Guidelines to Introductory Statement
Food for Progress

Proposals must contain two components:  (1) an Introductory Statement and (2) the Plan of Operation.  Both the Introductory Statement and the Plan of Operation may be submitted online, in hard copy, or electronically via email.  The USDA Food Aid Proposal Entry System includes the electronic version of the Introductory Statement. 

Introductory Statement

The hard copy version of the Introductory Statement must be no longer than two pages and include the following items:

·         a one-paragraph summary of the proposed program,

·         information about the organization’s capabilities to implement the proposed program,

·         a description of the need for the program, and

·         the requested USDA/CCC dollar funding and anticipated monetization proceeds to cover administrative expenses, internal transport, shipping and handling, indirect costs, and monetization development activities. 

The summary should be brief and focus on the objectives of the program. The organization should provide information about its past food aid or development activities, its experience within the country where the program is proposed, and any other relevant information to demonstrate its capability to implement the program.  The description of the need should address two main issues: the need for food aid in the country and the need for the program itself.  In the past, organizations included statistics on poverty, food deficits, and related items in the Plan of Operation. This information should be included only in the Introductory Statement and not in Plan of Operation for this proposal cycle.

The Introductory Statement should have all the reasons that this proposal should be approved (e.g., organizational capacity, knowledge and expertise along with experience in the country, etc.) while the Plan of Operation should be written as if the proposal were already approved.  Too often the Plan of Operation is devoted to justifying the program approval requiring much back and forth between the organization and USDA to format it as an Agreement.

USDA requests that organizations include their funding requests for both USDA/CCC dollar amounts and monetization proceeds in a table similar to the one shown here in the Introductory Statement. 

Expense Categories	Estimated Dollar Amount of CCC/USDA funding	Estimated Dollar Amount of Monetization Proceeds
Direct Costs:
- ITSH	Only available under "Urgent and Extraordinary" circumstances	$
- Activities	Not available	$
- Other Direct Costs	$	$
Subtotal Of Direct Costs	$	$
Indirect Costs:
- Indirect cost recovery applied to      all direct costs	$	$
TOTAL DIRECT and INDIRECT COSTS	$	$

Detailed budgets containing line items for direct costs and the application of indirect cost recovery will be requested once the organization has received program approval.