IAF-02 PRA Supporting Statement A and B Grant Application

IAF-02

New Collection

Grant Application

SUPPORTING STATEMENT A: JUSTIFICATION

1. The IAF works to promote sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean by offering small investments directly to civil society organizations through funding actions, such as grants and cooperative agreements. By gathering information about the grant proponent and proposed grant activities, the IAF is best positioned to responsibly award grants to further its mission in the region.

2. The grant application in GovGrants will be collected from each proponent (grant seeker), including details about the applicant’s organization, the development opportunity, and proposed project activities. Using this information, IAF is able to perform an initial assessment of the proposed project and determine which applicants are qualified as well as which projects are best positioned to advance grassroots development in the region. The IAF has made an effort to standardize the basic level of information required for this review in order to reduce the burden on both applicants and IAF staff reviewing the applications.

3. Grant application information is collected directly online from the proponent through IAF’s GovGrants platform. Proponents are provided with training and information is translated into their languages to minimize burden.

4. The User Acceptance Testing team (composed of IAF staff members) has been working with the contractor to ensure that all data points are entered into the system only once and that this information is not collected nor duplicated elsewhere. All information collections IAF-02 and IAF-03, which cover the application and reporting process, auto populate any information which was previously requested so users will not be required to enter information more than once. GovGrants’ financial and programmatic reporting information will serve as the agency’s single source of truth (SSOT) for data.

5. IAF’s grantees include small grassroots organizations and businesses. To minimize burden, grantees are provided with user manuals and information is translated into their languages so that they can easily complete the grant application. In addition, the IAF has made a concerted effort to reduce the number of fields in its application to those that it needs to effectively select proponents to award grants.

6. If the IAF did not collect this information from proponents, obtained it less frequently, or obtained the information from less proponents or a sample/subset of proponents, the IAF could not properly assess each individual grant application. The IAF is committed to mitigating technical obstacles to reduce burden by providing training sessions to proponents on how to use the system and providing other technical aids in the relevant languages.

7. There are no special circumstances applicable to this information collection.

8. The first Federal Register Notice was published on August 11, 2023 (88 FR 54644). The agency received no public comments. The second Federal Register Notice was published on November 8, 2023 (88 FR 77106).

9. The IAF would not be providing any payment or gift to respondents.

10. When trade secrets or confidential commercial or financial information are submitted to the agency in this collection, they will be held in confidence to the extent permitted by applicable law including the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) at 5 U.S.C. section 552(b)(4) in addition personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy will be held in confidence according to 5 U.S.C. section 552(b)(6). The personal information of United States citizens and permanent residents will also be subject to the protections of 5 U.S.C. 552a and 22 CFR Part 1003.

11. Not applicable. None of the questions on this form are of a sensitive nature.

12. The estimated burden of collecting this information per year is as follows:

1,400 respondents

x 1 per respondent

=1,400 total annual responses

x 14 hours per average respondent

=19,600 respondent hours

x $15.62/hour for personnel, record-keeping, overhead

$306,152 total cost to respondents

The IAF receives approximately 1,400 concept notes per year.

A note on the hourly wage of grantees: The average hourly wage of $15.62 is based on the grantees’ budgets submitted to the IAF as part of the Grant Agreement package using the average salary for a project director at $43,000 and the average salary for an administrative assistant at $22,000.

13. There are no additional costs to the respondents or recordkeepers resulting from this information collection.

14. The estimated annualized cost to the Federal government is as follows:

1,400 respondents

x 1 per respondent

=1,400 total annual responses

x 1 hour to review one response

=1,400 total federal hours

x $45.14 GS-12/1 (DCB) hourly wage

$63,196 total cost to the Federal government

15. This is a new ICR and figures are new and do not reflect adjustments to previously reported information.

16. The results will not be published.

17. The IAF will display the OMB expiration date on each form.

18. The IAF is not seeking an exception to the certification statement.

SUPPORTING STATEMENT B: COLLECTION OF INFORMATION EMPLOYING STATISTICAL METHODS.

This supporting statement does not contain any collection of information requirements that employ statistical methods.

Last updated 8/11/2023