Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Make Your New Year’s Resolutions – and Keep Them!

While I know that many people don’t follow through on their New Year’s resolutions, I still think they are important to make at this time of year because they help to give us focus. Since most of you reading this article are not full-time grant writers, writing down your school's grant goals for the year can be extremely helpful.

Following are a handful of sample resolutions that you might adapt in order to create your own:

1) I will write three grants for my school this year.

2) I will write grants until I get $100,000 for my school during 2010.

3) I will subscribe to a good grant database so I can spend more time completing grant applications and less time looking for grants.

4) This year, I will establish a grant committee that will be charged with finding and writing more grants.

5) I will establish one new program in my school this year and write grants to finance it.

6) I will thoroughly evaluate current programs at least twice during the year to determine which ones need to be fixed and which need to be expanded.

7) I will take a course in grant writing this year to ensure that I am submitting the best possible grant applications.

This is not a comprehensive list of grant-writing New Year’s resolutions. It might, however, help you to think about and plan a course of action for the new year. If you don’t have a plan, you are likely to end this year with the same sad results you had last year -- few grants written and few grant dollars received.

Of course any planning and any resolutions you make are better than none, but I encourage you to focus on the first three resolutions I listed above. The first two relate to the number and value of grants you plan to write. I’ve always said that writing grants is a game of numbers. The more quality applications you submit, the more grant money you will receive. You might want to set a goal to write a specific number of grants so you won’t falter after writing just one or two.

Similarly, it is always good to determine the amount of money you will need from grants and go after that amount regardless of the number of grant applications you need to complete. You might go after one or two large federal or state grants, or you might decide to write more foundation grants for smaller amounts of money. Either will work because your goal is to receive a certain amount of grant money.

My third resolution above -- investing in a subscription to a grant database -- is directly tied to the other two. A good grant database will enable you to quickly and easily pinpoint the federal, state, and foundation grants for which you are eligible. Without a comprehensive, up-to-date grant database, you will spend a huge amount of time scouring the Internet looking for possible grants when, instead, you could have been completing grant applications.

Because I’m a firm believer in planning, I’m a firm believer in making well-documented New Year’s resolutions. Make one, two, or even three this week. Write them down and put them in an accessible place so you will review them at least once each month. Doing this will make you a better, more efficient grant writer in the new year. It will get your school the grant money it needs. And the programs you offer students will be better because of the resolutions you made as you planned for this promising new year.

Check it Out: Grant Opportunity!

Grant Name: We the People Bookshelf Grant

Funded by: National Endowment for the Humanities and American Library Association

Description: The We the People Bookshelf, a collection of classic books for young readers, is a project of the National Endowment for the Humanities’ (NEH) We the People program, conducted in cooperation with the American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office. Each year, NEH identifies a theme important to the nation's heritage and selects books that embody that theme to build the We the People Bookshelf. The theme for the 2009-2010 Bookshelf is "A More Perfect Union." A total of 4,000 public and school (K-12) libraries will be selected to receive the "A More Perfect Union" Bookshelf. Awards will be announced in April 2010. The “A More Perfect Union” Bookshelf grants are part of the NEH's We the People initiative, which aims to encourage and strengthen the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture through libraries, schools, colleges, universities, and cultural institutions.

Program Areas: Library, Social Studies

Recipients: Public School, Private/Charter School

Proposal Deadline: 1/29/2010

Amount: $500.00 - $1,000.00 value

Website: http://publicprograms.ala.org/bookshelf/

Availability: All States

Check it Out: Grant Opportunity!

Grant Name: Music Is Revolution Foundation Mini-Grants

Funded by: Music Is Revolution Foundation and Svengirly Music, Inc.

Description: The Music Is Revolution Foundation administers a mini-grant program for Music Is Revolution activities designed by teachers to implement, support, and/or improve their ability to provide quality music education for their students. Mini-grants up to $500 are available to teachers for music education activities of all types. Only projects that clearly contain a music education focus will be considered, for example, projects based on the concept of music education through musical experiences, initiating students into a sense of their social, academic, and cultural identity, and humanizing them through the emotional, cognitive, and/or physical impact of music. Applicants are encouraged to include activities that expose students to genres and styles of music not likely to be experienced as a part of their normal daily lives, and to plan the project with input from students, parents, and school administrators so it supports the imaginations of students while maintaining relevance to the curriculum already in place.

Program Areas: Arts

Recipients: Public School, Other

Proposal Deadline: 1/15/2010

Amount: $500.00

Website: http://www.svengirly.com/mir2/pdf/Mini_Grant_Application.pdf

Availability: All States

Friday, December 4, 2009

How Many Grants Should Your School Receive?

Almost every school in the United States should be getting some grant money every year. The amount of that grant money will always be determined by three factors: 1) the number of grants for which you apply, 2) the dollar amount of those grants, and 3) your level of eligibility.

How many grants do most schools get in a year? We did a survey several months ago, and the results may surprise you. Of the 248 educators who responded and actually knew how many grants their school received, we gleaned the following information:

When asked, “Approximately how many federal, state, and foundation grants did your district receive last year?”
Even though these are district numbers, you have to realize that almost half the districts in the United States contain four campuses or fewer. Many campuses receive multiple grants every year while some campuses never receive a single grant.

Obviously, you have no control over your school’s level of eligibility. You do, however, have absolute control over the number of grants you submit and a great deal of control over the amounts of grant money for which you apply.

Make sure you are not a part of the 67% of schools that gets zero to five grants each year. You should try to be a part of the 10% that gets more than 25 grants. All the grants you write don’t have to be large. Even if ten teachers apply for classroom grants of $3,000 each, that’s $30,000 extra dollars for your school. Many times getting grants is simply a numbers game. The more applications you put in the mail asking for more and more dollars, the more grant money you receive. It takes commitment and aggressiveness to get all the grant money you want and need.

Billions and billions of grant dollars are available to schools in the United States. It’s such a shame that a few aggressive schools get so much grant money while thousands and thousands of schools get so little. That lost grant money could make a tremendous difference to the students in those schools. I suggest that you put a grant committee together as soon as possible and start a widespread effort to bring more grant money into your district.

Check it Out: Grant Opportunity!

Grant Name: Captain Planet Foundation Education Grants

Funded by: The Captain Planet Foundation

Description: The foundation supports projects that: 1) Promote understanding of environmental issues; 2) Focus on hands-on involvement; 3) Involve children and young adults 6-18 (elementary through high school); 4) Promote interaction and cooperation within the group; 5) Help young people develop planning and problem solving skills; 6) Include adult supervision; 7) Commit to follow-up communication with the foundation (specific requirements are explained once the grant has been awarded).

Program Areas: Community Involvement/Volunteerism, General Education, Science/Environment, Social Studies, Other

Recipients: Public School, Other

Proposal Deadline: 12/31/2009

Amount: $250.00 - $2,500.00

Telephone: 404-522-4270

Website: http://www.captainplanetfoundation.org

Availability: All States

Check it Out: Grant Opportunity!

Grant Name: Laura Bush Library Grant

Funded by: Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries

Description: In order to promote a love of reading, the goal of the Laura Bush Foundation (LBF) is to provide books to school libraries and students that most need them. Consequently, funds are available only for library books and magazine/serial copies and subscriptions. The Laura Bush Foundation is unable to honor requests for staffing, shelving, furniture, equipment, software, videos, classroom book sets, or any kind of book guides, tests, or exams. The Foundation strives for wide geographic distribution in the support it offers, making grants of up to $6,000 to update, extend, and diversify the book collections of the libraries that receive them. All LBF grants are made to individual schools rather than to school districts, county systems, private organizations, foundations, or other entities. Only one application per school is allowed per year.

Program Areas: Library, Reading

Recipients: Public School, Private/Charter School

Proposal Deadline: 12/31/2009

Amount: $6,000.00

Telephone: 202-263-4774

Website: http://www.laurabushfoundation.org/web2/index.html

Availability: All States

Check it Out: Grant Opportunity!

Grant Name: Heinz Wholesome Memories Intergenerational Garden Award

Funded by: National Gardening Association

Description: The award is open to any adult in the United States who wishes to garden with preschool to high school-aged family member(s) and feels that gardening is a great way to build lasting memories. A focus on nutrition, sustainability, and socialization is a plus. No prior gardening experience necessary. The garden can be established and grown in any suitable outdoor setting such as home, rooftop, deck, school yard, community garden, church garden, etc. What the award includes: Winning applicants will receive a $500 Heinz Wholesome Memories Intergenerational Award Package.

Program Areas: Science/Environment

Recipients: Public School, Private/Charter School, Higher Education, Other

Proposal Deadline: 1/10/2010

Amount: $500.00

Website: http://www.kidsgardening.org/grants/heinz.asp

Availability: All States