Funding Opportunity Announcement Frequently Asked Questions
The questions concerning the 805 Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) have been categorized by topic. Please select a category from the menu on the right to refine your search.
NOTE: All page numbers mentioned in the frequently asked questions and their answers refer to the funding opportunity full announcement found on Grants.gov.
Funding Opportunity Description
Q: What is the purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA)?
The purpose of the State Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity Program
(State NPAO Program) is to improve healthful eating and physical activity to
prevent and control obesity and other chronic diseases by building and
sustaining statewide capacity.
Q: Where can a list of previously funded states be found, including
contact information?
For a current list of funded partners and their contact information, see
Funded States.
Q: Who should we contact for additional questions?
Page 41 identifies Claire Heiser for program technical assistance and
Wilhelmina Robertson* for financial technical assistance. Please email them
with your questions.
Please note that Wilhelmina Robertson has been replaced by Teresa
Belcher. Please contact Teresa Belcher for financial technical assistance.
Teresa Belcher
Department of Health and Human Services
CDC Procurement and Grants Office
2920 Bradywine Road, MS-K75
Atlanta, GA 30341
Telephone: 770-488-2919
E-mail: FWX2@cdc.gov
Q: By sending the application through Grants.gov, is our state's
willingness and ability to comply with administrative and national policy
requirements confirmed without actual signed paperwork?
Yes.
Q: Where can we find Grants.gov support?
Please e-mail support@Grants.gov, or
call 770-488-2700 or 1-800-518-4726 (1-800-518-GRANTS) for help with
Grants.gov.
Q: How does an applicant register for e-mail notifications about FOA
amendments?
Find and click on the FOA on grants.gov. You will see a statement on the
Web site that reads: “If you would like to receive notifications of changes
to the grant opportunity click on the send me change notification emails
link on the synopsis page. The only thing you need to provide for this
service is your email address. No other information is requested.”
Q: Is it expected that the fruit and vegetable program will be
organizationally placed within the Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity
Program?
A: The Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) requires that the states
program addresses the six target areas that include the target to increase
fruit and vegetable consumption. The FOA is structured to give states
flexibility to decide where it is best within their organizational structure
to place each programmatic effort that addresses the target areas. It is our
intent that the fruit and vegetable program be coordinated and integrated as
much as possible into the state program.
Q: Concerning awardee activity 5, performance measure, “develop and use
an evaluation advisory group,” what is CDC’s intention for the function and
role of this advisory group?
A: CDC intention is that the state programs receive advice from partners and
stakeholders both internal and external to the State health department
concerning evaluation needs and proposed activities in this area. The state
program has flexibility in determining the group membership and how this
group will function. The application should include 1) a clear description
of the advisory group membership and functions, and 2) the rationale for the
structure and function of the group.
Q: Is there any coordination between this FOA and the United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Stamp Nutrition Education or Women,
Infants and Children (WIC) programs, in particular their not allowing
negative nutrition messages about sodas or junk foods?
A: There is currently no coordination between this FOA and USDA concerning
this issue. States are encouraged to be aware of these potential issues and
plan their program accordingly.
Q: Is there a preference to specific settings such as worksites,
community, or schools?
A: The FOA’s reference to settings is non-specific (see impact objectives
wording, “in various settings”) so that states can define their needs and
clearly describe their rationale for focusing on specific settings.
Q: Under the Criteria section on page 33, what does the phrase “approved
state plan” mean?
A: An “approved state plan” is defined as a nutrition, physical activity and
obesity plan that has received official approval by the highest level of
state government management as deemed necessary by the state. This approval
could possible by in the form of written signature from the State health
department commissioner and/or the State governor.
Q: Under the Criteria section on page 36, what is the definition of
“milestones” ?
A: The word “milestones” in this sentence is broadly defined as major events
or activities that occur in the state plan development process. For example,
the completion of a certain number of town hall meetings or focus groups.
Q: As a currently funded state, is it appropriate to include existing
interventions in our year 1 work plan?
A: This is acceptable as long as the intervention is a part of the work plan
and addresses the proposed goals and objectives.
Q: The FOA states funding preferences for states with higher adult
obesity rates that are referenced in Attachment V. Will child obesity rates
be considered as a funding preference if a state can provide this
information in the context of health disparities?
A: The only funding preferences that will be considered are stated in the
FOA. States are encouraged to provide additional health disparities data in
the background section of the application.
Q: What CDC technical assistance and support will be made available to
state that don’t choose to compete or do not receive awards?
A: NPAO is committed to supporting all 50 states and territories with onsite
training and on-going technical assistance.
Q: Please provide clarification of terminology for the following:
surveillance plan, surveillance data plan, and surveillance reporting plan.
A: The technical assistance manual provides definition and description on
page 23.
Q: Does the proposed work plan need to address all target areas in year
1?
A: The expectation is that all target areas are addressed in the state plan.
There is flexibility on how the state proposes to address the target areas,
whether in the first year or subsequent years. However, addressing all of
the target areas should be included in the application.
Q: Why does target area six only include television viewing and not other
forms of screen time?
A: The technical assistance manual provides rationale for inclusion of only
television viewing. At this time, it is not an expectation that state
programs address other screen time.
Q: Because the technical assistance manual release is delayed and states
were unable to review prior to the technical assistance call, will another
technical assistance call be scheduled? Can the application due date be
extended since the technical assistance manual release was delayed?
A: The timeline is determined by the CDC Procuments and Grants Office (PGO)
and is based on the award date of June 30, 2008. The timeline will not allow
for another technical assistance call or an extension on the application due
date.
Q: How does an applicant register for e-mail notifications about FOA
amendments?
Find and click on the FOA on grants.gov. You will see a statement on the
web site that reads: “If you would like to receive notifications of changes
to the grant opportunity click on the send me change notification e-mails
link on the synopsis page. The only thing you need to provide for this
service is your e-mail address. No other information is requested.”
Q: We are a currently funded state that subcontracts approximately 90%
of the funds to the state university to carry-out the cooperative agreement
activities. This arrangement works well in our state. Is this arrangement
acceptable under the new FOA?
A: CDC does not rate cooperative agreement applications on any budgetary
arrangement. If you propose to continue this arrangement, please provide a
description and justification for this arrangement in your application.
Q: If our state does not have a state plan, should our year 1 work plan
include implementation of interventions?
A: For those states without a state plan, the focus of year 1 should be to
develop a state plan in collaboration with partners. Interventions should be
based on achieving priority goals and objectives for the state plan, so it
follows logically that intervention development and implementation begin
after developing the state plan.
Q: Please explain the purpose of the work plan and the implementation
plan. What is the difference between these two plans?
A: The purpose of the work plan is to describe the activities the state
agency's program (i.e., the "grantee") will conduct with the funding
received by CDC. The work plan should logically connect to the proposed
budget so that expenses in the budget are reflected in what the state agency
will do in the work plan.
The purpose of the implementation plan is to explain how the state plan will
be accomplished by all the state partners sharing in its implementation.
Usually partners jointly decide what are the priority state plan objectives
to address during a given time period (usually 12–18 months) and the
implementation plan describes what activities will occur by specific
partners to accomplish the priority objectives. Please note, that some of
the activities in the implementation plan will be accomplished by the state
health agency and these activities would also be described in the work plan.
Q: Please clarify where the responses to questions submitted to either
DNPAO-FOA2008@cdc.gov or directly
to the FOA programmatic contact will be posted on FOA Web site.
A: See our Frequently Asked Questions. Updates will
be made to the Web site so be sure to check the Web site periodically. In
addition, responses will be sent to our e-mail list serves on a weekly
basis. Notify Claire Heiser to receive these weekly updates.
Q: Should there be a separate evaluation section and an evaluation
section within the work plan or is one evaluation section appropriate?
A: Information about evaluation is required in two places of your
applications: (1) the text of the project narrative and (2) the work plan.
Regarding #1, guidance for completing the text portion of the evaluation
section in the project narrative is provided on page 23 of the FOA. In this
section you can make reference to the parts of your work plan for activities
related to the performance measures in Awardee Activity 5 for evaluation
(page 10 of the FOA). For #2, note that the suggested template for the work
plan on page 48 of the FOA has a column for evaluation indicators to measure
the work plan activities. These indicators should be of sufficient quality
to address the "indicators, measures, and milestones for monitoring progress
of the cooperative agreement work plan" referenced on page 23 of the FOA.
Q: Is possible to allow for extra pages above the 45-page limit for
states that already have approved state plans since this means addressing
activity 3? We are finding that we need between 2 to 10 extra lines for each
annual objective under activity 3 to include the information relevant to the
state plan including the relevant state plan objective and key partners.
A: We are not able to increase the page limits stated in the FOA. Note that
any pages submitted above the 45-page limit will not be reviewed. Consider
paraphrasing in a shortened version the referenced state plan objective and
cite the page number in the state plan where the entire objective is
located. Also consider prioritizing all of the provided information, as well
as including additional information in the 100-page appendices.
Q: For states with relatively low ranks for state adult obesity rates as
listed in the FOA Attachment V, will obesity rates of other subpopulations
such as children, low-income, or ethnic groups be considered in funding
preferences?
A: Funding preferences that will be considered are stated in the FOA. States
are encouraged to provide additional health disparities data in the
background section of the application to support the need for the proposed
work plan goals, objectives and activities.
Please note: Some of these publications are available for download only as *.pdf files. These files require Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to be viewed. Please review the information on downloading and using Acrobat Reader software.
* Links to non-Federal organizations found at this site are provided solely as a service to our users. These links do not constitute an endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the Federal Government, and none should be inferred. CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at these links.
Page last updated: March 3, 2008
Content Source: Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion