The estimated post date of Designation Renewal System (DRS) Round 6 Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) is now delayed to January 17, 2018 with an estimated due date of March 22, 2018. The list of grants up for competition remains unchanged. We’ve heard from some of you that the initial timeline was challenging with the holidays, so hopefully this helps to alleviate some of that stress!
The new timeline for DRS Round 6 gives you approximately 6 more weeks for planning. Revisit your pre-FOA strategy to update your planning. Below are a few items that may be helpful to address in the coming weeks:
- Communicate about the updated timeline – internally and externally. Think about your planning team, staff who will be impacted by the new dates, and anyone you’ve been in touch with externally to help plan your proposal.
- Revisit your timeline. Find out from your planning team if they have any constraints that may prevent them from being available during certain stages of the proposal development process. Knowing this ahead of time will help you to plan accordingly.
- Consider when approvals will take place. Look at when your Policy Council and Governing Body will be meeting and flag any timeline-related concerns.
- Continue to refine your program design. The more you have decided ahead of the FOA posting the better. You’ll have a smoother proposal development process if you know your end goal ahead of time.
- Leverage this time to collect data and resources that will be needed for your application.
As always, please feel free to be in touch to explore how we can help. Foundations for Families provides a range of services – tools, guidance and full grant writing – to agencies needing assistance with proposal development.
Thank you.