2. 1. How grants enhance Cooperative Extension’s mission and outreach 2. How grants enhance your professional development and career 3. Building partnerships

3. Purpose to which we commit … We teach, learn, lead, and serve, connecting people with the University of Wisconsin, and engaging with them in transforming lives and communities. Council for Strategic Change, December 21, 2009

4.  Grants provide money and other resources to aid and assist Cooperative Extension in funding and completing projects that benefit the Wisconsin public.  Grants makes it easier for you to pursue goals and overcome funding constraints.  Funders also benefit through the success of the projects they funded. For example, youth who benefit from a grant program may become a powerful advocate for Cooperative Extension and for the Funder in the future. Funded and successful grants are published on the Funder’s website and in reports.

5.  Writing Grant proposals is a time intensive, frustrating process, but is worth it because it:  Encourages collaboration and brainstorming with peers, community leaders, organizations and stakeholders;  Creatively generates new ideas and solutions to old problems;  Creates a product that can be built on;  Can lead to future collaborations and new relationships. Whether your grant proposal is awarded or not, you build skills, relationships and capabilities.

6.  Professionally fulfilling  Use in Performance Review  Use success story for annual Planning and Results report  Share experiences and knowledge with others  Add value to your educational program

7.  New focus is on integrated, potentially interdisciplinary, and multistate collaborations. Combine ideas, resources and abilities.  Approach challenges in a more efficient and comprehensive way.  Cooperative, jointly planned outreach employing multidisciplinary approaches.  Partnerships with communities in Wisconsin help build visibility and public support for Cooperative Extension in times of county, state and federal budget cuts.

8.  In order for collaboration to work, be certain the people you’re working with have the necessary skills, work habits, and focus.  As the grant writer, you are the key person in the group and will lead, inspire and coordinate the responsibilities and tasks.  As a group, the partners can identify gaps in the grant proposal and ways to strengthen it.  Many Funders give points to grant proposals that involve partnerships.