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This video will provide instructions on applying for a grant to the city's eCivis platform.

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The first thing you'll need to do is navigate to the city's solicitation page, which is seen on the screen here.

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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.

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Once you're on this page, you will see any grants that are currently open or soon to be open.

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And you can also display solicitations that have closed at the time that you are on the website.

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Once you're here and have identified the grant that you're interested in applying for,

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You'll want to select that grant,

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and a new page will pop up that provides additional information and details about this particular grant.

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For example, you'll be provided a title, application start and end date, CFDA numbers for the federal award if relevant.

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There may be a URL available for more information.

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information, a summary of the grant, and then each tab will provide additional information

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on eligibility, financials, how much is available, if there's a minimum or maximum award,

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contact

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information if you have questions about the grant, and finally, relevant files for

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the grant.

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This is particularly helpful as there is typically a grant guide or request for proposal or NOFA

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with more details about the grant itself and the rules around the grant.

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There may also be files that are necessary for an applicant to download ahead of time

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before clicking apply and complete and then upload during the application process.

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So pay particular attention to the notes in the files section.

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Once you are ready, you can go ahead and click apply.

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This is going to take you to the eSivis portal.

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If you haven't yet signed up for the eSivis portal,

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this will be a perfect time to do so.

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You would just click create an account.

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put

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in your first and last name, email and password,

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create a password, and then

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sign up.

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Once you click the sign up button, eSivis will send you an email that

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looks like this that says welcome to the portal. Please verify your email.

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You'll

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receive a second email saying that your email is verified.

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At this point, they'll provide another link

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to log back into the portal.

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So at this point, we'll want to log in.

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If you have an eCivus account already,

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for example, if you are a previous grant recipient

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and have already created an account,

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you won't need to create a new account,

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and you'll choose Portal Login.

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If you have used eSivis before the portal existed, you may need to log in using your

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grants network login.

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So if you sign in and click portal login and it doesn't work, try the grants network login.

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So I have opened up my account, but right now I only see a prior year grant.

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So I'm going to go ahead and go back to the solicitation.

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Sometimes this happens,

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click apply again, and because I'm already signed in at this point, it actually comes right up.

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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.

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So at this point I will create a new application using the screen button here.

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The

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website does make you log in with your credentials again in order to apply.

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The first step then once you have opened up the application is to complete the profile.

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So here it says action is required and there's an option to open the profile

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and

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it will populate some information about the applicant.

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But you'll want to complete as much of this information as possible.

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If it is asterisked, that means that there is a required field and you must complete it.

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It will not let you save unless you complete the required fields.

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It will give you an error if you have missed something.

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On the profile, what we're looking for is your basic organizational information.

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You, as an applicant, so who are you and your role with the company?

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Your organization identification number, unique entity identifier, that is the replacement

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for the old DUNS number.

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Who is your authorized representative?

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Who is typically the individual who has authority to sign the contract?

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Should you be awarded a grant with the city?

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Typically, that's going to be your president or CEO, and then a business or finance representative

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who might be your financial officer or controller or COO,

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your organization headquarters address.

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If you have multiple, you may want to choose to use the organization address that is your

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primary mailing address.

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Some more details about your authorized representative and business

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contact and then go ahead and create.

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Although very few of those fields are required, we

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do ask that you complete it as thoroughly as possible.

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Once the profile is completed,

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it gives me this other information. So now I can actually begin the application process

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by clicking this link here and what it's telling you here is that the colors will

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change on this little rectangle here if there's something wrong with with the

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application there'll be red when it's blue that means there's an action

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required and when it's gray that means that you've already submitted and

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your submission is under review.

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Okay, once you click that,

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it's gonna give you a little bit more information

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about your application process.

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For example, how many days are remaining

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to submit the application.

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And we're gonna go ahead and open.

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All right, this is where you will actually fill

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in the details of your application.

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Notice that there are two scroll bars on the right.

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That can be a little bit confusing at first.

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so you can scroll down a little bit.

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And here you will complete all of the fields

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for the application.

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So you'll want to add an application project title

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and your organization name here at the top.

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This is primarily for the purpose of reviewing

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the application later,

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and then begin

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to complete all of the fields.

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As I mentioned, an asterisk next to the field title means that that is a required field.

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And in text box,

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open-ended answers, you will notice that there's a word count down here

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and it will tell you how many words you have left.

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It's

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not required to use up all of the space if there is a word count but you

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will want to be mindful of the word count as you cannot go over it.

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You'll also

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notice that some questions have additional help text underneath. That is

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there to help to guide you in the event that a question may be confusing

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to an organization or additional information may be helpful in this

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case. So be sure to look for help text if there's something that you're unsure of. And if you

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don't know the answer and there is no help text, you should go back and look at the

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contact information that was provided in the solicitation and reach out to that individual

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with any questions that you have.

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Note also that some questions are conditional

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or dynamic, meaning that the questions that are available to complete will change depending on your selection.

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For example, here with CDBG eligibility, there are different categories, and this is pretty typical of grants.

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There may be certain categories of eligibility or program type that will require different

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types of questions.

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So for example, if I choose CBG public services, a couple of new questions going to come up.

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For example, is the proposed public service new or existing?

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And if I choose existing, there are additional questions.

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If I choose new, there are not.

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So just be mindful that as you go through the application, additional questions may appear

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that were not visible from the get-go.

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So I recommend highly that you go through the application briefly and select those that

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you know are relevant for any drop downs or radio buttons or checkboxes. First, just to get a glimpse

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of all of the potential questions you may be asked. So you're not scrambling at the end of the

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application period.

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There are generally several sections of the application to be completed,

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applicant information, there may be a program specific eligibility section,

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program description and scope,

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need and outcomes. Be mindful that when we ask

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for need and outcomes we are looking for specificity. So that may be noted here

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to be specific and include relevant data, but if not that is typically what is

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being reviewed for.

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We also look for administrative and financial capacity of

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the organization who is applying.

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And finally, there will be some required documentation

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that may be requested to be uploaded

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and submitted with the application.

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You'll notice that there is only one file options

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for each question.

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So in the event that two things are being asked for,

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for example, current and prior year budget,

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it, you will have to combine those two into one file in order to upload the information.

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And here you can see in this help text, this HUD conflict of interest disclosure form can

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be found in the files section of the solicitation.

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So, there's actually a link that allows you to go back.

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If you open this up, it will take you to the solicitation link and then back to the files

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that you were looking for if you get to that section and you need to download the file again.

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All

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right, so you'll note that when I clicked that back to solicitation, I had not saved

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the application.

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So take that as a lesson learned to be sure to save your draft application before you

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click off of this section.

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All right, once you have completed the main application section, there actually

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is additional information.

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So if you go to the right scroll bar and scroll down, there will be an option for application

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budget and goals.

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Here under actions, you can actually edit the budget and edit goals.

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Now not every application may ask for a budget and goals through this method.

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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.

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So just pay particular attention to the instructions and if you get down to the bottom and there

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is no budget option or no goals option that is likely intentional for that particular

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application and meaning that it is not required.

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However, I will walk through it just in case the application you are submitting does

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require a budget and goals.

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So here we'll click edit budget.

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It

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will bring you to a new page that has the budget summary here at the top and then a list of budget items.

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You want to glance through this to see if everything you expect to request is here.

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And if not, you will use this other category for additional requests that are not captured in these categories.

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But I highly recommend that you utilize the categories given.

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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.

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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.

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You will actually open up, like I just did, open up the line item, and then click into this cell that says cost.

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Now a cursor doesn't appear but it does turn blue. And then just use your keypad

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to enter the request. So for example here let's request $30,000 in personnel, okay

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I'm going to click off of it and now you can see I've requested $30,000 in

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direct costs and that's been updated also up here on the budget summary.

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We

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But instead, simply use the one line to summarize your request for each line item.

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For example, if we add $3,000 for supplies, it's the same.

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If you are making a request for a grant that requires a match,

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Match information can also be uploaded here

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and you'll want to add additional line items

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in the event of match.

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So for example, if we have purchased equipment that will count as match, I'll enter that

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cost here and

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then change this item type to cost share.

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Cost share is another equivalent for match and

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you'll see once I've clicked

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off of that it did update over here to cost share and we'll also have updated

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here. So the total amount on the left is going to be your total grant request.

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Total amount on the right is going to be any match or cost share that you're

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contributing to the grant.

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Please use the save option to save your changes. You

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can add a note if needed. And then use this budget narrative to provide an

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explanation for your budget request. So because this is rolled up, this $30,000

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let's say it's a large grant, you're actually asking for $300,000. You'll

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want to use the budget narrative section

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to explain the breakdown of that 300,000

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and the personnel that it will be provided to

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and their job title or duties.

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In addition to providing additional information

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or explanation for particularly high dollar requests

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or dollar requests that you'll need to explain the purpose.

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So if you're asking for mileage and travel,

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Is that for daily travel? Is that for travel to a training or a conference?

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Be specific about your request in the narrative.

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Okay, in the event that you don't know what your match is going to be used for,

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or the type of category that your match will be used for,

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you can use the other option to report your match.

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There are two other sections. Either is fine. We recommend that you use number 21 other, but either is fine.

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And if

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you do have, for example, if you're matching personnel dollar for dollar, you can in that case add another row for the

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purpose of recording your match.

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So

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here it shows 30,000 direct and 30,000 cost share.

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You can also use this little blue button to save and

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I'll give you errors if there is something that is missing.

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So here it's asking for a title and description for that match information that I already entered.

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So I'll want to provide additional information here.

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There's also this Excel export option.

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So, if you need to provide an example of your budget to your boss or if you need to export

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the budget request and have somebody else fill it out, you can use this option to export

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and get the information necessary from that individual or just keep for your records.

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Okay, once you're done, be sure you have saved and returned to your application.

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Okay,

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it may make you continue to sign in and

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then you will want to click actions and

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edit goals for the final portion of your application.

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Now not every request has a goals as I mentioned before, but if it does, this is how you'll

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enter it.

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On the left, you'll see the goal and objective.

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For example, for CDBG, there are goals for assisting businesses with grants, doing homeowner

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housing rehabilitation, serving individuals through public services, and here you'll

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enter the goal that you have that meets that goal or objective.

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So in my case, for example, let's say that I have a goal of serving 100 individuals through public services.

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The direct cost matching and program income expenditures are not a required portion of the goals, only the target units.

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And then you can go ahead and save.

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We

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turn to the application.

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Once your profile is complete and the application is completely ready to submit, this button

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here will turn green and at that point you'll want to click submit.

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It's grayed out for this application because there are required fields that have not been

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completed.

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But once those required fields are completed,

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you can mark your application as complete and then submit.

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Please note that the individual who submits the application will be the default individual for managing the grant once received.

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So be sure to select the individual to create the application, knowing that they will be the one to receive the emails.

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subsequent to the grant award if you are successful to submit the quarterly or

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however often financial reports and program reports and closeout documents.

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So that individual who submits the application will be the default

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individual to receive the grant award.

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It can be changed but it can be a little

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bit of a hassle, so just a recommendation there.

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And that is how you will apply for

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a grant using the ESAVIS portal.