On Thursday, May 26, the Children’s Services Council of Leon County (CSC Leon) approved the intent to fund 30 applications received from 28 entities as part of its inaugural funding cycle for Summer 2022. This first round of funding was designed as one-time program investments to expand the capacity of existing programs to better meet the needs of children (ages 0-12), youth (ages 13-24), and families in Leon County during the summer months of June – August. Upon contract execution, the selected entities will receive the funds as an allocation at the beginning of the project period and be required to submit a detailed report outlining expenses, outcomes and demographics of individuals served by no later than September 15, 2022. Any CSC Leon funds not expended by August 30, 2022, must be returned along with the detailed report.
Prior to releasing the request for applications, the Council approved allowing any entity the option to apply for funding; as such, applicants were not limited to a specific type or category of providers. In addition, the Council awarded extra points to an entity that (1) applied as part of a collaboration of providers partnering to address a particular need or gap in any one of the eight domains, (2) used technology or mobile or home-based delivery of services in its model, and/or (3) facilitated better connections to legal services, mental health or workforce development.
In total, CSC Leon received 53 completed applications from 51 entities; requested funding totaled $4.1 million. Each application was independently reviewed by three of six external evaluators from the community. Each evaluator received training and a detailed evaluation manual, and was required to disclose possible conflicts of interest. Evaluators who disclosed perceived or actual conflicts were assigned to a different domain.
The Council met on the morning of Thursday, May 26, to review the scores and make a determination of which programs to fund. Instead of going program by program, the Council considered multiple approaches to creating criteria for funding approval. In its desire to create equity in capacity and to fund in as many domains as possible, the Council based its decision on individual category scores and not the overall total score, meaning that selected programs demonstrated strengths in a majority of categories scored. The methodology is outlined below.
Methodology
A total score for each category was assigned for each application. The Council then applied a filter to identify “high scores” as the top 25% of all possible points in that category. As such, a high score was identified using the point ranges for each category as follows:
· Organizational Profile: 23 – 30 points
· Project Narrative: 90 – 120 points
· Budget: 57 – 75 points
· Funding Deliverables: 34 – 45 points
· Extra Points: 23 – 30 points
Next, looking at the categories, the Council selected applicants who earned a high score in at least three of the five categories listed above. This stratification does not mean that all applications that scored within a certain total score range were funded, but rather that the top scorers from each category were identified and then, the applications that were top scorers in at least three of the five categories were selected.
This methodology resulted in 30 applications being selected to move forward in the funding process for Summer 2022, with a total requested of $1,634,333.50. This list is published below.