Increasing Understanding of the Grant-Writing Process

This initiative directly affects employees involved in the grant application process. Ultimately, with successful grant awards, this initiative affects the community at large. CGCDPH depends on grant funding to provide robust community services that affect health outcomes. This initiative was supported by the department’s leadership for several reasons: its wide impact on multiple divisions in the department, the evidence that a standardized process was not always followed, and the potential negative effect the current state could have on the department’s funding. Initially, the team set out to address all issues related to grants but soon split the QI effort into grant writing and grant management, given the sharp distinctions between these two activities. The grant writer led the process and invited the team members to participate. The team members all had been grant coordinators at one point and had varying levels of grant coordination experience (ranging from 1 year to nearly 15) and diversity of funders (i.e., at the federal, national, state, and local levels). During the Plan phase, the team developed an aim statement and a current state process map (see attached). Brainstorming and an affinity diagram were used to identify root causes of the problem. After reviewing the root causes, staff agreed that the internal grant-writing responsibilities needed to be more widely shared and streamlined, and the department should consider collaborating with partners on grant applications, as appropriate. With all this in mind, the team developed a future state process map with swim lanes (see attached). In the new process, grant coordinators evaluate potential grant opportunities before they recommend that the department apply for the grant. The evaluation is guided by a tool that helps assess whether the grant is aligned with departmental priorities. Grant coordinators also determine whether the health department is eligible and can meet the funder’s expectations. Finally, they also provide additional information about goals, objectives, activities, and budget that greatly facilitates the grant-writing process. Tools were developed to assist grant coordinators in their expanded roles.

Pre- and post-surveys were used to determine staff members' understanding of the process. The short electronic survey was sent via SurveyMonkey to staff who were coordinating grant services. The outcome measure was the increase in staff who understood the grant-writing process. Process measures included the number of staff who took the pre- and post-surveys and the establishment of an adopted process for grant writing.