Safety 7: Securing Project Funding

Safety 7 budget 

The total budget for Safety 7 was $1,029,558. Check out the downloadable resources below to see categories of costs to consider for your CEnR budget.  

The Safety 7 project was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), which has specific policies and procedures found on the DOJ Grants Financial Guide 2024. It is important to understand your funding source’s specific rules for allowable costs and to make plans for supplementary funding if necessary costs are unallowable.  

Consider types of labor needed: When forming the project team, we created a balance of senior team members who served as task leaders and provided thought leadership, as well as junior team members with appropriate skill sets to complete tasks and build new skills through mentorship. This balance was essential for staying in budget on this project. When considering the level of effort (LOE) for team members, we budgeted for the core team, communications team, and ad hoc team members. Labor costs were $644,322.  

• Core team: The research staff from Child Trends consisted of a four-member core team. Costs included salary and benefits for the PI and co-PI, senior research analyst, and senior project manager from Child Trends. Time for the core team was estimated using WBS bottom-up estimation to produce the most accurate possible estimate by considering the amount of time each team member will spend on individual projects tasks to determine LOE.  
• Communications team: The communications team processed products for dissemination. Planning for dissemination products early in the project ensured time allocated for the communications team was sufficient for dissemination. Bottom-up estimation was used for the communication team members, too.  
• Ad hoc supports: Throughout the project, ad hoc team members worked to complete discreet tasks such as copyediting, fact checking, or REDCap support, a survey software. Thinking through the types of ad hoc support that might be needed can be challenging for CEnR projects due to their iterative nature, so a best guess or PERT Kernel method of estimation was helpful in budgeting for their costs.     

Subrecipient agreements: The Safety 7 project is a collaborative partnership between the research institution, Child Trends and the community partner, Sasha Bruce Youthwork (SBY). Youth were employed by SBY and paid as consultants. Subrecipient costs were $275,137.51       

Travel: Travel costs include airfare, hotel, per diem, and ground transportation, and totaled $8,163.  

• Travel to Safety 7 professional development meetings: Weekly or bi-weekly meetings with youth researchers were held in-person. Most of the research group meetings were held at SBY facilities or at local libraries. Ground transportation (GSA rate per mile, now $0.70/mile and parking fees) was allocated for travel to research group meetings.   
• Travel to data collection sites: Researchers traveled for data collection for in-person focus groups and interviews. Travel costs for data collection included ground transportation for local team members. 
• Conferences: A member from Safety 7 traveled to the Healthy Teen Network Conference to present findings from this project. 

Software costs 

• Dedoose: We used Dedoose, a qualitative software, for qualitative analysis; subscriptions range in price from $13.95-$17.95 per month per team member.
• YakChat: We used YakChat, a communications software, for scheduling data collection with participants and distributing incentives to participants after data collection. The monthly cost for YakChat was $48. 

Incentives 

• Research subjects: Youth, families, and local community members who participated in data collection efforts were compensated for their time and effort through incentives.  
• Focus groups, interviews, or hackathons: Incentives for participating in a focus group, interview, or hackathon were $30 for participants in the form of a virtual link to Giftbit. This allowed participants to select their preferred gift card and provided an additional layer of physical safety for participants leaving the data collection site. This vendor charges a 3.5% fee for the service.  
• Referral incentives for snowball sampling: Participants who provided a referral were provided an incentive of $10 per person they referred to the study who completed the screener survey and participated in an interview, focus group, or hackathon. 

Translation and transcription 

• TranscribeME: We used TranscribeME, a transcription service, to translate in-person recorded data collection from focus groups. The cost for this service was $1.10/audio minute.    

Miscellaneous 

• Printing and duplication: Printing for recruitment materials was $111.35.
• Postage: Shipping costs were $18.50 to send a microphone for the secure recorders for data collection.  

Safety 7 contracts  

After finalizing the agreement with the funder, subrecipients, consultants, and vendors will need proper agreements to ensure any required flow-downs of requirements are known to those who will be paid from the grant.   

A subrecipient agreement for our community partner organization, SBY, was prioritized to ensure the work was an allowable cost incurred, data security agreements were in place, and scope and budget were clear to all parties. This allowed SBY to begin the work of recruiting youth researchers. To read more about this process, check out Identify Partners. 

A vendor purchase order and data security agreements were needed for TranscribeME due to the handling of research data.