Funding Your Dreams: Grant Writing in the Information Age

Presenter: Sheryl Abshire
Calcasieu Parish Public Schools
Lake Charles, LA
e-mail: sheryl.abshire@cpsb.org

This is an ISTE recommended session, so hopefully I'll learn a lot today!

Sheryl says we have to be an entrepreneur for educational technology! There are more opportunities out there for funding than we have time for! Sheryl shared that she has earned over $5 million in grants so far! She then showed a YouTube video, freemoney.com showing there is basically no free money! We shouldn't look for "free money" but educational resources.

Sheryl suggests we should volunteer to be grant readers. This will give one the behind the scenes information helpful to getting grants accepted.

Sheryl's power point presentation and talk contained the following information:

Keys to Great Grants

• Integrated program elements
• Aligned components
• High quality and continuous improvement, professional development, evaluation
• Tied to high standards

Grants should include other activities that are going on in the school that will fit your idea. It should be aligned. No misspellings, correct grammar and syntax, no run-on sentences. Have an English professional read grant before submitting. How is this grant going to contribute to continuous improvement and sustainability. Most funders want to see how users will be trained to use the technology. Ideas include partnering with local universities, other schools, etc. to be sure there is understanding. There should be a clear evaluation piece to each grant. Funders want to see the impact the grant is having. A plan that will prove to the funder that one can do what they say they will do with the funds. We don't have the opportunity to sell our program face to face, the words and pieces of the proposal are the only things to convince the funders to give us the money.

Funders want grants tied to high standards. In grant proposal describe how it's going to elevate learning in a standards based instructional way.

Funders want innovation, sizzle, edgy, creative ideas. Kick it up a notch!! Think of a way to have innovative solutions. ex:Possibly connect with epals and share projects in an international forum.

Coordination of resources. Funders don't want to see a proposal that is out on a limb by itself and is not connected to anything else used in the district. Find ways that departments of the district or surrounding universities will help and support the grant through research, volunteer time, etc. Universities are a wealth of information. They can help with research and evaluation.

ex. use school improvement plan-if there are areas of need, reference that in the grant. Talk to chamber of commerce, community leaders to find areas of need in the community. Districts are generally data rich, but information poor. Ask people in district for information and use it in the proposal.


Top 10 questions reviewers ask when reviewing proposals:

1. Does the proposal tie into school's overall plan?
team effort, support within school

2. How will the technology be used?
team's vision for how technology will be used to improve student learning

3. How will the proposal impact student learning?
team's plan to improve student learning beyond the norm-more than just a year's growth. Maybe there are children below grade level and it will get them back on track.

4. How will desired outcomes be developed?
describe specific indicators, how curriculum development might change. They want specificity. What are the specific indicators? what will students and teachers do differently with this proposal. The funders should see the road map you with this proposal

5. Does this initiative have the potential to be replicated or outreached to a larger community?
how it might have far reaching impact. How might we leverage it and have other schools and classrooms learn from this proposal. Sheryl always writes this piece in the grant, even though it's not always asked. Funders want to be able to talk to others about the funding and what it's done and has the potential to do.

6. Does the proposal tap creativity in tapping other resources already available in the community?
partner with local, state, national groups

7. Is the budget clearly defined?
make a case why private funding should be used. no grant will be funded if there are errors in the budget. Have someone check the budget!!! One of the most important pieces of grant. Explain why school did not fund this. get quotes, exact model numbers, do your homework!

8. Who will benefit from this initiative?
be specific! yes, students, but who else will benefit?

9. How well does this proposal replicate what the grant funder is looking for?
how well do you know the funder? how the corporate goals. write grants to funders who are looking to fund projects like yours. What kind of grants have they funded before, what regions of the country are they funding? Get copies of the grants written to state and federal funders. Copies of these grants are public record. Find out funders' absolute priorities.

10. How committed are you?
They want to see your passion in this proposal. What have you done so far? They want to be partners and know it's successful. (We are a tax write-off) It's very obvious to the readers when grants are written by 3rd party companies. This shows a lack of commitment to the grant.

A grant writer should:

be somewhat of a gambler- take chances

be somewhat of a masochist- resubmitting proposals after being rejected over and over again.
Sheryl submitted the same grant 3 times to the same place and got it the 3rd time. Asked for the readers comments had a conference call, fixed it, same thing second time around, different people read grants each time looking for different things.

be somewhat of a diplomat-standing by quietly supportive, encouraging the grant team to "re-think" and "re-work" the proposal over and over and over. give the grant to others to read-spouses, parents, others in community

be somewhat of a squirrel-
saving every article about grants and every scrap of paper on which notes are written just in case they might be useful someday. Sheryl scans in articles and saves everything on her desktop so its always at her fingertips. Use computer to save, connect and organize stuff.

be somewhat of an inventor-
always seeking new ways to solve the age-old problem of raising test scores and locating research that supports your ideas. it will give strength and support to your idea.

be somewhat of a rhinoceros-
so that the rejections you receive bounce off your hide. when you give up is when you don't get money. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when

be somewhat of a magician-
RFP-rules for the proposal - crafting a proposal that appears to meet every requirement of the RFP and just what the funder asks for.

be somewhat of a butcher-
always cutting, cutting, cutting the proposal making it more and more concise and to the point. less is more.

be somewhat of a financial wizard-
stretching every dollar, doing more with less and garnering matching funds from every imaginable resource.

be somewhat of a night owl-requiring very little sleep to work non-stop to meet numerous deadlines. never miss one! principals should support grant writing. possibly get substitutes for a day here and there, especially close to deadlines. Send it in early!! Make a goal deadline of 2 weeks early to make sure things get done.

be somewhat of a party animal-
always celebrate receiving a grant...finally!!

resources:
http://www.cpsb.org/scripts/abshire/grants.asp

http://www.schoolgrants.org/
listserv- bring home the bacon listerv
must join grant writing community-$25/year

Wow! I'm off to the next session!