Contents 1 Eligibility 2 Criteria 3 Content and Engagement Priorities 4 Military Families Community of Practice Leadership Team 5 Financial Support 6 Evaluation 7 Scope of Work 8 Budget Inclusions 9 Timelines (2010)

Eligibility

Any eXtension Community of Practice (CoP) may submit an application to contribute content and join the Military Families CoP.

Criteria

CoPs must describe how they will strengthen military families and youth. Specifically, how they will increase and strengthen community capacity support of military families, increase professional and workforce development opportunities, expand and strengthen family, child care, and youth development programs.

Content and Engagement Priorities

1. CoPs should identify existing content that can be re-purposed to support the needs of military families and youth. The work will involve re-categorizing content for association with the new eXtension Military Families CoP.
2. CoPs must be committed to engaging military families and youth using appropriate social media networks where targeted audiences are active. CoPs will need to describe how they will engage the audience and the social networks and environments to be used. eXtension will provide assistance to CoPs in the development and implementation of their engagement strategies.
3. CoPs may propose developing new content, programs, and services to support and strengthen military families and youth.
4. CoPs may propose, in priority order, content and programs that may be designed or, in the case of existing content, redesigned, to increase educational value for the military families and youth. Instructional design and goals for increasing learner interaction through the use of multimedia, animation, video and/or related technologies will need to be described. Proposed efforts should be described according to the expected time and resources required to develop them (e.g., < 20 hours; < 40 hours; < 80 hours; > 80 hours). All CoP-proposed efforts will be aggregated and reviewed by the RFA review panel. eXtension is expecting to provide access to educational multimedia and integrated technology support services; however, CoPs should plan on allocating a percentage of their time and resources in the development of approved enhancements. It will be critical that eXtension staff and CoPs work together to accomplish related program goals.
5. IMPORTANT: Re-purposing existing content, programs, and/or services and engaging military families and youth using appropriate social media networks are required actions in order to qualify for funding!

Military Families Community of Practice Leadership Team

Each contributing CoP will be asked to name an individual(s) to join the Military Families CoP Leadership Team, which will be responsible for organizing, leading and managing the new CoP. Once the leadership team has been identified, the team will need to identify one or two representatives to work with a project leader to advance the goals and oversee the work of the new CoP. Over time, the leadership team will also be expected to work with others associated with the Military Families Partnership (e.g., institutions, military entities with family program responsibilities, and others) to grow CoP membership and contributions.

Financial Support

The maximum award a CoP may receive is $150,000 to be managed over a 12-month period; however, given program priorities and the fact that not all CoPs produce content, programs, and services in support of military families and youth, awards are expected to vary in terms of size and scope. As a "guide" for preparing budgets, proposed costs are listed relevant to the content and engagement priorities described above.

1. +/- $20,000: Re-purposing existing content, programs, and/or services (amount requested should be commensurate with the content, programs, and/or services to be re-purposed)
2. +/- $30,000: Engaging military families and youth using appropriate social networks (amount requested should vary depending upon the CoP's social media plan)
3. +/- $60,000: Developing new content, programs, and services (amount requested should be commensurate with the amount of new content, programs, and/or services to be developed)
4. +/- $30,000: Design and/or redesign existing content, programs, and/or services to increase educational value for military families and youth (amount requested should be reflect the content, programs, and/or services (existing or new) to be designed)
5. +/- $10,000: Conduct project and educational evaluation; reporting.
6. IMPORTANT: Funding is contingent upon the approval and the awarding of funds by USDA-NIFA.

Evaluation

eXtension is required to provide regular and ongoing project updates and information to USDA. This includes monthly (by the 15th of each month) reports to USDA that include, 1) significant progress on stated goals/objectives; 2) future plans related to stated goals/objectives; 3) relevant challenges that need to be addressed by DoD/USDA/Institution; and 4) relevant success stories that would be of interest to USDA/DoD leadership. CoPs are expected to contribute to these reports. Also, CoPs are expected to evaluate educational impacts as described in the Military Families Community of Practice Evaluation Plan.

Scope of Work

Please include the following information in the Scope of Work.

1. Provide a summary of the proposal, what the CoP intends to accomplish and support (e.g., re-purpose content, engage military families and youth using appropriate social networks, developing new content, programs, and services, and redesigning existing content, programs, and/or services to increase educational value for military families.
2. Logic Model to describe the 1) re-purposing of existing content; 2) engagement of military families and youth using appropriate social networks; 3) development of new content, programs, and services, and 4) design and/or redesign of existing content and programs to increase educational value for military families and youth. Please describe all outputs and outcomes.
3. Work to be accomplished over the next 12 months. Please note the start date is yet to be identified, but could come as early as March 1, 2010. Please include detailed deliverables including:

• The number and identification of existing content to be re-purposed
• What social networks and environments will be used to engage military families and youth
• New content, programs, and services to be developed to support military families and youth
• Content to be designed and/or redesigned to increase their educational value for military families and youth
• Other deliverables, e.g., educational, analytical tools
• Evaluation plans (please see Military Families Community of Practice Evaluation Plan)
• Anticipated dates for inclusion of content and programs in the eXtension public site (public release). The scheduled launch of the Military Families Community of Practice based upon using re-purposed content is expected to occur within four months following NIFA funding approval (e.g., a March 1, 2010 start date means the Military Families CoP should launch by June 30, 2010).
• Resources currently available to this proposed CoP and plans for CoP sustainability
• Name of individual(s) from the CoP to join the Military Families Community of Practice leadership team

Budget Inclusions

CoPs should include the following items in their budget and budget narrative

1. Funding for any face-to-face meetings and organizational work to develop the content, programs, and services
2. Salary compensation for one or more of the primary investigators and key content contributors
3. Multimedia content development support
4. Travel expenses
5. Subcontract amounts to identified institutions
6. CoP budget form

Note: The majority of the technology infrastructure required by CoPs and their members will be provided by eXtension and should not be included in the budget. The exception would be certain instructional and/or multimedia design resources needed to design new and/or redesign existing content and programs to increase educational value for the audience. For a description of such support please link to Support Provided by eXtension.

• A maximum of 10% indirect costs, on direct costs may be claimed. Graduate student tuition reimbursement and office furniture are unallowable costs.
• This cooperative agreement opportunity is available through an Interagency Agreement between the Department of Defense, Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Military Community & Family Policy and the Department of Agriculture, NIFA, Families 4-H and Nutrition (F4-HN) to increase the capacity of Cooperative Extension to support military families, youth, and communities.

Timelines (2010)

1. January 13: Military Families CoP Proposal distributed to CoPs
2. February 5: CoP proposals due
3. February 12: Review panel completes reviews and provides feedback.
4. February 19: CoP proposals are finalized with those CoPs to receive awards.
5. February 26: FINAL proposals/documents due to eXtension (e.g., signed cover sheet with signatures (CoP leader and a sponsored program officer), statement of work, budget and budget narrative.

• Contact Information: Contact Dan Cotton at dan.cotton@extension.org, 402.472.8841 or Craig Wood at craig.wood@extension.org, 859.323.8472 with questions related to submitting a proposal. Email completed proposals to craig.wood@extension.org.