Using a Free Grant Database Most Effectively

Getting something for free is always a treat, and the grant database access provided to you by Discount School Supply through MySchoolGrant^sm would cost you $30-$40 per month if your school subscribed to one of the database services. But don’t take it for granted just because it’s free. Use the DSS school grant database to find as much grant money for your school or organization as possible.

The database is set up so that you make 3 choices before you search: your state, your type of school, and the type of grant for which you are searching. This narrows the number of grants down for you. Once you make these selections, you are scanning through only grants that are likely to be relevant. You’re automatically weeding out thousands of grants that are not relevant. If you’re looking for reading money in Alabama, you don’t care about the science grants that are available in Oregon.

That does not mean, however, that every grant that comes up in the search is going to be applicable to the problem you’re trying to solve. Now you have to scan the grant description for each grant to see if that grant is likely to apply to your situation. If it seems to apply, jot down that grant name or number and review the rest of the grants listed. When you finish scanning the description of each grant, you should have a small list of grants that you feel might be applicable to your situation.

Go back to those grant listings and read them thoroughly. If the grant listing has a live link to its website, go to that website and read every bit of information you can find about the grant and the application process. These live links are one of the very best features of the Discount School Supply's free MySchoolGrant^sm database. You can get complete information about each grant. In fact, you can often download a grant application from these websites.

To review:

1. Search for grants using the state, type of grant, type of school to narrow your list.


2. Read each grant description to see if that grant applies to your situation.


3. Then, if the grant listing provides a live link to its website, use it to get complete information before applying for the grant. If you’re not using these links, you’re not using the free grant database effectively.

Next time, we’ll discuss what to do if you still have questions after linking to the website or if the listing doesn’t provide a live link to a website.

CHECK THIS OUT!

Grant Name: Terri Lynne Lokoff Child Care Foundation
Funded by: Terri Lynne Lokoff/Children’s TYLENOL® National Child Care Teacher Awards
Description: These awards acknowledge the critical role of child care teachers in providing quality early care and education. Child care teachers from all 50 states and the District of Columbia are invited to apply. Fifty teachers are selected for their commitment and dedication to the children they serve. Of the top ten recipients, one is selected to receive the Helene Marks Award. As part of the application process, each applicant is asked to design an enhancement project for the children in their classroom illustrating the educational, social, and emotional benefits from the project. A committee of early childhood educators and specialists review the applications. Award recipients receive $1,000 - $500 for the teacher's personal use and $500 to implement the project. An award ceremony takes place each spring in Pennsylvania - hotel and transportation are provided for the recipients. The event celebrates the best and brightest, and the most dedicated of our child care teachers.

Program Areas: Early Childhood

Recipients: Public School, Private/Charter, Other
Proposal Deadline: 12/5/2008
Total Amount: $1,000.00
Contact Person: Lisa Kemmerer
Telephone: 610-992-1140
Email: tllccf@childcareabc.org
Website: http://www.tllccf.org/pr_nccta.php
Availability: All States

Matching Your Needs to Available Grants

Last time I discussed defining your school’s problem before you apply for grants. Once you define the problem or problems you have, it’s then time to try matching your needs with the different grants that are available to help solve your particular set of problems. Depending on the type of need you have, there might be no grants available or 500 possible grants available that you need to sift through.

I can tell you that if you’re looking for $500,000 to build a new field house for your football team, you don’t need to search for grants. There is no grant money out there for that type of problem. If you’re a school looking to improve your reading program, there might be 500 grant possibilities. Everything else falls somewhere in between.

How do you find the grants that are both available and pertinent to your problem? That’s an easy one to answer. Without a doubt, the best way to find grants that match your needs is to use a grant database. A good grant database has a huge amount of grant information all in one place. It’s constantly updated with new grants put in daily and ones with past deadlines removed daily.

With a grant database, you put in your search criteria and out pops a list of possible grants. Not all of these grants will match your needs, but you have all the possible grants in one place and that makes them very easy to sort through. Your alternative is to do a hundred Google searches. That will usually get you information on grants that are not current about 80% of the time. Very frustrating. Your other alternative is to use a grant newsletter, either printed or on line. But newsletters can only list a few grants at a time, and they are outdated within a few weeks.

Once again, the best way to look for grants is with a grant database. Subscribing to a grant database can be fairly expensive, however, with subscriptions running several hundred dollars per year. You are fortunate because you have a free one to use. Discount School Supply offers its customers a free grant database. Just go to: My School Grant ^sm

Register by putting in your email address and start searching. It can’t be any easier than that.

Next time, I’ll discuss how to use this free grant database most effectively. Don’t miss it!

CHECK THIS OUT!

Grant Name: Toyota Family Literacy Teacher of the Year
Funded by: Toyota & National Center for Family Literacy

Description: The Toyota Family Literacy Teacher of the Year Award recognizes individual contributions to improving literacy for children and adults. The winner and several finalists are selected annually by the National Center for Family Literacy to honor educators who demonstrate and impact on families through early childhood education, school-based programs, adult literacy and ESL programs, parenting education, library literacy programs and community literacy programs.
Program Areas: Adult Literacy, Reading.
Recipients: Public School, Private/Charter School, Faith-based, Other.
Proposal Deadline: 12/5/2008
Average Amount: $500 to $7,500.00
Email: ToyotaTeacher@famlit.org
Website: National Center For Family Literacy
Availability: All States.