Special Thanks to everyone who sent me information concerning my grant and
mini-grant request!
Shannon
You might get local info. from an administrator or helping teacher at your
school. Many PTOs give mini-grants.
-----------------
I think a good place to start is www.foundationcenter.org
-----------------
Buy _Grant Writing for Dummies_. It helped me tremendously, and answers all
the questions in your post
-----------------
Searchable directory of grant-making foundations:
http://www.foundations.org/grantmakers.html
Links from Arizona State University to foundations, research & other funding
agencies, plus hints on writing grants:
http://www.ed.asu.edu/coe/research/resources.htm
Foundation Center newsletters plus online directory
http://fdncenter.org/
The Grantsmanship Center has a subscription price but is filled with resources
and tips on writing grants
http://tcgi.com/
-----------------
Information about grants for technology in education
http://technologygrantnews.com/
Check also with your state department of education and your state
library-media associations. If your state has a good state library system
(like Utah does and Arizona doesn't), you can get help there as well. Also,
each state education office usually has a grants officer who has information
about possible grants.
Finally, check with local businesses. In the small rural committee in Utah
where I worked for many years, one of the major businesses gave us $300 to
$600 per year (in 1970-80 dollars) to help us purchase films. Later, we
converted that grant into a contribution to buying our first computer system
in 1982.
And the best advice I can give you about writing grants is to keep your
proposal focused on the purposes of the grantmaker and write out your goals
concisely so the reader can see how your project will contribute to foundation
goals.
-------------------
"Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE)"
More than 30 Federal agencies formed a working group in 1997 to make hundreds
of federally supported teaching and learning resources easier to find. The
result of that work is the FREE website.http://www.ed.gov/free/
---------------
"eSchool News School Funding Center"
Information on up-to-the-minute grant programs, funding sources, and
technology funding.
http://www.eschoolnews.com/resources/funding/
"Philanthropy News Digest-K-12 Funding Opportunities"
K-12 funding opportunities with links to grant seeking for teachers, learning
technology, and more.
http://fdncenter.org/funders/
"School Grants"
A collection of resources and tips to help K-12 educators apply for and obtain
special grants for a variety of projects.
http://www.schoolgrants.org
-----------------
Getting to know what encourages grantmakers to give money can be a whole
second career. Yes, small grants from small with smaller grant making
organizations are often easier to get approved providing the grantmaker's
goals and interests are the same as yours. If you can get ahold of one of the
many publications that list grant makers and what they are interested in
funding it will be a big help. You can also find many grantmakers by searching
the internet. Go to Google and enter grantmakers. My most successful grants
were requested from relatively local foundations that wanted to put money back
into this county especially into the schools. My next most successful grants
are from a foundation connected with a utility company. They want to be seen
as putting some of the money back into the community. If you can find a class
in the basics of grant writing it would be a good thing to take it. They
explain what many of the grantmakers are looking for and what they don't want
to see. I took one of these one day grant writing classes and it was
invaluable. A few quick pointers. . . They want hard facts and statistics in
addition to pretty words. Most of them won't grant funds to replace money you
have already spent, they want you to get the grant first. most of them prefer
to grant for a new program and prefer to go with something that provides the
greatest bang-for-the-buck. This includes both maximum number of lives
impacted in a positive manner and/or long term use life for the equipment
supplies etc that you purchase. many will not do repeated funding of a program
unless there has been a significant change. Most of them are not willing to
fund an existing program unless the original funding has already been
withdrawn. They really like to do a matching fund which is to be matched by
local contributions. Be sure you know your goals and objectives (which are not
the same thing) Goals are measurable, objectives are not necessarily
measurable; but you should have both. (ex. Our objective is have fewer
students drop out of high school because they lack family or monetary support.
Our goal for this year is to have 3 at risk students graduate next June who
would have dropped out before then without our support and encouragement.)
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