The mission of DEED is to grow the economy of Minnesota, for everyone. One of the most important ways we pursue the mission is through partnerships. Minnesota is home to many nonprofit and civic organizations that support Minnesotans in finding meaningful employment across the state. By working with strong partners, we can do so much more for Minnesota's job seekers and businesses.

Over the last few years, we have held many engagement sessions with our partners and other workforce stakeholders. In response to that community feedback, we've worked hard to improve how we solicit applications and award grants. This is one of the ways we create opportunities for organizations to access state dollars tied to DEED's mission. We've improved our grantmaking processes to ensure they are transparent, swift, and fair.

Starting on May 12 in Rochester, we will begin a statewide tour – inviting Minnesotans to join us at community gatherings to hear details about DEED's Workforce Development competitive grant process. Information about these community gatherings is available, and we invite you to register for one of the sessions today!

What Exactly is a Competitive Grant?

DEED administers competitive grant processes that award grants to organization across the state. DEED publicizes these opportunities, organizations respond through a Request for Proposals (RFP) process, and then DEED evaluates the proposals and awards the grant. These dollars help fund services such as workforce training programs, entrepreneurship programs, small business assistance, childcare services and more.

The authority for DEED to award these grants must specifically come from state law, and DEED is required to follow the rules and statutes outlined by Minnesota's Office of Grants Management when awarding these funds to organizations.

Workforce Development competitive grants include:

• Pathways to Prosperity (P2P)
• Southeast Asian Economic Relief Competitive Grant Program
• Support Services Competitive Grant Program
• Women in High-Wage, High-Demand, Nontraditional Jobs Grant Program (WESA)
• African Immigrant Workforce Grant

Our timeline for release of grant RFPs – for these and any new programs named in legislation for State Fiscal Years 2024 and 2025 – will be determined by the end date of the current legislative session. 

Increasing Transparency in Our Grantmaking

At a basic level, being a good partner means ensuring our programs and opportunities are known and available to more people. In the past, DEED has:

• Posted grant opportunities for a minimum of 30 days to allow for more potential grantees to have adequate time to prepare thoughtful and thorough proposals.
• Organized regular planning meetings throughout the state and online for potential grant applicants to attend and ask questions. Details about these upcoming meetings are available online.
• Shared grant opportunities in the State Register, on social media, and in culturally-specific or community newspapers and community meetings.
• Revamped the community review process to make it easier for philanthropic foundations, state agencies, and individual community members to participate. Reviewers evaluate the community impact, racial equity and relevancy for the targeted population identified within each grant. Reviewer expectations have been clearly set; and their feedback has been incorporated into the overall evaluation.
• We now use a numeric scoring system, which was clearly identified in the Request for Proposal (RFP) and includes weighted criteria for verifiable and measurable diversity, equity, and inclusion in outcomes or performance.
• Both successful and unsuccessful grant applicants receive their score with a letter communicating their funding decisions.

Improving Speed

In an effort to improve speed and efficiency in our grantmaking, we will continue to:

• Include our boilerplate grant agreement language and risk assessment requirements in our RFPs. This will allow potential grantees to see what is required of them when they are awarded a state grant. This will ensure a swifter contract execution and better expectation setting throughout the grant process.
• Assign each grantee to one grant coordinator who will act as a concierge for each grantee and be the single point of contact throughout the life of their grant.
• Clearly communicate next steps along with award decisions so grantees can assist DEED in meeting these timeline goals.
• Continue to speed up grant decisions and announcements. The amount of time it takes DEED to make a funding decision is one of the most common grantee concerns. Over the last several years, we formalized and enacted a process that addressed this.

With these improvements in place, we anticipate our competitive grant schedule to follow this basic timeline:

• May/June – hold community outreach opportunities throughout the state and finalize RFPs
• June/July – post competitive RFPs
• July/August – score and review RFPs
• September/October – announce award decisions

Improve Grant Management

Getting a grant agreement finalized is only the beginning of our work. In many cases, grantees need to submit revised or finalized work plans and budgets; as well as information required for organizational financial review. In order to improve customer service and fairness around the management of a grant, DEED has made the following changes:

• Created a single channel to improve communication for grantee questions and requests. DEED continues to strive to respond to all requests within 48 hours, unless we are prohibited by law from responding during a specific time during the RFP process.
• Grant managers provide training and technical assistance, review performance and financial reports, and conduct regular check-in meetings in partnership with grantees to avoid burdensome oversight.

These are just some of the changes we've made to our competitive grant process over the last few years. We'd like to hear from you about the effectiveness of these changes – and we also invite your feedback and suggestions for the future as we continue to improve our partnerships and the competitive grant process at DEED. Register for an upcoming community session today!