Introductory Email to Grantees - Contact Information

Attachment B1. Introductory E-mail to Grantees to Request Partner Contact Information (from CDC)

Subject: Upcoming SRCP Program Evaluation - Cost Study with Partners

Good afternoon ______________,

As you know, the CDC Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention and RTI International are conducting a program evaluation of SRCP. An important part of the evaluation involves a cost study of organizations partnering with SRCP to implement sodium reduction strategies. This cost study will provide important information to health departments, partner organizations, and policymakers regarding the actual costs to partner organizations of implementing sodium reduction strategies. It is essential to collect costs at the partner level, as we’ve learned that partners often incur substantial implementation costs. Your input, as well as input from your partners, will be invaluable for documenting the partners’ costs contributing to implementation of SRCP activities and will be essential for supporting future work.

We are working with RTI to make this data collection effort as streamlined and efficient as possible. We will invite all partner organizations to participate in the survey, but participation is voluntary. We will provide respondents with a $50 gift card in appreciation of their time for participating. To facilitate the data collection, RTI will be available to assist respondents with the tool through email or phone for questions and technical difficulties.

In preparation for the upcoming cost study, we ask that grantees provide contact information for partners organizations involved with implementing SRCP activities. Please complete the attached contact information table at your earliest convenience, or no later than [insert date]. Ideally, we would like to have the contact information of the person who is familiar with everyday operations, management, and administration of all activities that support SRCP. This information will be shared with RTI so that RTI can invite your select partners to participate in the study. We also ask the you reach out to these partners in advance of RTI’s email to provide them with basic information about the study. This will allow you to initiate the conversation about the study before they receive RTI’s email. We have included draft email text below that you can use in reaching out to partners. Please feel free to tailor this text based on your relationship with specific partners.

Thank you,

CDC

Contact Information Table

#	Name of Partner Organization	Name of Contact Person at Partner Organization	Email Address of Contact Person
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Dear [insert contact]:

Good afternoon. We wanted to let you know that as part of the CDC evaluation of the Sodium Reduction in Communities Program (SRCP), RTI International is conducting an analysis of the program implementation costs for the 8 SRCP grantees and their partners (OMB #). This cost study will provide important information to health departments, policymakers, and partner organizations regarding the actual costs of key program activities and, when linked with outcome data, it will be able to demonstrate the return on investment of sodium reduction efforts. As a key partner in SRCP RTI will be reaching out to you to request your participation in the SRCP cost study. Your participation in this study is voluntary. Your input will be invaluable for documenting the partner costs contributing to implementation of SRCP activities and will be essential for supporting future work. We hope that you will consider participating.

Kind Regards,