This video will provide instructions on applying for a grant to the city's eCivis platform.
The first thing you'll need to do is navigate to the city's solicitation page, which is seen on the screen here.
You should have a link to this page from the department's website or marketing materials about the grant to take you to the solicitation.
Once you're on this page, you will see any grants that are currently open or soon to be open.
And you can also display solicitations that have closed at the time that you are on the website.
Once you're here and have identified the grant that you're interested in applying for,
You'll want to select that grant,
and a new page will pop up that provides additional information and details about this particular grant.
For example, you'll be provided a title, application start and end date, CFDA numbers for the federal award if relevant.
There may be a URL available for more information.
information, a summary of the grant, and then each tab will provide additional information
on eligibility, financials, how much is available, if there's a minimum or maximum award,
contact
information if you have questions about the grant, and finally, relevant files for
the grant.
This is particularly helpful as there is typically a grant guide or request for proposal or NOFA
with more details about the grant itself and the rules around the grant.
There may also be files that are necessary for an applicant to download ahead of time
before clicking apply and complete and then upload during the application process.
So pay particular attention to the notes in the files section.
Once you are ready, you can go ahead and click apply.
This is going to take you to the eSivis portal.
If you haven't yet signed up for the eSivis portal,
this will be a perfect time to do so.
You would just click create an account.
put
in your first and last name, email and password,
create a password, and then
sign up.
Once you click the sign up button, eSivis will send you an email that
looks like this that says welcome to the portal. Please verify your email.
You'll
receive a second email saying that your email is verified.
At this point, they'll provide another link
to log back into the portal.
So at this point, we'll want to log in.
If you have an eCivus account already,
for example, if you are a previous grant recipient
and have already created an account,
you won't need to create a new account,
and you'll choose Portal Login.
If you have used eSivis before the portal existed, you may need to log in using your
grants network login.
So if you sign in and click portal login and it doesn't work, try the grants network login.
So I have opened up my account, but right now I only see a prior year grant.
So I'm going to go ahead and go back to the solicitation.
Sometimes this happens,
click apply again, and because I'm already signed in at this point, it actually comes right up.
So you'll see here this is the fiscal year 2024 CDBG grant that I had selected to apply for, and now it shows up automatically.
So at this point I will create a new application using the screen button here.
The
website does make you log in with your credentials again in order to apply.
The first step then once you have opened up the application is to complete the profile.
So here it says action is required and there's an option to open the profile
and
it will populate some information about the applicant.
But you'll want to complete as much of this information as possible.
If it is asterisked, that means that there is a required field and you must complete it.
It will not let you save unless you complete the required fields.
It will give you an error if you have missed something.
On the profile, what we're looking for is your basic organizational information.
You, as an applicant, so who are you and your role with the company?
Your organization identification number, unique entity identifier, that is the replacement
for the old DUNS number.
Who is your authorized representative?
Who is typically the individual who has authority to sign the contract?
Should you be awarded a grant with the city?
Typically, that's going to be your president or CEO, and then a business or finance representative
who might be your financial officer or controller or COO,
your organization headquarters address.
If you have multiple, you may want to choose to use the organization address that is your
primary mailing address.
Some more details about your authorized representative and business
contact and then go ahead and create.
Although very few of those fields are required, we
do ask that you complete it as thoroughly as possible.
Once the profile is completed,
it gives me this other information. So now I can actually begin the application process
by clicking this link here and what it's telling you here is that the colors will
change on this little rectangle here if there's something wrong with with the
application there'll be red when it's blue that means there's an action
required and when it's gray that means that you've already submitted and
your submission is under review.
Okay, once you click that,
it's gonna give you a little bit more information
about your application process.
For example, how many days are remaining
to submit the application.
And we're gonna go ahead and open.
All right, this is where you will actually fill
in the details of your application.
Notice that there are two scroll bars on the right.
That can be a little bit confusing at first.
so you can scroll down a little bit.
And here you will complete all of the fields
for the application.
So you'll want to add an application project title
and your organization name here at the top.
This is primarily for the purpose of reviewing
the application later,
and then begin
to complete all of the fields.
As I mentioned, an asterisk next to the field title means that that is a required field.
And in text box,
open-ended answers, you will notice that there's a word count down here
and it will tell you how many words you have left.
It's
not required to use up all of the space if there is a word count but you
will want to be mindful of the word count as you cannot go over it.
You'll also
notice that some questions have additional help text underneath. That is
there to help to guide you in the event that a question may be confusing
to an organization or additional information may be helpful in this
case. So be sure to look for help text if there's something that you're unsure of. And if you
don't know the answer and there is no help text, you should go back and look at the
contact information that was provided in the solicitation and reach out to that individual
with any questions that you have.
Note also that some questions are conditional
or dynamic, meaning that the questions that are available to complete will change depending on your selection.
For example, here with CDBG eligibility, there are different categories, and this is pretty typical of grants.
There may be certain categories of eligibility or program type that will require different
types of questions.
So for example, if I choose CBG public services, a couple of new questions going to come up.
For example, is the proposed public service new or existing?
And if I choose existing, there are additional questions.
If I choose new, there are not.
So just be mindful that as you go through the application, additional questions may appear
that were not visible from the get-go.
So I recommend highly that you go through the application briefly and select those that
you know are relevant for any drop downs or radio buttons or checkboxes. First, just to get a glimpse
of all of the potential questions you may be asked. So you're not scrambling at the end of the
application period.
There are generally several sections of the application to be completed,
applicant information, there may be a program specific eligibility section,
program description and scope,
need and outcomes. Be mindful that when we ask
for need and outcomes we are looking for specificity. So that may be noted here
to be specific and include relevant data, but if not that is typically what is
being reviewed for.
We also look for administrative and financial capacity of
the organization who is applying.
And finally, there will be some required documentation
that may be requested to be uploaded
and submitted with the application.
You'll notice that there is only one file options
for each question.
So in the event that two things are being asked for,
for example, current and prior year budget,
it, you will have to combine those two into one file in order to upload the information.
And here you can see in this help text, this HUD conflict of interest disclosure form can
be found in the files section of the solicitation.
So, there's actually a link that allows you to go back.
If you open this up, it will take you to the solicitation link and then back to the files
that you were looking for if you get to that section and you need to download the file again.
All
right, so you'll note that when I clicked that back to solicitation, I had not saved
the application.
So take that as a lesson learned to be sure to save your draft application before you
click off of this section.
All right, once you have completed the main application section, there actually
is additional information.
So if you go to the right scroll bar and scroll down, there will be an option for application
budget and goals.
Here under actions, you can actually edit the budget and edit goals.
Now not every application may ask for a budget and goals through this method.
So be sure to pay close attention to the solicitation information as occasionally the systems budget process is not used, but instead you're asked to complete a Excel or a PDF version of your budget and then upload it with the application.
So just pay particular attention to the instructions and if you get down to the bottom and there
is no budget option or no goals option that is likely intentional for that particular
application and meaning that it is not required.
However, I will walk through it just in case the application you are submitting does
require a budget and goals.
So here we'll click edit budget.
It
will bring you to a new page that has the budget summary here at the top and then a list of budget items.
You want to glance through this to see if everything you expect to request is here.
And if not, you will use this other category for additional requests that are not captured in these categories.
But I highly recommend that you utilize the categories given.
And if nothing really doesn't fit, you may need to reach out to the individual who's responsible for the grant management from that solicitation page and get more information.
But let's say that we do have the information that we have. Click personnel, for example, to add a request for a budget item.
You will actually open up, like I just did, open up the line item, and then click into this cell that says cost.
Now a cursor doesn't appear but it does turn blue. And then just use your keypad
to enter the request. So for example here let's request $30,000 in personnel, okay
I'm going to click off of it and now you can see I've requested $30,000 in
direct costs and that's been updated also up here on the budget summary.
We
But instead, simply use the one line to summarize your request for each line item.
For example, if we add $3,000 for supplies, it's the same.
If you are making a request for a grant that requires a match,
Match information can also be uploaded here
and you'll want to add additional line items
in the event of match.
So for example, if we have purchased equipment that will count as match, I'll enter that
cost here and
then change this item type to cost share.
Cost share is another equivalent for match and
you'll see once I've clicked
off of that it did update over here to cost share and we'll also have updated
here. So the total amount on the left is going to be your total grant request.
Total amount on the right is going to be any match or cost share that you're
contributing to the grant.
Please use the save option to save your changes. You
can add a note if needed. And then use this budget narrative to provide an
explanation for your budget request. So because this is rolled up, this $30,000
let's say it's a large grant, you're actually asking for $300,000. You'll
want to use the budget narrative section
to explain the breakdown of that 300,000
and the personnel that it will be provided to
and their job title or duties.
In addition to providing additional information
or explanation for particularly high dollar requests
or dollar requests that you'll need to explain the purpose.
So if you're asking for mileage and travel,
Is that for daily travel? Is that for travel to a training or a conference?
Be specific about your request in the narrative.
Okay, in the event that you don't know what your match is going to be used for,
or the type of category that your match will be used for,
you can use the other option to report your match.
There are two other sections. Either is fine. We recommend that you use number 21 other, but either is fine.
And if
you do have, for example, if you're matching personnel dollar for dollar, you can in that case add another row for the
purpose of recording your match.
So
here it shows 30,000 direct and 30,000 cost share.
You can also use this little blue button to save and
I'll give you errors if there is something that is missing.
So here it's asking for a title and description for that match information that I already entered.
So I'll want to provide additional information here.
There's also this Excel export option.
So, if you need to provide an example of your budget to your boss or if you need to export
the budget request and have somebody else fill it out, you can use this option to export
and get the information necessary from that individual or just keep for your records.
Okay, once you're done, be sure you have saved and returned to your application.
Okay,
it may make you continue to sign in and
then you will want to click actions and
edit goals for the final portion of your application.
Now not every request has a goals as I mentioned before, but if it does, this is how you'll
enter it.
On the left, you'll see the goal and objective.
For example, for CDBG, there are goals for assisting businesses with grants, doing homeowner
housing rehabilitation, serving individuals through public services, and here you'll
enter the goal that you have that meets that goal or objective.
So in my case, for example, let's say that I have a goal of serving 100 individuals through public services.
The direct cost matching and program income expenditures are not a required portion of the goals, only the target units.
And then you can go ahead and save.
We
turn to the application.
Once your profile is complete and the application is completely ready to submit, this button
here will turn green and at that point you'll want to click submit.
It's grayed out for this application because there are required fields that have not been
completed.
But once those required fields are completed,
you can mark your application as complete and then submit.
Please note that the individual who submits the application will be the default individual for managing the grant once received.
So be sure to select the individual to create the application, knowing that they will be the one to receive the emails.
subsequent to the grant award if you are successful to submit the quarterly or
however often financial reports and program reports and closeout documents.
So that individual who submits the application will be the default
individual to receive the grant award.
It can be changed but it can be a little
bit of a hassle, so just a recommendation there.
And that is how you will apply for
a grant using the ESAVIS portal.