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Dragonfly, Summer 2001 Funding Opportunities Expanded: The Outreach Project Awards

Curious about outreach? Considering working with consumers, health professionals, or community groups in new ways? The Regional Medical Library wants to encourage you, and we have revamped our outreach funding initiatives in hopes of making the award process easier and your outreach efforts more successful. Outreach to underserved populations, to populations suffering from poor health status, and to the health care providers, public health workers, librarians and other health intermediaries who serve these communities remains a key element of our mission. This year, hoping to involve network members in effective outreach and mindful of the successes and challenges of past efforts, we will initially offer three types of awards (always hopeful that NLM will provide additional opportunities): Outreach Subcontract for Resource Libraries (applications have closed and we anticipate an award announcement soon), Outreach Project Awards (proposals due September 28, 2001), and Mini-Awards (more on those in the next installment).

Network members in the Pacific Northwest have conducted a wide variety of outreach activities through the years. Wonderful new partnerships have evolved, and we suspect the impact of your projects is much greater than we realize. One area of difficulty has been evaluation, qualitative and quantitative assessment of outcomes. Most projects have been funded for only one year, and this just hasn't been enough time to thoroughly plan, conduct and evaluate outreach. In the past we also lacked tools to support planning and assessment. With this in mind, features of the new Outreach Project Awards include:

• Increased funding level; $15,000
• Longer project period; negotiated at 18-24 months
• Planning and evaluation resources; Measuring the Difference guide, RML evaluation and planning workshops, National Outreach Evaluation Resource Center
• Revised guidelines for proposal sections dealing with identifying needs; goals, outcomes and objectives; and evaluation planning (see especially sections C, D, E of the Statement of Work in the Request for Proposals)
• Availability of training mini-awards to "test the waters" and establish collaborations with potential outreach project partners.

What should you do next? Review the Outreach Project Award RFP. Proposals are due September 28, 2001. In order for us to enlist adequate numbers of reviewers, please notify us of your intent to apply by September 1, 2001. To do this, contact Linda Milgrom, the RML Outreach Coordinator, by email (lmilgrom@u.washington.edu) or phone (1-800-338-7657 or 1-206-221-3400). Linda is also happy to discuss project ideas or concerns.

Dragonfly, Summer, 2001 -- Vol.32, Number 3
(posted on PNRNews August 9, 2001)

URL: http://nnlm.gov/pnr/news/200107/outfunding.html