ATTACHMENT B:
NATIONAL FORECLOSURE MITIGATION COUNSELING PROGRAM
GRANT APPLICATION EVALUATION PROCESS – Round 6
The grant evaluation process was consistent and fair.

External reviewers were recruited to evaluate applications for funding. These external
reviewers were either consultants or staff loaned from the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation.

Reviewers disclosed any potential conflicts of interest before they were assigned to a review
team. Reviewers were not assigned to review applications for which they had either a
stated or perceived conflict of interest.

Each application was evaluated by a review team consisting of 3 persons. The ratio of
internal (NeighborWorks staff) to external reviewers was 2:1 for applications from NWOs
and 1:2 for applications from HUD-Approved Intermediaries and State Housing Finance
Agencies (HFAs). In addition, each review team was assigned a NeighborWorks staff team
lead to synthesize reviewers’ comments, facilitate discussion, and help the team arrive at
consensus around scoring decisions. The team lead did not score applications.

To ensure that applications were scored using the same objective criteria, all reviewers and
team leads were given a Reviewer’s Manual which contained a scoring rubric and
guidelines for determining final award amounts. All reviewers and team leads were
required to participate in training before they reviewed applications to ensure they
understood the rubric, the program design, and the scoring guidelines.

Each reviewer scored the applications independently. Then, each review team held a
concurrence call where the reviewers discussed their scores and reached consensus on a
score for each application.
Applicants requested a total of $124,273,187.50 in NFMC Round 6, nearly one and a half times
the amount eventually awarded. As stated in the Funding Announcement, each applicant could
request no more than $4,000,000 and no less than $50,000. In order to keep Round 6 awards
within the limits of available funds, a funding amount for each grant amount was determined
using the following six steps. First, the applications were reviewed and scored. Second, NWO
applications were separated from the HFA and HUD-Approved Intermediaries applications to
ensure that NWOs collectively did not receive a disproportionate amount of the available funds.
Third, reductions were made based upon the applicant’s review score. Fourth, the applicant’s
utilization rate of previous funding was considered such that priority was given to organizations
that were projected to fully expend existing NFMC grant funds and any Round 6 award.
Applicants were placed in one of 6 tiers according to the following projections; the date a Round 5
grantee is expected to utilize current NFMC funding, the date a new Round 6 grantee or returning
Round 1-4 grantee is projected to complete its Round 6 counseling award (See Exhibit 1). Fifth, an
across-the-board cut was applied to all recommended amounts. Finally, award floors were applied
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so that no NWO would receive less than $25,000 and no HUD-Approved Intermediaries or HFA
would receive less than $50,000. Each of these steps are detailed below.
Step 1: Application Review and Scoring

To calculate the recommended amount of total counseling funds, the review team’s
consensus score was entered into a master spreadsheet.

Consensus scores were determined by application section for each Applicant (Past
Performance, Compliance and Round 6 Performance Plan for Returning Grantees;
Demonstrated Experience and Round 6 Performance Plan for New Applicants), and some
sections were weighted to normalize the scores for all Applicants.

Reviewers were not able to score one Compliance question, pertaining to submitted
financial audits, as the information needed to score the question was not available until
after the review period. NFMC entered this score into the master spreadsheet to determine
the Applicant’s final score.
Step 2: Separation of NWOs from HFAs and HUD-Approved Intermediaries

Per statute, NWOs collectively may receive up to 15% of available funds. However, the
NWOs’ total requested amount and total reviewer recommended amount indicated that
NWOs were deserving of just 13% of all available funds – based on both their applications’
merit and the NWOs’ requests for funds. Accordingly, NWO applicants were separated
from HUD-Approved Intermediary and HFA applicants to ensure that this 13%/87% ratio
was maintained throughout the awards process.
Step 3: Reductions Based on Review Team Score

NFMC staff calculated the Applicant’s initial recommended award amount by multiplying
the review teams’ consensus score as a percentage against the Applicant’s total requested
amount. Each Applicant’s proposed Round 6 counseling units were also proportionally
adjusted according to the review teams’ consensus score. For example, if an applicant’s
total consensus score was 85, they were recommended 85% of the Applicant’s Round 6
request amount.
Example





An Applicant requested $800,000 in Round 6 funding.
The Applicant received a review team consensus score of 85.
The Applicants recommended amount from the review team is $680,000.
($800,000*.85 =$680,000)
Applicants proposed 10,000 in Round 6 counseling units.
Adjusted counseling units based on review teams consensus score is 8,500.
(10,000*.85=8,500)

Reductions based on review team consensus scores, as described in step 3, resulted in over
$105.8 million in recommended Round 6 funding. This is nearly 1.5 times over the
amount to award.
Exhibit: 1
Round 6 Extension Period
Round 6
Performance
Period
Round 6 Grant Period
Round 6 Extension Period
Oct-Dec11 Jan-March12 April-June12 July-Sept12 Oct-Dec12
Jan –June 2013
Tier 1a
 Round 5 Applicant that has completely utilized Round 5 award
 Returning Round 1-4 Applicant that is projected to finish Round 6 award by 12/31/2012
 New Round 6 Applicant that is projected to finish Round 6 award by 12/31/2012
100%
Tier 1b
 Round 5 Applicant that has not completely utilized Round 5 award and is projected to
finish that plus Round 6 award by 12/31/2012
90%
Tier 2
 Round 5 Applicant that has not completely utilized Round 5 award and is projected to
finish Round 6 award between 1/1/2013 and 2/28/2013
 Returning Round 1-4 Applicant that is projected to finish Round 6 award between
1/1/2013 and 2/28/2013
 New Round 6 Applicant that is projected to finish Round 6 award between 1/1/2013
and 2/28/2013
80%
Tier 3
 Round 5 Applicant that has not completely utilized Round 5 award and is projected to
finish Round 6 award between 3/1/2013 and 4/30/2013
 Returning Round 1-4 Applicant that is projected to finish Round 6 award between
3/1/2013 and 4/30/2013
70%
Outside of
Performance
Period

New Round 6 Applicant that is projected to finish Round 6 award between 3/1/2013
and 4/30/2013
Tier 4
 Round 5 Applicant that has not completely utilized Round 5 award and is projected to
finish Round 6 award between 5/1/2013 and 6/30/2013
 Returning Round 1-4 Applicant that is projected to finish Round 6 award between
5/1/2013 and 6/30/2013
 New Round 6 Applicant that is projected to finish Round 6 award between 5/1/2013
and 6/30/2013
Tier 5
 Round 5 Applicant that has not completely utilized Round 5 award and is projected to
finish Round 6 award after 6/30/2013
 Returning Round 1-4 Applicant that is projected to finish Round 6 award after
6/30/2013

60%
50%
New Round 6 Applicant that is projected to finish Round 6 award after 6/30/2013
Step 4: Consideration of Utilization Rate of Previous Funding

The Round 6 grant term runs through December 31, 2012. Some Applicants that were
awarded funds in Round 5 have not yet fully expended those funds, while others have
spent down all available funds and are in need of more. Efforts were made to prioritize
funding to those organizations determined to be in greatest need of additional funds, based
on when they were projected to run out of their Round 5 grant funds and spend down
their recommended Round 6 award as determined by their demonstrated performance in
providing foreclosure counseling. A utilization rate for each applicant was calculated based
on the assumption that the applicant would continue counseling at a rate equal to the
average of their highest three months of production in the NFMC program during their
two most recent funding rounds they’ve participated in, based on client intake dates. If the
Applicant had no past experience in NFMC or has not participated in NFMC after Round
2, demonstrated experience as reported in the Applicant’s Grant Application was
considered instead.

Each Applicant was placed in one of 6 tiers, according to the date it is expected to utilize
current Round 5 NFMC funding and projected Round 6 counseling award. Round 6
projections were based upon the adjusted counseling units resulting from the applied
review teams’ consensus score. Applicants in each tier had their recommended award
amounts reduced by a specific percentage (see Attachment B/Exhibit 1).

After this tiered cut approach was implemented, the resulting projected grant awards
totaled $87.7 million, more than the available funds to eventually award.
Step 5: Applied an Across-the-Board Cut

In order to bring the Round 6 awards within the limits of funds available, all applicants’
funding amounts were further reduced by a standard across the board cut. For HUDApproved Intermediaries and HFAs, this was a 14.8% cut. For NWOs, this was a 22.6%
cut.
Step 6: Applied an Award Amount Floor

An award amount floor was placed on grants in order to justify the cost/benefit of
processing and monitoring the grant. Consequently, no HUD-Approved Intermediary or
HFA received less than $50,000, and no NWO received less than $25,000.

These steps brought the total recommended funding amounts within the limits of
available funds. The result was recommended funding that totals $73,870,078.00.
Throughout the process, the same standards, criteria, and review processes were used for both
NWOs and HUD-Approved Intermediary/HFA applications. The process only varied when
criteria for Intermediaries and HFAs were not relevant for NWOs. The rubrics for the full
applications were very similar – differing only by the questions related to oversight, quality control,
and program administration that would be required by the additional function of an intermediary
or housing finance agency as an applicant with sub-applicants. To compensate HUD-Approved
Intermediaries and HFAs for this additional function, those applicants were awarded an
operational oversight budget line item. NWOs are not eligible for the operational oversight
funding.