The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) administers all USDA domestic nutrition assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP is the cornerstone of USDA’s nutrition assistance programs and is the largest program in the domestic hunger safety net. SNAP provides nutrition assistance benefits via an Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) card to millions of low-income people. These benefits help supplement household food budgets so recipients can purchase more healthy food.
Currently, approximately 250,000 retailers are authorized to accept SNAP. Since 2012, FNS has supported the participation of direct marketing farmers (DMFs) and farmer’s markets (FMs) in their efforts to attract more SNAP customers. FNS has also supported individual DMFs (and FMs on behalf of DMFs) that meet specific requirements in procuring low- or no-cost wireless Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) point-of-sale (POS) devices through the SNAP EBT Equipment Program. Thousands of direct marketing farmers and farmers’ markets (DMFs and FMs) apply for SNAP authorization each year.
The purpose of this cooperative agreement is to enable SNAP-authorized DMFs (and FMs, as necessary) to determine, at no or little cost to them, whether adding SNAP to their business model has a positive cost-benefit value, and to provide SNAP recipients with greater access to DMFs operating at physical FM locations and via other direct marketing avenues (e.g., roadside stands, pick-your-own). The cooperator will use resources from this cooperative agreement to assist DMFs and FMs in becoming SNAP authorized and support the processing of transactions by these DMFs and FMs through outreach, technical assistance, and a secure SNAP Mobile Transaction Processing Application (The App).
This cooperative agreement opportunity is not intended to support the development of an untested mobile application for SNAP. However, the grantee may collaborate or coordinate with The App provider to develop additional functionality for The App that would enable the processing of transactions for other Federal nutrition assistance programs.
Each eligible applicant may only submit one (1) application in response to this grant solicitation. Interested applicants from within Duke should contact fundopps@duke.edu as early as possible.
Deadline: Sep. 5, 2023
Eligible entities include:
• Nonprofit entities, which are any organization or institution with Internal Revenue Service (IRS)-designated 501(c)(3) status.
• Accredited institutions of higher education, i.e., Eligible Educational Institutes via a list maintained by the IRS
Maximum award amount (award ceiling): $4,000,000