1. Grant Writing for K-12 Teachers
Presented by James Denney
MUW – Science Enrichment Program
Good Morning Everyone,
Introduce Self and give brief history

2. Workshop at a Glance Introduction to Grants Typical Nomenclature
Basic Guidelines and Rules
Today we are going to begin our workshop by taking an introductory look at grants, then we will look at some typical nomenclature as it replies to grants and lastly we will look at some basic guidelines and rules that apply to grants.

3. Introduction to Grants
What is a grant?
The Environmental Protection Agency defines a grant as “Grants are sums of money awarded to finance a particular activity or facility. Generally, these grant awards do not need to be paid back.”
So, first and foremost, since this is an introductory workshop to grants lets start off by defining a grant. So the first question is, WHAT IS A GRANT? ASK ATTENDIES TO GIVE DEFINITION.
Read Definitions.
The Environmental Protection Agency defines a grant as “Grants are sums of money awarded to finance a particular activity or facility. Generally, these grant awards do not need to be paid back.”

4. Introduction to Grants
What is a Grant? – Cont.
Grants.gov defines a grant as “Grants are not benefits or entitlements. A federal grant is an award of financial assistance from a federal agency to a recipient to carry out a public purpose of support or stimulation authorized by a law of the United States. Federal grants are not federal assistance or loans to individuals.”
Grants.gov defines a grant as “Grants are not benefits or entitlements. A federal grant is an award of financial assistance from a federal agency to a recipient to carry out a public purpose of support or stimulation authorized by a law of the United States. Federal grants are not federal assistance or loans to individuals.”

5. Introduction to grants
Grant – Simple Definition
A grant (sponsored program) is any project supported by your organization as a result of some form of communication with a governmental entity or foundation such as a letter, application, notice or other written document approved and submitted by the Authorized Official of your organization.
So, lets put that into the English language. A simple definition of a grant is:
A grant (sponsored program) is any project supported by your organization as a result of some form of communication with a governmental entity or foundation such as a letter, application, notice or other written document approved and submitted by the Authorized Official of your organization.

6. Introduction to Grants
Typical characteristics
Published application guidelines or procedures
Restriction on the use of funds
Specified staff performance and/or outcomes
So, what are some typical characteristics of a Grant or a Sponsored Program:
A grant typically has a set of Published application guidelines or procedures
It may also have a Restriction placed on how the funding can be used
Also, there may be Specified staffing performance and/or outcomes that have to be generated from the program.

7. Introduction to Grants
Typical characteristics – Cont.
Limitations on the use of project data, inventions and other products
Programmatic, technical and/or financial reports
Continuing on with Typical Characteristics of Grants:
Grants or Sponsored Programs often times have limitations on the use of project data, inventions and other products
And lastly Programmatic, technical and/or financial reports are typically required to be submitted to the sponsoring agency.

8. Introduction to Grants
Nursing
After school programs
Scholarships
Professional Development
Types of grants available
Education
Art
Research
Entrepreneurs
So what are they different types of grants available:
There are grants available for
Education: K-12 Organizations, Universities, Classroom materials, redesign of courses, lit goes on and on.
Art
Research: When it comes to research you name it and you can research it.
Entrepreneurs: Business start up funding
Nursing
Afterschool programs: for K-12 programs
Scholarships
Professional Development
And this it the tip of the iceberg of the types of grants available.

9. Introduction to Grants
Who can apply for grants?
Government Organizations
Educational Organizations
Public Housing Authorities
Non-Profit Entities
For-Profit Entities
Small Businesses
Individuals
Who can apply for a grant?
Government Organizations: State or Federal Agencies
Educational Organizations: Universities, School Districts
Public Housing Authorities
Non-Profit Entities: such as Community Counseling Services here in Columbus
For-Profit Entities
Small Businesses
Individuals: those who are self-employed

10. Typical Nomenclature Terminology RFP – Request for Proposal
RFA – Request for Application
PA – Parent Announcement
So now you are ready to start looking for a grant and you go pull up google on your computer and type in “Grants for K-12 Teachers” Lets take a look at some of the typical wording you may run across as you search. I have 15 different terms that you may run across. They are in no particular order.
RFP – Stands for Request for Proposal
RFA – Request for Application
PA – Parent Announcement

11. Typical Nomenclature Terminology – Cont.
FOA – Funding Opportunity Number
CFDA # – Catalog of Federal Assistance
Cost Share or Match
FOA – Funding Opportunity Number – Some agencies will assign there announcements a FOA or Funding Opportunity Number. This is just a number that the sponsoring agency uses to identify the program.
CFDA # - The Catalog of Federal Assistance # is as it states. All Federal Grants are assigned a CFDA #. You can search for federal grants based on these numbers. They are normally listed as and sometimes there may be a A, B, or C at the end of the number.
Cost Share or Cost Match – Cost Share or Cost Match is when your agency has to put up a percentage of the amount of the request of the proposal. You will see the percentages anywhere from 0% to 100%. You will generally see these percentages in increments as 0, 10, 25, 50, 75 and If you have a grant that requires cost share then the $s that are put up have to be your dollars. For example you cannot match federal $ with federal $.

12. Typical Nomenclature Terminology – Cont. 501 C–3 Organization
PI or PD – Principal Investigator or Project Director
LOI – Letter of Intent
Continuing on:
501 – C3 organizations – are those organization which are tax exempt under the IRS rules and regulations. If you work for a 501C3 organization they will have a letter stating such.
PI or PD - This stands for the Principal Investigator of Project Director. This is the individual who is the head of the project. The person who is responsible for ensuring the work is completed as stated, for monitoring the budget and for reporting. 9 times out of 10 this will be the individual who writes the grant.
LOI or Letter of Intent – Often times a lot of your larger agencies will require or ask you to submit a letter of intent. This is a letter that states you intend to submit an application to the request. This gives the sponsoring agency the ability to prepare for the number of submissions they will receive.

13. Typical Nomenclature Terminology – Cont. White Paper
LEA – Local Education Agency
POC – Point of Contact
White Paper – A white paper is generally a persuasive essay. It is a paper which outlines the work you wish to accomplish. Often times a agency will request for you to write a white paper and based off of the information presented they will come back and ask those individuals whom they like to write a full report.
LEA – The LEA is the Local Education Agency. The LEA is commonly the local school district.
POC – The POC is the Point of Contact for your program at the sponsoring agency. It is imperative that you get to know, at least speak too, this individual. This is not the individual who will review your proposal but is the person who has been identified by the sponsoring agency to monitor the grant from their side. This person has first hand knowledge of what the sponsoring agency is looking to fund and can often times provide helpful feedback during the writing of the grant.

14. Typical Nomenclature Terminology – Cont. NCE – No Cost Extension
Fixed Price
Cost Reimbursement
NCE – No Cost Extension – A No Cost Extension (this applies once you have been awarded) is when the sponsoring agency will allow you the ability to extend the life of your grant but you will not receive any additional funding. Generally this occurs in 3, 6 or 12 month increments.
Fixed Price – A fixed price grant is when the sponsoring agency will only award “X” amount and this is all you can receive. Typically you will receive the money up front and will have to report on how it was spent at the end of the project.
Cost Reimbursement – a cost reimbursement grant is when you are allotted “X” amount to preform your project but you they do not give you the money up front. As the name implies you spend your funding to conduct the work then the sponsoring agency reimburses you. This is typically done on either a monthly or quarterly bases.

15. Basic Guidelines and Rules
Before you begin:
To whom does the grant belong?
Identify signature authority
Request permission
Now before you begin writing your grant lets talk about some things you need to know.
First and foremost. When you write and are awarded a grant to whom does it belong. Unless you apply for a grant as an individual, ie self employed, the grant belongs to the organization you work for. 9 out of 10 times this is going to be the case.
So, with this being the case you need to determine who the signature authority is for your organization. In K-12 it will either be you principle or the school board.
Once you determine who the signature authority is you need to go to this individual and request permission to submit the application. You need to ensure you have their support for your program.

16. Basic Guidelines and Rules
Have idea in place
Develop a Conceptual Outline
Start early
Ask for help
In my opinion this is probably one of the most important things you need before you start looking for grant opportunities. Have an idea in place. Develop a conceptual outline. There is one attached to you hand out.
A Conceptual outline is a short concept paper (2-3 pages) that describes your project it is an important step in proposal development. By answering the following questions, you will be able to organize your thoughts in order to better explain your concepts to others. You will then have a short, concise paper to send to a program officer or to use as a tool for finding a potential funding source.
Start Early – If at all possible start early. You do not want to wait to the last minute to begin writing or getting your approvals. If makes you rushed and you proposal will suffer because of this.
Do not be afraid to ask for help. We all need assistance from time to time so please do not be afraid to ask.

17. Basic Guidelines and Rules
Talk to POC
Partnerships
Develop a writing style
Talk to the POC – Call the POC and talk to them about your idea. They cannot give you pointers on your proposal but they can tell you if you are headed in the right direction. The can tell you if you are in the ballpark with your idea or if you are way off base.
Consider the development of partnerships. Espically if you are new to the grant wiring world. Find someone that you can work with that you can use as a sounding board for you thoughts and to review your writing.
Develop a writing style. The best thing I can tell you as far as writing a grant is to be as precise as possible with as few of words as possible. What I tell people is to take the request as presented and to answer the questions provided. You have to keep in mind that the individuals reviewing your proposal may also be reviewing 20 others and you want yours to stand out. So the less wordy and the more precise the better.

18. QUESTIONS

19. Reviewing RFP’s How to review RFP’s Print off entire RFP
Get highlighter and post-it notes
Find a quite place and free time
How to review a RFP.
Start off by printing off the entire RFP. This may be lengthy but it is needed.
Gather your highlighters and post-it notes so that you can make notes and mark the important changes.
Find yourself an quite place and free time to review the RFP. You may want to dedicate yourself up to an hour to just sit and read the request.

20. Understanding RFPs Title Announcement Type RFP #, CFDA # New
Continuation
Re-Issue
RFP #, CFDA #
So, lets look at all of the pieces of the request.
Title: As stated this is the title of the program
Announcement Type: Your announcement may come in a variety of ways. It may be a new grant(award). As stated this is a new program and the sponsoring agency will be issuing new awards.
A continuation grant: To receive a continuation grant you will have had to received that grant within some prior time frame. It is usually the prior year.
Re-Issue: Sometime you will see an announcement as a re-issue.
RFP#, CFDA # : as stated earlier these are numbers assigned by the sponsoring agency to that specific announcement.

21. Understanding RFPs Key Dates Release Dates Letter of Intent Date
Application Due Date
Continuing on with RFPs Lets look at the Key dates.
Release Date: This is the date that the announcement was made public.
Letter of Intent Date: This is the Date the LOI is DUE.
Application Due Date: This is the date the application is due.
These dates are very important for you to keep in mind. If you miss these dates then your proposal will not be evaluated. You cannot assume will as long as I have it post marked by this date it will be ok because it want. Many times there will even be a time of the day it has to be there by.

22. Understanding RFPs Eligibility
Limit on # of proposals per organization
PI Limit
Cost Share
The Eligibility section of the RFP tells you who is eligible for the grant.
Lime of the number of proposals per organization: Often times the program will only let you submit one proposal per organization, but it may be that there is no limit on the number of proposals per organization.
The PI limit for the program. The grant may only let you have one person work on the program or it may be there is not limit on the number of people. It may be that the PI has to be a member of a certain organization or hold a certain position or degree.
Cost Share or Matching: This section tells you how much cost share is inolved.

23. Understanding RFPs Synopsis Program Officers (POs) Award Information
The Synopsis section will provide you a general overview of what the sponsoring agency is looking for: It will say the purpose of this program is to do “X”. This is generally the best place to start looking to see if the grant is a good fit for your idea.
The Program Officers: These are the people who will oversee the program from the sponsoring agencies side. As stated earlier it is good to get to know these people on some level and to run your idea by these individuals.
Award Information: This section will provide you information on the award ceiling or floor. It will let you know how much funding the sponsoring agency has devoted to the grant and the number of award they are looking to make based off of the funding provided. In general you can take the total $ amount and divide it by the number of awards anticipated to determine how much you can request, if it is not specified.

24. Understanding RFPs Budget Information Review Criteria
The Budget Information Section of the RFP will tell you what you can spend the money on, or at least it will tell you what you cannot spend the funding on. It may say that you cannot purchase equipment or that you cannot pay for an individuals salary with the grant funding.
The Review Criteria – This section of the announcement will tell you how your proposal will be evaluated. It may tell you how many points you earn for each section or if it will be reviewed by a committee, a board or whatever the case may be.

25. Understanding RFPs Submission Process Guidelines for Writing
On-line
Mail
Guidelines for Writing
Often hidden
Another document
Follow, Follow, Follow Directions
The Submission Process Section of the Request will tell you exactly how the grant needs to be submitted: It may be on-line or it may be by mail. It will provide you with information on how many copies to provide and how to put them together. It will tell you who to address the proposal to. All of this information can me located in this section.
The guidelines for writing the proposal. Often times there are hidden away or located in a separate document all together depending on who you are submitting to. These guide line will tell you how many pages you may use, what font size and style to use, what kind and size of paper to write on, how to space your lines and margines. All of this information can be located in this section.
Lastly: FOLLOW DIRECTIONS. I cannot state this enough. The sponsoring agency puts all of these restrictions on you for a reason. They use these to weed out applications. If you do not follow directions then the sponsoring agency will not review your application. It does not matter how great and wonderful it is because if you do not follow the directions they will kick it out and never look at it.

26. SAMPLE RFP Mississippi Department of Education Homeless Education
So, now let look at a sample RFP from the Mississippi Department of Education.