have that actually
be a concrete way to provide a
streamlined renewal. No, well,
thank you, and honestly, i
think that this uh high
performing programs that this,
that streamline renewable power
pathway is a really great thing.
And so I thank you for actually
thinking, uh, about how to
improve the, the, the, the
grant process, which I think
it
s gonna do a lot of good for
the city as well as for, uh,
obviously the nonprofits who
don
t have to take their time
and, and energy, uh, applying
year after year after year when
they
re actually doing
everything right. Um, and I
thank you too. I, I
ve heard
from various nonprofit Profits,
um, who you
ve already kind of
streamlined it or taking away
some of the requirements, uh,
for reporting that were just
extraneous and, um, I think
that that
s really helpful to
just boil it down to the meat
of what they
re trying to do,
rather than, uh, mentoring, um,
statistics or other things that
really were kind of on the
periphery, so I know that
there
s some progress already,
so thank you for that, but
thank you for these, uh, as
well. And then just to a couple
of other questions. Um The
community in empowering
matching program, um, under
$10,000. And I, I
m not, and I
know I talked to the city
manager about it, so maybe, uh,
Jeff, this is a question for
you. Does that take the place
of what is in your, uh, office,
uh, for,, small, uh, grants, um,
uh, for like the neighborhood
associations or moon bounces or
little things like that, uh,
would those go through the
community empowerment, uh, the
mini grant program that we
re
setting up now, uh, or is that
still in your shop, uh, for, uh
Uh, those little, little grants.
Yeah, there
s still 2 different,
um, grants, uh, mini grants
that we
re talking about are
the ones less than $10,000 but
the small neighborhood grants
that we
re talking about, less
than $1000. Yeah, those are
still be a separate process,
very streamlined, quick
,
they get the money upfront,
simple reporting process. Thank
you. Oh, perfect. Thank you so
much for, for just clarifying
that. Um, I think this, this,
uh, under $10,000 is great. And
so one final, final question,
and I know I
ve talked about it
with the, the city manager and
just, but I, I wanna just bring
it up again because I just
noticed it, uh, as I was
looking through the
presentation, so the f. Scott
Fisred Literary Festival. So
what is it that we, um, uh, uh
Have an mou or, uh, that, that,
that we do with the uh f. Scott
Fitzgerald, and I
m not picking
on them. It could be a number
of things, but I just wanna, uh,
uh Just bear with me for a
second and, and, and let me
know what is it that we
actually contract for the f
Scott Fitzgerald Literary
Festival for. Nick, I think you
have a complete answer. Go
ahead. Yeah, sure. Uh, so, yeah,
constable Jackson that f. Scott
Literary Festival or some of
these other similar grants that
provide like a one-time event,
um, we currently have a grant
agreement, and it contracts
with them according to what
they put in their application.
So for instance, with the f.
Scott Literary Festival, they
proposed that they
ll host
their, um, weekend festival
that they
ll Provide a certain
number of workshops and
scholarships as part of their
short story contest, and that
is still all encompassed in one
single grant agreement, uh, the
major chef in pulling them into
the $10,000 and less grant
threshold is that we are not
going to ask them to do a
quarterly report, they will not
have to do an annual site visit
once the grant agreement is
signed, notarized, and returned
once we
ve got it on our end
completed. We can provide them
with their full grant upfront,
and then very similar to those
former neighborhood projects
that you were talking about,
the Community empowerment
matching grants, they
ll just
be 1 single end of project
report. So just when
streamlines it for f. Scott
Fitzgerald as an example. No,
and that
s, that
s perfect, and
what I was really getting at,
and thank you for the, the
answer and for clarifying what
it is and what it isn
t is I
just wanted to make sure that
as Scott Fitzgerald, um any
others that really are like, uh,
events or Sponsorships should
not go through the grant
process, but are separate. So,
um, and I think I
ve talked to
the city manager about that as
well, and that that we
re
setting up a separate, uh, Uh,
programming process, and I
won
t go into that, but, but no,
thank you so much for all your
work and I, uh, that
s it for
my questions and, uh, uh, I
turned back over to you, mayor.
Thank you very much, I
appreciate all the comments and
questions of my colleagues. I
wanted to turn back to
COUNCILMAN Bra Shaw. Thank you.
Ah Uh, I wanted to echo my
There
s still a very strong
echo. Could you just circle
back again? Sounds ok now. The
last part of what you said. If
you wanna proceed echo is
really loud in the rooms, so I
can
t. Ok. All right, sounds
good. Well, then that would be,
uh, my turn then I will go, um,
so I just wanted to, uh, thank
staff again, uh, where I began
and, and echo the comments of
my colleagues. I have a few
questions and I did get some
feedback from grantees, and I
want to honor the feedback that
I
ve heard as well. I
ll start
with some of my questions
though. Um, one is, uh Just
trying to unders on your first
question, adopt the 5 proposed
impact focus areas. I think
this is spot on to try to help
people understand what the
strategic areas that we as a
mayor and council and the city
is trying to advance, you know,
there
s, there
s a lot to be
done in the world and we
re
trying to make sure that we
re
providing support where it
s
needed most, but also that
we
re advancing the strategic
priorities of, of, of our city,
uh, so the, I do have a few
questions about these
categories if that
s ok. Um,
one is I
m trying to figure out,
uh. As we look at housing
stability, economic mobility,
youth and family success,
service access and navigation,
and community enrichment and
belonging. I appreciate, uh,
Mashika, what you said is that
sometimes people can fit into
one or the other. I do feel
like we did nicely call out
housing, but there are 2 other
important areas that have been
a strategic part of our grant
program, which are, uh, the
food services because there has
been food insecurity, uh,
through covid, there was food
insecurity as a result of some
of the federal changes. So we,
this is a, that is a big area.
Uh, we
ve also been very strong
on supporting health, uh,
services. So, what they, what,
are you thinking that would
fall under household stability,
uh, should that be called
community stability or, uh,
would that go under the commu
the Service and Access
navigation. I think that
s
interesting that we, you know,
include 1 sort of social
determinant of health name and
not the others too, which I
understand you
re trying to
streamline, but I just want to
be sensitive to that cause
sometimes people, if they don
t
see themselves and where they
squarely fit, it
s a challenge.
Appreciate that question. Thank
you. I have just flipped over
to one of the previous slides
to, uh, I think hopefully
illustrate where food services
or health services might fit
and where those would, um, it
would be possible to evaluate
them in more than one way. So
to your point about household
stability, um, we have, for
instance, one of the preferred
strategies could be basic needs
access. So looking at food or
health care or even utilities,
um, under household stability.
And some of our grantees that
provide food, For for instance,
where they look at, um, and
measure the number of
households that they
re serving,
they
re looking at particular
zip codes, um, targeting
disparity zones, so they
re
looking at really more of the
basic needs access as an
example, um, whereas some of
our healthcare grantees have
really focused more on case
management and helping, uh, the
clients as they might get
access to one kind of
healthcare. To connect with a
case manager who helps them to
navigate, uh, kind of a more
holistic approach to healthcare,
um, both of those, I think, can
have, um, you know, a lot of
connection to our human
services needs assessments to
the, um, as you mentioned, the
rising need that we see in the
community, and, um, our hope is
that the valuation criteria and
the application would allow
organizations to really tell us
how are they measuring. Success.
So are they measuring it
because they
re looking at
household stability and they
re
really measuring each
individual customer, how that
household is, you know,
benefiting from getting access
to food, or maybe they
re
measuring more, um, the effect
of like a healthcare fair and
how they
re helping connect
clients to more services, um,
as they
re continuing to engage
with the same client, and I, I
hope that maybe that example
would illustrate where we, we
see them still fitting into
this framework. Yeah, because I
did hear Shorthand from
household stability to housing
stability, and I could see that
happening, but if you look
under here, cause I, as I was
reading it, I thought
healthcare was included in that,
but then I heard housing
stability. So I
m wondering,
should the name be Community
Stability, or are we really,
you know, calling out one area
of the social determinants of
health that you
re trying to
support for stability, so that,
that did give me pause because
I did hear that shorthand used
and maybe it is broader so that
that food and healthcare does
stand out a bit more, that
s
just One of the, one of the
areas that I wanted to flag
because I did, I did hear um
that focus, um, narrowed down a
little bit and, and some of the
commentary. Um, the other thing
I wanted to ask about is, um,
are these areas used for
criteria, so for example, I
heard from a grantee, uh, that
said, well, if I, do I have to
hit x number of these focus
areas to be able to make my
application stronger. I don
t
think that
s what
s intended,
you
re allowing people to pick
one. They MAY have an overlap,
but that
s not like going to,
um, be a challenge for them,
for example, if the Science
Center, uh, is really focusing
on community enrichment and
belonging. They
re not going to
be dinged necessarily because
they
re not doing, um, economic
mobility, for example, which
they, it might, but I just, I
just wanted to to get that
clarity for nonprofits who MAY
be watching. Yes, that
s
correct, in the evaluation
criteria, it would not Give
more points for achieving more
impact focus areas, it would
measure how well it aligns with
one or more. Ok, thank you. And
what is your thought on the
naming, um, for household
stability, I, I think what you
mean is the whole family, food
secure, housing secure, should
that be community stability? Or
do you really mean to say
housing stability, cause I
think there
s, there
s housing
stability in community
stability, but I just wanna
make sure that we
re not
inadvertently turning people
away from that category cause
they don
t see themselves
fitting in that. I mean, it
s
really up to the body if you
guys wanna change it, that
s
the recommendation that we came
up with. We think it
s holistic
enough from here, but it
s up
to the body if you guys want us
to change the, the focus areas,
that
s, that
s certainly your
pride of, thank you. Thank you.
Yeah, I, I did hear it narrowed
down, so I just, I, I think
either we have to be very clear
in our description or make it
more about comm cause I do want
the the food support that we
ve
been providing is huge, uh, as
well as the healthcare in
addition to the housing, so, um,
I Do like economic mobility, I
like, I like the categories. I
just, that
s the only one that
was, um Maybe I didn
t see as
inclusive as some of the, the
stability and safety areas we
previously funded. Um, in terms
of prioritizing one of the
impact focus areas. Uh, so, One
of the things that has come to
that I was thinking about is in
the past, we did separate out
caregiver from non caregiver
grants, I do think that we
ve
seen social service needs grow
and we have a, uh, you know, we
have increased funding to
nonprofits to try to be
responsive to the needs of our
community and the caregiver
without trying to, um, say we
don
t support arts and culture,
you know, so I think we
ve,
we
ve been balancing and say
we
re going to continue to
support these important
programmatic areas that are you
know, are vital for our
community, uh, and, and to
thrive, we have sometimes
expanded pots and the caregiver
area because of social safety
needs that we have seen have
needed to be increased. So, um,
that
s the one that gives me
pause because we, we have
responded to issues that are
happening in our society, and I
wouldn
t want to hurt one or
the other, but at times we have
said, my gosh, there
s
something going on here in the
universe to help our community,
you know. We, we have at times
put some more funding in
caregiver, so I, I, I do, I do
like the way we had it
separated in a way so that we
had some pots, uh, to be able
to work with, uh, without
hurting the ongoing needs we
need for programs in arts and
culture. So I
m not necessarily,
uh, to the comments of my
colleagues saying that we
should, um, go in this
direction because I wouldn
t
want those ongoing programs
that we do need to support to
get impacted, but we MAY want
to say uh, as we increase
funding, we
re gonna put some
additional caregiver, so I,
that
s, it
s not saying that
we
re prioritizing, but we, I
think we have a prerogative to
say caregiver MAY need
additional support at times
given what
s going on in
society. Um, and I really
appreciate the streamlined
renewal pathway that you
ve
been talking about for the
high-performing programs. Some
of those high-performance
programs are really, um,
hitting core areas, uh, and,
you know, as you said, it takes
more than 1 year to see the
results, uh, so I think that
would really help, uh, with the
burden of the application
process, but still having the
accountability and still having
site staff go in and do the
site visits to make sure that
we
re, um, having high outcome
programs um. I had a couple
other, uh, questions, so we
have youth and Family Services.
One thing I
m, I
m hoping that
we can convey just because
there is a special need and I
know we
re gonna have a work
session on this in the future
is, um, services for at-risk
youth, we haven
t seen as many
grants coming forward to
support risk who are at, uh,
who are underrepresented or at
risk or experiencing
disparities in an area, so I
m
hopeful that as you look at the
program descriptions, we can
specifically call that out. So
that we can make sure that
people are seeing this is an
area that we are trying to, to
elevate. As they already a plan
to do that, or is that
something you need direction
from us on? I think, I think I
hear what you
re saying, and I
think of all the categories,
that
s absolutely where we
would put it, Nick, if you
disagree, let me know, but
Mayor, I think you, um,
foreshadowed something, we
re
gonna start working on doing an
assessment of at-risk youth
programs in the region and just
see where those gaps are. And
once you identify those gaps,
then, then in future grant
cycles, that
s absolutely an
area that we could highlight
more, but as of right now, I
think where you
ve identified
it is where we went to. Thank
you, Nick, do you have anything
to add? No, thank you. Thank
you, ma
am. Thank you. So I
believe looking at the brief
book that arts and culture
would go under community
enrichment belonging, is that
right? Yeah, I think
importantly, this allows the
organization to make that, um,
connection to where they see
the impact of their program, we
do anticipate many of our arts
and cultural programs would see
themselves in community
enrichment and belonging, um,
so I, I will note, uh, you know,
for example, on this chart, um,
we think that, um, given what
we have seen many of those
programs measure and where
we
ve seen needs assessments
identified If I need, you know,
having arts and cultural
programs that increase
belonging that reduce social
isolation, um, that improve
access for Rockville residents,
those are likely to align with
community richment and
belonging, but I do want to
note that some of our arts and
culture grantees, um, for
instance, they are really
thoughtful about tying resource
fairs into their, um, events or
programs, so they MAY also
highlight that they have an
impact on service access and
navigation Crucially, it
ll be
up to them to say whether or
not that
s something they
re
gonna measure as an outcome for
their program, but yes, we do
anticipate that arts and
culture programs should see
themselves at minimum in the
community enrichment and
belonging category. Thank you
for that background. Uh, you
reminded me another, another
question about the categories
that we have. So as an
applicant, and I
ve known this,
I know that I
ve worked on a
couple of federal programs,
people are trying to say, where
am I most likely to have
success. You
re not dividing
the funding by these categories,
correct? So they
re like, if
there
s a lot of applications
in this area, I
m gonna try to
make my, my application in the
other area, that
s not the
focus, is that correct? You are
correct, that is not the focus.
Ok, so I want to make sure that
nonprofit, because I have
actually heard that question.
And, um, and as people were
looking at our, uh, brief
material. So thank you for
clarifying that. In terms of
arts and culture, I, I would
say arts, history and culture,
uh, I, I do, um, have some
feedback that in terms of the
application process on that one.
So some of our arts and culture
events, arts, history and
cultural events. I
m thinking
about, for instance, the
restscoes, um, I
m thinking
about, uh, Rockville Sister
City. Part of the goal of some
of the Those programs is to be
a draw for our Rockville
residents, but also they bring
in people, uh, from the outside
into Rockville and supports our
tourism, our, um, you know, Our
community, uh, for instance,
the Taiwan bubble tea Festival
brings in 12,000 people, uh,
into our town center, which is,
is, which is fantastic, um, but
the application process itself
really focuses on how many,
because because it
s focused in
the caregiver lens on how many
Rockville residents do you
serve versus how many are you
bringing into our community to
support other arts and culture
and tourism needs. So I was
just curious about if you
re
thinking also about The
application and how you collect
data because I do want to know,
and I think my colleagues would
be interested in how many
Rockville residents you are
serving for sure, but also that
bigger number is important for
some of those events that are
designed to be draws, the f.
Scott Fitzgerald Literary
Festival is another one of
those. Yeah, I really
appreciate this question. It
s
one of the things that Sarah
and I have done a lot of
thinking about in terms of how
to really measure the community
enrichment impact of those
programs, uh, so our hope is in
some of the application
materials we
ve provided some
examples of logic models that
show the impact of these kinds
of festivals, these kinds of
events, and, um, our hope would
be that organizations that are
seeking funding. Where they MAY
already be telling us in the
application that they
re
reaching this many people at
the festival that they would
also identify an outcome, for
instance, as one of their major
impacts might be tourism or it
might be connecting with
businesses in the vicinity of
the event, um, or it might be
welcoming organizations to come
to that festival, and those are
things importantly that can be
in the application, and they
can measure those, they can
submit that as a, as Sign of
program success that can be
evaluated by the community
panels. So, um, our hope is
that there will be more
opportunities for them to
identify what the impact is of
those kind of programs and to
include in the application. I
saw Sarah is going to chime in,
the only thing I wanted to say
too is that our current
application and our reporting,
um, has a space for nonpro
profits that receive grants to
tell us how many people overall.
Reaching as well so it is true
that we, we ask them to tell us
how many Rockville residents
they
re reaching, but it
s
another metric that they
provide of how many people
they
re reaching overall. Sarah,
please, yeah. Thank you, Nick.
Yeah, I just wanted to
reiterate an echo what Nick was
saying, but I think throughout
all of the work that Nick and I
were like thinking about In
this grant restructuring, um,
something that we
ve really
pride ourselves in with working
with all the nonprofits that
are incoming, especially with
the matrix piece is the
importance of just like data
telling stories, not just for
the city of Rockville, but to
in an effort to help these
organizations, um, seek funding
outside of the city as well, um,
and how important it is for an
organization to Have metrics
for their organization, period,
to have logic models for their
programs and how that can
really be a, um trajectory into
a whole other opportunity of
funding opportunities. So I
just wanted to echo that piece.
Thank you, and the total number
of participants would be both
in the application, or
anticipated, both in the
application and both in and and
reporting, correct? That
s
correct. Excellent. Thank you
for clarifying that. Um, I, the
other thing I was looking at
our current grants on about, I
was looking at some of the
services we were funding and
disability service has been a
part of that. Uh, I know they
would be able to, um Pick the
category, I just wanted to note
that, um, as we
re looking at
at-risk youth and immigrant
communities that somewhere on
our page, they can see that
we
re continuing to support
disability services as one of
the, you know, sub areas of
support. I know that Rockville
has continued to grow to be
seen as a place where people
with differing abilities can
grow and thrive here, and I, I
just wanted to, didn
t want to
signal that we
re backing away
from that, we
re actually
leaning in and doing more, and
I also want to thank you for
raising the importance of
helping people understand that
we do have a Jedi strategic
plan and we
re asking people to
help align services with that
just to meet those needs. Um, I
had a couple other comments,
now shifting to the, uh Uh,
from, from, from people I
ve
gotten feedback from the fire
safety, the public safety work
that we
ve been doing with the
fire department, do you see
that that would fit in one of
these categories, would that be
er it, I just wanna make sure
that we
re not losing anybody
in, in what we
ve put together
here. Yeah, thank you for that
question. I want to answer
about that question and also,
um, echo is something that, um,
was said earlier. So one is
that even if we do adopt these
5 proposed impact Focus areas
that evaluation criteria will
continue to measure more than
just alignment with these 5. So
part of the hope with these
impactfo focus areas is that it
will help those applications to
be most competitive, but it
would not exclude any
application that did not align
as long as the application is
eligible to be reviewed, there
will be other criteria that we
um have included in our
evaluation, and we do believe
that it will be possible for
Other applications to, um, to
qualify for funding and for the
community panel to identify, um,
grants that might not align
with one of these 5. So we
wanted to make sure there was
still room in the evaluation
for it to be flexible enough to
go beyond these 5, specifically
to the question of public
safety, of fire safety, we
definitely see service access
as being one of the ways that
they could identify, um, you
know, and demonstrate a, a need
there. Um, also, um, many of
our public safety applicants, I
think, do look at, um, family
success and household stability,
but we think service access
would still encompass those
most clearly. Ok. And how would
the, how would the grant
committee, these are one of the
ones that I think the mayor and
council have said we
re trying
to stay within this range, uh,
so that we don
t necessarily
drop. Support to some, so I,
there are some that are, you
know, standard grants, and they
there are, there are other ones
that are sort of ongoing.
Programmatic areas that we
re
trying to support as a city,
for example, we give the fire
department a donation for water.
We
re not going to backtrack on
that, but the committee MAY not
know that, so how, how is that
being communicated to the
review committee? I can answer
that, yeah, so, um, we have, uh,
in the years past, our grantees
have asked for, um, either
reimbursements of city services,
or sometimes there
s an intra
fund transfer of a city service,
um, these have been included in
applications, we actually
proposed earlier this year to
cmo and finance and made sure
that it would be ok for us to,
uh, move forward in this way,
um, we want to take those
requests for city service
funding and have actually a
specific community panel that
understands a little bit more,
um, what those needs are, what
those processes are to evaluate
those, so we would actually
pull those specific requests
out of this evaluation
framework and look at them more
from sort of a, are they
eligible or not criteria, so
they would still have to apply
through the application process
and we would still have
community, uh, a panel to
review those applications, but
to your point, um. Because they
are a bit of outliers and we do
need to have a different kind
of criteria to evaluate them.
Um, we
ve specifically pulled
them out and are planning to
have a more tailored panel
evaluate those requests.
Excellent, thank you. So I know
we do water and we
ve also
helped support, um, new safety
trucks because it is a
volunteer department. They
ve
been relying on donations and
collaborations with the city on
that, so I appreciate that
you
re looking at that somewhat
differently. Um, ok, and then
the other thing related to the,
um The, I think the returning
grants that you, the high
impact grants would, would
cover some of the feedback that
I
ve shared via the city
manager on the application
process, uh, because that would
streamline it and it would help
them on, on, um Being able to
to move forward, but also
making sure there
s
accountability on the reporting
side, um, I was hearing that
there
s quarterly reports plus
6-month reports, and those are
just some of the feedback we
re
getting, I know that I, I trust
that the team is going to make
sure that city dolls are being
used wisely, but is there any
other feedback like that or
things that you might be
streamlining, um, to, to
address some of the feedback
we
ve received. Yeah, we do
definitely cont plan to
continue to listen to
organizations as they give us
suggestions and feedback on how
we can streamline, importantly,
we
re also looking at the
city
s other processes we
collaborate with finance and
procurement on payments, so
some of the processes are from
outside of our department that
we align with, um, in In
particular with reporting, um,
that one might be worth us
following up with any
organization that you
ve heard
that from, um, we would wanna
just Clarify for them that the
6-month report is the quarter 2
report, so there
s, there
s 4,
just 4 quarterly reports that
they participate in, um, but I
hope that that answers the
question. It does. Thank you.
And then it notes that the, uh,
another piece of feedback, the
grant agreements require, um,
that they submit the final
quarter report on JUNE 30th,
but they have to expand the
grant through JUNE 30th, so
they feel like the deadline is
challenging since On the end of
a quarter. And they don
t have
all the expenses and receipts
talent yet. I
m so, I
m
assuming that there
s a way
that you
ve addressed this with
other grantees, but just wanted
to share that as well. Sorry,
um, was there a question there
that you, right, so if we
re
telling them they have to
submit the final quarter report
on JUNE 30th, which is the end
of that cycle and they don
t
have receipts yet, is there a
way that they can comply, uh,
they feel like that that
deadline can be challenging. I,
I don
t know if we
re making
any changes to that process as
you
re streamlining. Yeah,
thank you for that question. Uh,
so the end of your financial
deadlines actually come to us
from the this city, um, this
year, for instance, the
deadline to reimburse
organizations is AUGUST 5th, um,
the end of your reports were
actually due JULY 7th. We, we
make sure that we don
t have
the report due at the very end
of the grant period, um, and
then we ask organizations, I
think this year it was probably
early JUNE, Sarah might correct
me, um, to give us a heads up
if they need an extension. So
several of our organizations
did let us know in advance they
would be submitting their
materials JULY 15th, um, but we
are a bit constrained by just
the city
s kind of
reimbursement deadlines, um,
but hopefully that, that
organization that might have,
um, thought that they had to
have everything turned in by
JUNE 30th. Hopefully they, they
worked with us to, um, you know,
have it in by, by JULY 15th.
Excellent, and I think you
re
gonna be doing some education
as you roll all of this out, uh,
because some of these These
groups are of Fairly large and
long-standing organizations,
but they still having some, um,
you know, challenges with
understanding how to, how to,
they want to comply, make sure
they
re doing everything right.
So so, uh, I appreciate that
you
re gonna be having, uh,
sessions and webinars to help
people understand what
s this
new approach and how we
re
going to make this work, uh,
and I, I will also say I won
t
belabor this, but I, I have
heard that the payment process
change in the past few years,
um, which I know did not come
out of dhcd, but I
ve, I
ve
been hearing that some feedback
on that, especially given Some
of the nonprofits who have not
received timely timely funding
related to food insecurity,
health services, and housing,
in particular have been
challenging for them, uh, and I
know you
ve worked with
organizations, so I
ll just say
if you are a nonprofit
listening, please feel free to
reach out to your, uh, you know,
your program manager for help
if needed. Ok. Thank you so
much for this. I think we have,
I
ve answered these questions,
but if, uh, once we
re done
going through the line, if you
have any additional questions
for me in terms of the feedback
I provided, I
d be open to it.
I
m going to now move to
COUNCILMAN Valerie. He council
member shop. I think she MAY
need more time, uh. Are you
ready, Councilor Shaw? Ok,
perfect. Oh, thank you to it
for doing that. Um, and also I
just, uh, wanna echo my
colleagues and, um, thank you
for this presentation. Um, this
is a very thoughtful, uh,
redesign, and I appreciate all
the work that has gone into
this. Um, So I do have a few
questions when, when you shared,
uh, about the community panel
that does the evaluation, um,
and makes the selection. Can
you share more about Uh, who is
that? How many people are these
real community fo folks like,
can you share some more details
on that? Yeah, thank you for
this question. So yes, the
community panel is, um, a
really important part of the
evaluation for both of these
grant programs, the mini grant
program and the Community
Services and Enrichment Grant
Program, we put out a call each
year to, um, both city
employees be commissions and
boards and then to the
community at large, um, asking
for interested people to serve
as panel reviewers. This past
year, I believe, and I can
follow up to make sure that
this number is correct. I
believe we had 28 panel members
that reviewed, um, something
like 51 applications, and as I
mentioned, 48 of the
applications were selected for
funding, um, those community
members. Um, they typically are
a mix of city staff from across
different departments, um,
about half of the 28 from
across, uh, departments, and
then the rest are Rockville
residents, some who serve on
boards and commissions and some
who are just serving as
volunteers from the community,
um, we do ask them to, um, make
sure that we don
t have any
conflicts of interest. They
re
not, for instance, board
members of a nonprofit that
s
asking for funding, uh, we
provided training for them. And
then they lead this process,
they each do an individual
review of every application
they come together in panels to
discuss those reviews and reach
consensus, and then they make
recommendations on which grants
should be funded, and we make
an effort to recruit people who
have lived experience in some
of these services and
backgrounds as well as people
with maybe professional
expertise or um direct
expertise in the services as
well. Can you share a bit more
on how you are insuring, um,
that the residents that are
making the decisions on, on
these grants, um, have the
lived experience. Yeah, we can
share a copy of the interest
form, it actually asks them to
identify and why do they want
to be a volunteer on the panel?
Do they have lived experience
in one or more of the areas, do
they have a background, um,
with professional expertise, um,
so we can certainly share the
interest form that ask those
questions, and then it
s really
just a screening, we let people
as they are interested, we want
them to volunteer, we let them
volunteer, but we just want to
make sure that we
re screening
for, um, like I had those
conflicts of interest to make
sure that, um, the panel
members are participating in
that way. Um, I, I appreciate
that process, um, I think.
There are some barriers to
engagement that, uh, MAY
prevent some folks that have a
lot of lived experience to even
be able to know about this type
of opportunity, especially if
they are self-selecting, um,
and, uh, so I think it
s
important to just think about.
Equity in, in that sense, um,
and. That would be one area
where, um. It
s, I would like
to just learn a lot more. I
won
t, I won
t take up the
meeting to do that, um, but I,
I think, uh, being able to just
make sure that, uh, this
opportunity is, is shared with
a broad, um, diverse amount of
people, um, and it
s usually
our, um, boards and commissions,
the volunteers, they
re very,
very engaged and will usually,
uh, be the first to respond,
and, um, Just making sure that
we can also, um. Uh, make sure
that there is diversity among
the lived experience that is
shared or provide opportunity.
Um, The third question I had,
um, so I see youth and family
success, um, and I also know
that. Um, and I saw senior
services, um, lower down, I
m
one of the continued areas that
we
re focusing on. And I
m, I
m
just wondering if we could look
at adding seniors to the youth
and youth, seniors, and family
success, and why I would say
this is because I know that
seniors are among, uh, one of
the growing like homeless
populations, uh, food
insecurity, um, also, it
s a
growing renter population as
well, um, that, uh, you know,
there
s a lot of growing needs
among seniors. Um, and when we
say family, I
m not sure if Um,
You know, that that would cover,
but, uh, I would say since we
are calling out youth for a lot
of the same reasons, um, I
would also just suggest also,
um, also calling out seniors so
youth, seniors, and family. Um.
And And I know that, uh, that,
you know, that is an area we
have certainly continuing to
work on, but, uh, just
Projecting the needs of seniors,
it
s just, it
s just a really
growing, um, issue that I think
that we should further invest
in or at least call out and
identify here. Uh, my fourth
question, uh, is. Um, I, I know
in the briefing book, we talked
about, um. The Urban Institute.
The framework that the Urban
Institute uses. Can you share
some more details on that in
terms of mobility. And the
approach using that? Yes, so
this is the Urban Institute
s
Economic Mobility, or I
m sorry,
upward mobility framework. Is
that what you
re referring to?
Sure, yeah, I can share a
little bit more about that in
the staff report too, there
s,
um, a little bit more
information about the upward
mobility framework, um, but
this is, as you noted,
something that was developed
through research with the Urban
Institute. It
s an
evidence-based foundation
that
s, um, identifying
strategies that have been shown
to support upward mobility and
racial equality, um, The city
has been participating in a few
different regional efforts that
are aiming to align us with the
upward mobility framework,
including, um, there
s been, um,
work through the, um, I
m sorry,
I
m thinking in acronyms right
now, and I usually try to spell
those out, but cog and gear and
maybe someone could jump in and
provide them the more inclusive,
longer definitions of those two,
but the upward mobility
framework. Is that, um,
evidence-based, uh, framework
that
s trying to identify
specific strategies and
predictors that are showing
upward mobility. Ok. Um, yeah,
I would, I would, uh, maybe at
a later point would just like
to understand how that
s being
applied, um, to the decision
making. Um, I understand
generally what it is and the
concept, but I would just like
to learn how is it actually
being implemented and applied.
What are the results that
you
re getting? How is it, um.
Influencing the decisions that
you
re making, um, just some
more detail on the
implementation. Um, and then.
Uh, I, I, I noticed that, um,
just like, uh, one of my
colleagues had stated that I
noticed that, uh, household
stability was being used and
then housing stability was
being used. Um, and so I
wondered a, a little bit about
the terminology, and I, I saw
that household. Um, I know that
housing stability, the way that
we have defined it, um, in
previous work sessions was one
way, and then I noticed housing,
household stability was used
here, which, um, which includes
utilities and includes, um,
food, um, some of the examples
that were provided, and so I
got the sense that household
stability was, um Like
financial stability for our,
our households, um, and I do, I
do think that community
stability is a great term, uh,
I would, um, seeing here that
we use community enrichment and
Community belonging, um, as
well, so I, I just wonder if
there would be. I, I think
household stability is a very
clear word in terms of
household finances. Um, I would
just wonder if there would be
some confusion between
community stability and
community enrichment and
belonging, and I think, you
know, from Community members
oftentimes seeing community
belonging, connecting to their
housing stability, um, like if
you can
t afford to live here,
if you
re being priced out, um,
in a lot of ways, um, it
s,
it
s making folks feel like
they don
t belong and being
pushed out here in a, in a
broader sense. So I know there
is some confusion around that,
um, but, um, I would, I would
like to, you know, hear more
about that, the terminology
around household stability, but
I did notice it was used
interchangeably with housing
stability. Um, You MAY wanna,
uh, well, could you give more
details on housing stability or.
Why you decided to originally
use that term. Yeah, Nick, Nick,
maybe you could put up the
chart that kind of shows the
modifiers underneath it, and I
think that
ll be the best way
to walk through it if you don
t
mind me suggesting that. Yeah,
uh, definitely. Um, so thank
you for this question,
COUNCILMAN Bashaw. Uh, you are
correct that housing stability
and household stability. We we
are trying to differentiate the
two here, um, for us housing
stability is one of the
strategies that could support
household stability, um, as we
look at this chart though, um,
not just housing policies or
housing services, so not just
Pre-eviction or foreclosure
support or rapid rehousing, but
also financial assistance, for
example, our basic needs access,
so, um, when we look for
example at what the city is
doing around housing programs
and housing services, we have
some goals around housing
stability that are very
specific to, um, affordable
housing, housing access,
housing development, um, and
then when we would think about
the impact focus area and we
think about how Household
stability, um, I believe when
we, um, selected this term, we
were trained to look at what
our nonprofit organizations are
frequently already measuring,
and what are they connecting to
other regional efforts to
measure, and so they often
measure these financial
assistance or basic needs
assistance, they often measure
it in households, and then have
some of their own performance
measures around household
stability, so our hope with
this was to align it with What
some of our current providers
and nonprofit partners are kind
of already measuring and
reporting on across the region,
I
m hoping that that would be
more recognizable to them, um,
and then, as you know, housing
stability itself is kind of a
more specific, um, strategy
that is, um, encompassed in
this. I hope that answers that
question. Yes, that, that is
very helpful. So the household
stability is more of like an
industry term used within the
nonprofit sector. Yeah, and I
wonder if Sarah could comment
on this at all. Um, she works a
lot with our organizations on
identifying those metrics and
as she noted, we
re trying to,
um, help ensure that what we
measure in our grants at the
city wherever possible, it
s
connecting to things across the
region, um, so for instance,
with food, I know that like the
Montgomery County Office of
Food Resilience and the
Montgomery County Food Systems,
um, that
s kind of a coalition
of food providers. Um, they
re
measuring a lot in terms of
household served, household
stability, household access.
Sarah, did you want to speak to
that any further? Um, no, not
really. I think like you
covered it, but, um, yeah, I
think Household stability is
Like. Just a word like we use
that I think encompasses a lot
of These things we
ve talked
about, but, uh I think there is
flexibility to maybe be a
little bit more encompassing. I
don
t know. Whereas we
re
hearing, perhaps making sure we,
we definitely define these in
our application and help
materials, um, I think that has
actually really helpful in this
new design to think about. Um,
Our partners and the
terminology that they
re using
and we
re reflecting that in
our process. I think that helps
to streamline it, um, so I, I
m,
I
m really happy that you, uh.
Are taking some of the terms
that the our partners are using,
um, and it
s reflected here. Um,
the The last point that I would
say is just going back to
evaluation. Um. It would be
helpful. Um, for us to get just
some of the broader data, like,
for example, economic stability
or Household stability, and I
know pre-eviction services was
one of the items, but also for
us to think about this in terms
of, um, just the general data
in in Brockville, like, for
example, I know that evictions
have increased for Rockville,
or, um, and to get some of the
background informa just like
the general data for that er
for that particular topic area,
i think is helpful for us to
make, um. Decisions around, uh,
the nonpro profits that were
giving grants to, and, um, just
to evaluate the work and the
services in general. And I
m
not saying nonprofits should.
Be able to fix all of our
problems because, um, that,
that won
t happen, but just to
have some of that broader
context, um, uh, just for us to
make decisions. But this is
fantastic, and thank you. Thank
you. Uh, Councilor Burke, I, I,
uh, just wanted to flag, I know
MR. Mihali asked us to speak to
these 3 areas. I assume that
you are. Based on your feedback,
good with 1, but you want
people to look at the titles,
um, thank, thank you, MADAM
Mayor, and if it
s ok, I would,
I would like to also hear from
my colleagues because I know
that they MAY have some
questions and I can be a a bit
more informed if it
s ok to
circle back. Sure, yes, I think
he
s also looking for answers,
yes or no to 2 or 3, just, uh,
when we circle back. Thank you.
Ok, COUNCILMAN Valerie. Um Uh,
a massive thank you to, um, MS.
Shushka MISS Maisel, um I know
as a, somebody working in the
nonprofit sector and has only
ever worked in the nonprofit
sector, um, exactly how
challenging it is. Um, and also
as liaison to the Human
Services Advisory. Commission.
I hear firsthand from so many
of our, uh, community, uh,
service providers. I hear about
their challenges and their
struggles, and I really
appreciate all the work that
the two of you, um do on a
daily basis, not only, um, on
what you
re looking at, what
What we
re looking at here, but,
um As a whole, I think that um
our nonprofits and, uh,
yourselves are some of our
unsung, uh, heroes. So I wanna
say thank you sincerely, um
Yeah, I have a whole lot. To,
to ask, to say, to comments, I
will hopefully get to these 3,
but if not, I
m sure MADAM
Mayor will do like another,
like, hey, if you haven
t
answered the 3, you know, go
around the horn. Um, I wanna
first note that I think that
this is a significant enough
topic that I don
t want to
preclude Mm Forward progress,
but I think that it does
deserve a second work session.
We don
t have all of our
colleagues here. And one of our
colleagues, um, joined a little
bit into the discussion. I
think that, um, whether we have
it as part of our, uh,
strategic planning session, um,
as your city manager, I think
that this is significant enough.
That we should consider, uh, uh,
a second work session. Um, I do
wanna just to, uh, help the
member Shaw
s point, yes,
household is a term that the
nonprofit sector uses an
all-encompassing term when
you
re looking at, um,
different levels of, of service,
um, you haven
t community needs,
but you have household needs as
well. So it
s a very, uh,
easily identifiable by the
nonprofit or ngo,
non-governmental organization.
Immunity. Well, on that point,
I, I throw out a, an idea. And
this also goes to something
that, um, that actually, uh,
you said MISS Shushka when you
very kindly answered the
question again, um, maybe we
call it community resiliency.
Because making sure that people
have, you know, safe and stable
housing. Access to health
services, access to food, these
are things that are kind of
essential to resiliency, um,
and resiliency is, is also part
of stability, so I
m just gonna
throw that out there as a As an
idea. Um, you can, you can run
with it, or you can ignore me.
Either way, I
m all, I
m all
good, but I, I do like the idea
of resiliency and making sure
that our, all of our
communities can. Mhm. And not
only survive but can thrive. As
well. Um. I
m gonna, I
m gonna
take it a step back and not
only for, for all of us. Not
here, but for our folks
watching from home either now
or later, um, can you share a
little bit how is
prioritization determined as of
right now? So, you know, when
we go into this time period of
people applying, how do, how,
you know, how do we do
prioritization? How does the,
um Community panel review and
selection committee. How, how
do they define, you know, um,
the priorities of, of this,
this program right now. Yeah,
thank you for that question. Uh,
the primary driver of us
proposing this program design
change is because we do not
currently have a way of
evaluating prioritization among,
um, applications, we do have
standard evaluation criteria,
um, and as we noted, we are
receiving far more requests
than we
re able to fund, and it
has been a challenge for our
community panels to use the
Current evaluation criteria to
prioritize, so we are hoping
that by adopting impact focus
areas and incorporating those
into the evaluation criteria of
will provide a tool for our
community panel to be able to,
to look more at applications
that align with, um, outcome
goals. Yeah. No, that, thank
you. I think that was very
helpful and I think that
hopefully that
s helpful to my
colleagues, um, as well. I, I
wanna make sure that You know,
obviously, we need focus. We
need focus, and we need focus
areas, right, when we
re
identifying the, the best
criteria to evaluate
applications and, uh, program
effectiveness, but I also think
that, um, there is a, a part of
it. That should also be
reflective of the mayor and
council priorities. So that,
you know, um You have kind of
set in criteria. But let
s say,
you know, um, actually, this is
a great example of it. This
mayor and council. Really
wanted to Step in, provide,
protect the community from the
decisions of the federal
government. Maybe not all, you
know, mayoral councils might,
might, you know, wanna do that.
Or see it differently, but we
obviously want You know, to
support. Applicants that are
filling a gap because of what
the federal government has done
right now. Um, so I, I, I hope
that, you know, um, maybe as
part of the community panel
review. Just in some way,
taking the, the discussions
that we have, like our
strategic priorities. We have
those sessions and, and maybe
in working with, um, MR. City
Manager working with that. To
help inform. Mm, uh, the, the,
the community panel review,
that this is something that the
mayor and council also find
these are also, um, priorities
as well. I think sometimes
that
s been the disconnect. I
know at least for me in that
I
m like, well, I thought we
were prioritizing this, and
then this kind of comes out of
nowhere, you know, I, I
m, I
m
trying to kinda, you know,
thread the needle between Here
are our values, these will
always be our values, and then,
you know, the focus of a
particular elected body. Um,
and being able to kinda, um,
nimble in that way. I
appreciate that you
re really
built in a lot of flexibility.
Into the, the process because I
think That is, uh, that is, um,
uh a good, um, indicator of a
very well-designed program is
that you do have that
flexibility. Um, I love a lot
of stuff that you proposed in
This, uh, a lot of things that
you
ve, uh, proposed, including,
and, you know, Maybe it
s just
me, um, but I, I really love
the, um I
m looking for it,
sorry, that there was a, a
section in here that Um, would
allow for, um The modest cost
of service adjustments subject
to available funding. I think
that that
s Fantastic. Um,
speak again, speaking as
somebody who works at a
nonprofit, um, who has
submitted so many grant
applications and had to explain
ok, so this is why this year
I
m asking for a little bit
more, and it
s because x, y,
and z, there definitely has to
be that kind of, uh, cost of
living adjustment in, in terms
of, of grants, so I really
appreciate that. Mhm. Also want
to note, we talked to a lot of
folks, a lot of my colleagues.
Talked about the economic
mobility. Um, Portion of the,
the impact priorities. I will
say, um, just as an fyi, um I
think myself and I believe
MADAM Mayor, also met, um,
representatives from the new,
uh, Maryland Department of
Social and Economic Mobility. I
think there
s, they
re really
trying, yeah, they
re, there
s
some great folks. And I think
that, you know, they
re,
they
re even closer to, um, the
community as well as than a
national entity, I think the
Urban Institute is, is
fantastic, but I would, I would
love to kind of see more, you
know, um leaning on our state
partners, um, for Their
perspectives and resources. I
know it
s a brand new, uh,
cabinet position, so like, no
pressure, but, um, I think
there
s an opportunity there to
really, um, get some good
information. Um, I, I
absolutely love the Impact
focus areas. I. At first I was
like, oh, this is in my mind.
I
m like, oh, this is missing,
this is missing, this is
missing. Um I, I don
t
necessarily Think that we need
to Discreetly outline Everybody
who makes up a family, right?
Everybody that makes up, you
know, you, I think that that
the, the devil is gonna be in
the details of how You know,
you define each of these
proposed impact focus areas,
and then That those kind of
shared definitions will also
help us to understand, I think,
as well, um, sort of having
very distinct, um, definitions
and I totally appreciate the
context of the chart. That was
really helpful. I think level
setting that we see economic
mobility as our desire to x, y,
and z. Um, that
ll help, I
think, maybe, um, uh, make
things a little bit more clear,
not only for us but for the
community. And for, um
potential Grantees. Um, I, I, I
think I
ve said this before,
but under community service and
empowerment grants. If we call
it senior services, can you
please call it Youth Services.
Um, you know, some of, some of
the youth that we really want
to work with, they
re already a
pretty developed. They
re
probably more empathetic than a
lot of, uh, adults that I know.
Um, and I think that youth
services is uh a more expansive
way of, of looking at their
needs. I wanna co-sign with my
With MADAM Mayor said that in
particular And to what MR. City
Manager talked about, I think
that We
ll have a lot more, um
Uh, information. Here
s another
great example of the
cross-pollination of Mar and
council priorities with, um,
our grant program is that we
re
gonna have work sessions
specifically on, on youth
programming in particular for
at-risk youth, and I
m hoping
that it
ll help to inform. Um,
our, our grant process as well
because we keep kinda Getting,
um, I think we can definitely
get some maybe, um Be not
better, um, more grantees or
potential grantees that would
be in those areas if We, you
know, kinda share that that
s
also a priority of marriage
council. Um, None of these are
questions, by the way, so you
haven
t missed anything. This
is more of off the top of my
head, like Been thinking
through a lot of this. Mhm. I,
I, I also want to know that, um
You know, and if we
re, if
we
re looking at at-risk youth
programming. I will continue to,
to hope that we, as part of
community resiliency, um, could
look at, um, you know, uh,
encouraging Applications from
folks that work with in the
substance use or recovery
community space. As well as in
the veteran space. Um, in
particular, and I know that
sometimes a lot of people tend
to, um, assume, and I am also
defer to my colleague council
member DR. Miles. A lot of
people seem to think, oh, well,
the veterans go to va. Well,
the va has cut back on a lot of
programs right now too, so I
think if they
re, again, if
there
s a way that we can
Provide help. In any way to our
veteran community here in the
city. I, I really hope that we
do. Um, Let
s see. Do do do. I
already mentioned that. About
community resiliency. Uh, so I
will say, um I think that I
think generally. We are We are,
we as a city and, uh, your,
your team, uh, in particular,
MS. Shishka and MISS Mazel are
really good about kind of
applying the equity lens, um,
because you, you all work so
closely. Um, With, uh, uh Risks
and marginalized communities,
but, you know, Maybe it
s a, a
good approach for the Community
panel review if we had, you
know, um, our own internal city
equity focus areas. I tend to
always look to see, you know, I,
you want programs that serve
the city as a whole, absolutely.
We have sometimes seen, um,
programs that were, um,
centered in Areas that are, are,
are not in need. If I can, uh,
be kind about it, and so I
would love, and I
d love to
hear, hear your thought, um, on
developing equity of focus
areas that would then encourage,
um, you know, both the, the
community panel review. Folks
as well as applicants. From,
you know, uh, organizations
that would work in particular
in the communities that are
most in need. I would love to
hear your thoughts on that.
Yeah, thank you for the that
question. I think there
s a
real opportunity for it, the
grants application and
evaluation, and you mentioned
the community panel to align
with the Jedi strategic
priorities. I
m really looking
forward to working with the
Jedi team on that that recently
with, um, Jean Booth, of course,
um, looking at what was just
adopted and our year 1 work
ahead of us, and I think
there
s going to be so many
opportunities for us to, um,
extend That work that we
re
gonna do to adopt the 7
strategic priorities, um, into
our departments, into our
program, and then into the work
that we do through nonprofit
partnerships. So, I think that
that is a real opportunity.
Absolutely, and, and I
m, thank
you. I
m really looking forward
to it cause there
s so much
overlap, um So, so yeah, I
absolutely to go to the, the
questions, um, absolutely, we
need to adopt. Um, impact focus
areas. We don
t have focus
areas right now. We need to
make it, um, easier for our, uh,
community panel. Reviewers, um,
to be able to effectively, um
Select From pools of applicants,
I don
t know how else we would
do that if we don
t have a way
for prioritization. So for my
colleagues that are not, um,
who have shared already that
they, they kinda wanna defer on
this. I understand cause at
first I was the same way, but
now I
m realizing that we have
no distinct prioritization
matrix, then, then this is what
this would be. So, um,
absolutely, I support number 1.
Mhm. I think You know, I, I,
for num, for question number 2,
Should 1 or 2 be prioritized? I,
I don
t know why we wouldn
t
prioritize all of them, but I
guess my answer is 1 or 2 is it
works, but If these are gonna
help with prioritization, um, I,
it would be really hard for me
to, to determine Which would be
prioritized over others. I
don
t think that we necessarily
need more data on this because
we already have. Decades of, of
data that fall into these,
these, uh, categories. Um, I, I
do agree, uh. We have high
performing programs. We have
some of our grantees who have
Received grants from the city
for over a decade, if not more.
And You know, it does beg the
question for me. Twofold.
Absolutely, if, if the proven
program in the city, they
should absolutely have a
streamlined renewal pathway.
Checks and balances, guardrails,
of course. Um, you know, change
in nonprofit leadership,
ongoing site visits, I kinda, I,
I
ve definitely, I
ve
experienced all of that, so I
don
t think any nonprofits
would, would be upset with that,
but, you know, I also sit back
and I, I say, I think sometimes
at what point We as a city look
deeper at the services the city
has funded for 20 plus years,
right? Like, like we
re, we
have this ongoing relationship.
And are, are we just kind of
there, um, an extension of the
city at that point? Are they
serving more, less, I don
t
know, but, you know, we do have
long-standing, um, nonprofit
partners who are is providing
um Uh, amazing services. So I
do absolutely. Support a
streamlined renewal pathway
again with guardrails, um, and,
and site visits and all that.
Before I ok, um. 3 last points
and then I will pass it along.
Um, 122 other things I
ve been
challenged with when I
ve
looked at the community grants.
The first one is the funding of
programs. That are run by the
Montgomery County. And I
m
challenged by this because the
county has a much bigger budget
than we do. Yeah, absolutely
supportive of, of counting
programs. Don
t get me wrong.
But, um, it, it, to me, always
seems Little odd. At the county
with, with a lot more money
than we do is coming to us
asking for a grant to help a
program that they run,
obviously, Rockville residents
can get the benefits of the
program. But it, it
s a weird
imbalance in my brain, you know,
um, I
ll just, um, I
ll take
the case of like, you know, I
used to work for a local
chapter of a nonprofit. And it
would be like the national
headquarters saying to the
state chapter, um, yeah, you
gotta pony up some money so
that we can do this across the
United States and it
s like,
why are you coming to me? Like
I have no budget. So I, I, I am
definitely challenged by that.
Mm. The other thing, and I, one
of my colleagues mentioned, um,
this as well, and actually, MS.
Shosa, you mentioned this too.
Um In order to, um Really
connect of funding. An event
Opportunity I
m really, I
really got to see it connect
easily to, to Rockville
businesses. I think it
s great.
If, um, people come, you know,
to the city for something like,
um The f. Scott Fitzgerald
Literary Festival. But where is
the direct connection to a
Rockville business. I, I want,
I obviously want people to, to
come here and Spend their
economic dollars and, you know,
their businesses. I think we
all do. But it
s tough if the
programs are being held in
locations are not easily, um, a
few businesses are not easily
accessible. And I think can be,
um, um Kind of ignored, you
could kind of dip dip into an
event and dip out. So I just
wanted to share that that
s one
of the things that I
m
challenged with. Final thing is
a question and a comment. I
think probably more than
anything in the grant process,
I
ve really been Cha I, um The
lack of um clarity, at least to
me. Around, um, Grant recipient,
grant recipients. And the
lobbying of The city on, on
policy decisions or potential
decisions. I think that in no
way, shape or form does anybody
want to eliminate free speech.
I, I, that is not what I
m
saying. I also know that as a
Somebody who has been at the
grantee. I know that I had
guardrails and there were
bright lines between what I
could and could not do. In
terms of engagement with, with
the grant tour. Mm I, I think
that It is distressing to me.
We give essentially a general
grant. Do, you know, ensure
That a program continues or an
organization continues, and
that money then I turned around.
22 lobbyists on a particular
policy. I would really, and I
appreciate that we have a
conflict of interest, um, in
terms of the, uh Election
committee. I would really like
to see some, some ethical
language, maybe from the city
attorney office. Something
around that idea that everybody
can do anything they want as a
resident of of Rockville as a
resident of Montgomery County.
Think that the challenges when
you Are the the head or an
employee of a grantee. There
are different conditions, um,
that, that do apply. And, um, I,
I would really wanna see some
bright lines, um, some
guardrails. So that we know
that the money that we are
investing in the nonprofit. Is
not being invested in lobbying
us. And that, um, that
s really
my point. So, um, I, I will end,
I will end there. I would love
to hear my, my colleague
s
thoughts on that as well. Um,
and really wanna, wanna thank
you all. I know how tough this
is, so. Appreciate it. Thank
you. Thank you very much,
Doctor Miles. Thank you, MADAM
Mayor, I want to echo my thanks
to the presenters on this. I
ll
keep it brief. After hearing my
colleague
s comments and Thank
you for those. In terms of
answering your questions.
Question 1, yes, uh, I think
that the 5 proposed impact
focus areas should be adopted.
There were 2, whether not any
should be prioritized, I
m not,
I think as was mentioned by a
couple of colleagues earlier, I
don
t think it
s necessary.
Prioritize 1 or 2, I think
they
re, they are all important,
um, if, however, there was
Movement among my colleagues,
like the majority said they
want to prioritize, uh, a bias
toward the youth family
services and household
stability, um, among others,
but again, I think all of them
are important, and then third.
The streamlined renewal process,
yes, I think, you know, I
d
like the caveats that I
ll put
in there that they must reapply
for 2 cycles. I think larger
organizations that are more
seasoned and polished. Have
oftentimes. Can, can. Be
somewhat advantaged in, uh, in
applying for these programs.
Relative to those who smaller
perhaps with less experience,
but I think the guardrails that
you all have outlined makes
sense to me and I can support
that. That
s all I have. Thank
you. Thank you very much. I am
just looking for additional
hands, Mississ City Manager, I
think we
ve answered all of
your key, you know, majority of
an your key questions. Uh, do
you have any followup questions
for us. I do not, I just want
to clarify, so I did hear a
majority support for the 5
Impact focus areas. I heard
some interest and
prioritization, maybe an
ongoing discussion, but not
necessarily picking 2 for next
year, and I absolutely heard
unanimous support for, um, the
streamlining of high-performing
programs. So I did get the
direction we needed. Thank you,
Mayor. Thank you, and I see
Councilor Shaw
s hand. Thank
you, MADAM Mayor. I did just
want to circle back. I can
t
hear you, can you please come
off mute? Can you hear me now?
Yes, thank you, yeah, I did
just want to circle back, um,
just as a member of the body to
share my feedback, um, and I
want to thank my colleagues for,
um, the really great questions
that they asked. Um, so should
the city adopt, uh, 5 proposed
impact focus areas, yes, um. Uh,
number 2, which I think, uh,
was slightly touched on by one
of my colleagues surrounding
data, um. Should 1 or 2 of
these impact focus areas be
prioritized. I still think that
we should have data and that
goes back to, um, like if we
wanna talk about equity, that
goes back to the equity process
where we
re sharing data to
figure out where the gaps are
in certain populations for to
inform our decisions, and that
data is not just for us, but
it
s also for the public to
make sure that when we say that
we are, um. Uh, advancing
equity that that aligns with
the metrics and the data. So I
would just need to see more
data, and then number 3, should
the city provide a streamlined
renewal pathway for
high-performing programs, yes,
and I also think we need to be
careful, um, to make sure that
we are also providing
opportunities to support, um,
some of the smaller nonprofits,
um. As they grow, uh, so that
they can also become one of our
high performing programs
because a lot of, a lot of, uh,
our high performing programs
are from some of the larger
nonprofits, so thank you. Thank
you very much. I appreciate the
diversity of comments from my
colleagues. Uh, thank you for
answering the specific
questions. I think we
ve given
staff a lot to think about, um,
I will wrap with just, uh, in
terms of next steps, if you
could go back to that so that
we can take another look. I do
know that, um, the timing for
grants is coming up very soon.
Uh, so I believe that you
re
gonna have some of those, take
our feedback and then move to
open the application soon. Is
that correct? That is correct,
yes. So you typically do
information sessions in
SEPTEMBER. Uh, SEPTEMBER and
OCTOBER, yes. Ok. And the
deadline will be? OCTOBER 6,
yes, I believe OCTOBER 16th,
yeah, the only thing I
ll say
about that is given that we
re
making some changes, you MAY
want to look up that a little
bit just because people are
gonna have to revise their
application significantly,
wanna Maybe participate in 1 or
2 of the sessions that you have,
uh, we are moving from 9
categories to about 5, so I
just wanted to note that, um,
and I
ll just also say, um, I,
I think that one of the things
we saw with the last Grant
piece of it
s we, we were
trying to, um, spread a little
thin, so I just, I, to the
comments of my colleagues
looking at data, looking at
impact, and meeting the needs
of the community is very
important, so, um, thank you
for that. And then the last
thing is related to the um
microgrants, uh, the schedule
is slightly different for that.
We
ll just make sure that we
don
t inadvertently. Have an
issue with some of the
programming, right, because I
know the timing is gonna shift
to make sure that we, the ones
we have supported, will still
get their fr 27, and then we
ll
work to make sure that it
s in
time, given that That
s
shifting until MAY for the next
year, I just, I just want to
take a look at that and make
sure that we don
t cause any
issues there. Yes, absolutely.
We can definitely make sure
that those dates are lining up
and we support that continuity
of programming. Thank you, and
I wanted to just also chime on
other the, the comments on
community resiliency or that
word resiliency, I do love that
and I appreciate the, the
feedback. Of all of my
colleagues. Ok. Anything else
from your end? Ok. Thank you
very much, we appreciate it,
we
ll look forward to that, and
I know, um, information will be
going out to our grantees, uh,
end of AUGUST and SEPTEMBER so
that you can advertise those
information sessions. Thank you.
Ok. Pulling up my agenda here.
Oh jeez. Ok, so we had an lpt
meeting this morning to review
the mock agenda, uh, so we did
have a nice discussion on that,
just wanna want to pause and
see if anyone has anything else
to add on mock agenda. Ok, uh,
next, wanted to open up for all
new business. Ok. I just wanna
note that this is our virtual
meeting, Mayor and council is
on recess during the month of
AUGUST, there are still things
that the city is still running,
and we
re still supporting and,
and accessible, but please feel
free to reach out to us as you
need, we will not be having
meetings during the month of
AUGUST, uh, and thank all of
our team and our staff, I hope,
hopefully some of them get to
get a little bit of a break in
between, uh, we were back in
SEPTEMBER, uh, and continuing
to move forward to the business.
Do we have a motion to adjourn?
Motion to adjourn. Thank you,
do we have a second? Second.
Excellent, uh, COUNCILMAN Brett
Jackson made the motion.
COUNCILMAN Van Grag seconded.
All those in favor, please
raise your hand and say aye.
Excellent. Have a wonderful
summer, everyone. Take care.