Item 6 GTOPs awardees recommendations — original pdf

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TO: Technology Commission M E M O R A N D U M FROM: Dan Martinez, Business Process Specialist, Financial Services Department DATE: April 9, 2025 SUBJECT: 2025 Grant for Technology Opportunities (GTOPs) Awardees The purpose of this memorandum is to request the Commission review and to advise staff on the twelve (12) 2025 GTOPs Core Awards, as scored by the GTOPs Grant Review Committee (the Committee) from April 4, 2025, with specific award amounts set by formula and the process described below. GRANT PROGRAM PURPOSE GTOPs provides matching grant funds to Austin organizations that promote resident access to information technology, or that offer literacy programs that create digital opportunities and foster digital inclusion, particularly in underserved segments of our community. The goals of the program are to: ○ Increase use of digital and communications technology devices ○ Increase knowledge and skills of digital and communications technology ○ Increase access to and usage of the Internet AWARDEE SCORING AND SELECTION PROCESS Letters of Interest (LOI) for 2025 GTOPs Core were accepted from November 15, 2024 through January 8, 2025, thirty-four (34) LOIs were received. Grant applications were accepted from January 15, 2025, through February 12, 2025. The Technology Commission appointed a volunteer Grant Review Committee comprised of nine (9) qualified community representatives, three (3) of whom dropped from the panel prior to final scoring. The City received a total of twenty-five (25) applications for GTOPs 2025 Core. Prior to final scoring, the applicants were given the opportunity to respond to questions generated by the Committee. The Committee scored these applications using the GTOPs scoring criteria, including: Impact • Alignment with GTOPs Goals • • Success/feasibility • Budget and fiscal responsibility After the final scores were submitted by the Committee, the scores were ranked ; the top and bottom reviewer scores were then dropped in accordance with the Olympic style scoring system adopted in 2022. The remaining scores were averaged to give the formal score. Bonus points were allocated as programmatically 1 required, giving the final application score. The final application scores were then entered into an algorithm that distributed awards proportional to the scoring of each organization, within program parameters. The parameters considered by the algorithm are: 1) $315,000 in GTOPs funds available. 2) The minimum amount awarded to any organization is 70% of the requested amount. 3) Funds are distributed proportional to differences in scoring. 4) All funds must be distributed 5) The highest number of applications that can be funded will be funded above 70% 6) Awards are rounded to the nearest dollar, and any difference from rounding is taken from the lowest scoring organization. This year, the 11th and 12th highest scoring organizations had the same score. This made a recommendation of 11 organizations unfeasible. One known impact of the algorithm is that organizations requesting less than the maximum award amount are disproportionately impacted in the funding allocation. In order to have a fair distribution of awards to twelve (12) organizations in alignment with the 2nd parameter above, the awards were adjusted to align the “Percent Awarded” proportionally. RECOMMENDATION Of the organizations recommended for GTOPs 2025 Core funding, nine (9) programs have received GTOPs Core funding in the past and three (3) programs have never been funded by GTOPs Core. Based on the criteria and process above, the Committee recommends twelve (12) organizations receive funding through GTOPs Core as represented below: Organization name Art Spark Texas Texas Folklife Resources Inc. Austin Speech Labs, Inc. The Vietnamese American Community of Austin Texas Foundation Communities, Inc. Cine Las Américas THE ARC OF THE CAPITAL AREA Austin Children's Museum Compudopt Business and Community Lenders of Texas Changing Expectations Corp. nonPareil Institute Final Score Request Award Percent Awarded 88.75 $35,000 $28,173.00 88.75 $35,000 $28,173.00 87.67 $35,000 $27,936.00 80.49% 80.49% 79.82% 87.25 $35,000 $27,845.00 79.56% 87.00 $35,000 $27,791.00 86.50 $35,000 $27,682.00 81.75 $35,000 $26,644.00 80.25 $35,000 $26,316.00 80.00 $24,775 $16,037.00 79.75 $35,000 $26,207.00 79.25 $35,000 $26,098.00 79.25 $35,000 $26,098.00 79.40% 79.09% 76.13% 75.19% 75.03% 74.88% 74.57% 74.57% Staff requests the Commission approve the GTOPs Grant Review Committee’s recommended 2025 GTOPs Core Awards. Upon Commission ratification and approval, the recommended GTOPs 2025 Awards will be submitted to the Program Manager of the Community Technology unit in the Economic Development Department for authorization to begin contract negotiations. 2 Please feel free to contact me at Dan.Martinez@austintexas.gov if you need additional information. ____________________________________ ____________ Dan Martinez, Business Process Specialist cc: Katherine Sobel, Division Manager, Economic Development Department Jesse Rodriguez, Program Manager, Economic Development Date 3