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YOU CAN WRITE A GRANT PROPOSAL
By Dan Coulter
Get a grant. It's free money.
Okay. Not totally free. You do have to so some work for it by
researching and applying. And you'll be almost surely be competing with
others applying for the same grant. That being said, if you have good
idea for a project to help others, there are literally millions of
dollars out there waiting to be
allocated to deserving projects.
Write a strong proposal, and you could receive all the "free" money you
need to accomplish your goal.
I recently took a course in grant-writing taught by someone who's
written a lot of successful grant proposals. I'll share some of what I
learned.
Let's say you want to take on a project that's close to my heart,
getting a grant to help educate students about classmates who have
Asperger Syndrome or a similar autism spectrum condition. Good for
you. Here's how to proceed:
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First, set a specific
goal. For example, do you want to educate all the students in a
school or in a school district? |
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Determine ways to
accomplish your goal. Maybe you want to provide an hour of
instruction to every student in your target audience. |
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Seek out individual
grants that are a good fit for your project. Grants are offered by
governments, private companies, foundations and other groups. You
can search for U.S. government grants on
www.grants.gov. Remember, that's
".gov" and not ".com." Another good source is
www.foundationcenter.org.
Consider also applying to local companies that have a stake in your
community. Even companies that don't routinely offer grants might be
interested in funding your project. Here's a great tip: some of the
best sources of accurate, up to date information about available
grants are routinely published in lists. While these lists can be
very expensive, you can access them for free in many public
libraries. Call your local library and ask if they have a
Non-Profit Resource Center. If so, stop by and do your research
there. A helpful reference librarian can speed your search.
CAUTION: if you do an Internet search for grants, you're likely to
find lots of organizations interested in charging you money to
provide lists of grants that you can apply for or to write your
grant for you. Some of these offers are likely to be rip-offs. I'd
avoid them and do your own research and writing. |
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After you find some
promising grants, read carefully over their requirements. Some
grants are available to individuals. Some are limited to schools or
non-profit organizations. A grant's written requirements should
help you determine whether you qualify to apply. Many funding
organizations offer websites where you can find details about their
grant requirements, see what they've funded in the past, and
sometimes even fill out a grant application online. |
After you've done your
research, write your grant proposal. Follow the guidelines of the
funding organization carefully. These will vary, but many organizations
use these categories:
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Executive Summary: An
overview of your request. |
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Statement of Need:
What needs changing and how you intend to change it. |
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Mission Statement:
What your organization strives to do. |
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Vision Statement: What
the world will look like when you accomplish your mission. |
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Management Team and
Competencies: A description of the people who will work on your
project and their qualifications. |
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Project Description:
What you are going to do to meet the need you described in your
"statement of need." This is the heart of your proposal. |
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Project Evaluation:
How you will measure your results. |
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Organization
Budget/Financial Statements: Financial information about your
organization, if you are applying on an organization's behalf.
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Project Budget: What
funding you need and how you're going to spend it. |
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Other Attachments:
Different organizations may ask for additional information. |
As you're writing your
proposal, remember it has to stand on its own. You won't be there to
explain it when it's read. Share your finished proposal with some
friends or colleagues and get their feedback. If they don't understand
parts of your proposal, rewrite those sections so they are more clear.
This is a general overview of grant proposal writing. For an Asperger
Syndrome/autism awareness project, you might ask for funds to have an
expert prepare materials to use in age-appropriate presentations that
will be used with children throughout a school system. Your expert
might train teachers to make in-class presentations or to lead class
discussions after the expert
makes a presentation in a school assembly. These presentations would be
designed to help classmates understand and support children that they
previously teased or excluded from activities because of their
behaviors.
It's important to include funding for measurement. You might survey
student attitudes toward classmates who think and act differently and
what they know about Autism Spectrum Disorders before, and then again
after, your presentations. Remember, capturing evidence of success can
help you when you apply for your next grant.
And you don't necessarily have to start from scratch with your
presentations. You may choose to use grant funds to purchase an
existing program and associated materials.
For example, The Anne Arundel County Public School System in Maryland,
USA has developed an Autism and Asperger Syndrome awareness guide for
elementary schools. The guide is called, "Building Bridges - A
Multidisciplinary Team Approach to Supporting Students with Asperger's
Syndrome and Autism in the Classroom." The school system plans to make
information about the package available on its website (www.aacps.org)
on or about November 21, 2008. If you're interested, you also can
contact Laura Phipps by email at
Lphipps1@AACPS.org.
Whether you prepare your own materials, or buy an existing package, a
grant could help a school or a school system dramatically improve the
lives of their students with autism spectrum conditions. And, at the
same time, teach their classmates valuable lessons about accommodating
differences in an increasingly diverse, global workplace.
There may be no free lunch. But there is free money available. And if
you have to work for it through research and grant proposal writing, it
still could be the best bargain a student body could ever hope for..
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dan
Coulter is the producer of the "Intricate Minds" series of videos that
help classmates understand and accept students with Asperger Syndrome
and similar conditions. You can find more detailed information about
writing grants for Asperger Syndrome/autism awareness on
his website at:
www.coultervideo.com.
Copyright 2008 Dan Coulter All Rights Reserved. Used by
Permission.
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"I know of nobody who is purely Autistic or purely neurotypical.
Even God had some Autistic moments, which is why the planets all spin."
~ Jerry Newport