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Post by 5straight on Mar 18, 2009 9:22:29 GMT -6
We are a small private school with a small budget. Does anyone know how to go about finding "Grant Money" Where does one begin to look / apply for Grants.
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Post by kylem56 on Mar 18, 2009 9:40:49 GMT -6
www.usafootball.com/ then click on the commissioner's tab, theres some section on equipment grants also i dont know where you're located but some NFL teams have programs where they help out local teams also I would check around this website: www.aahperd.org/naspe/
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Post by briangilbert on Mar 18, 2009 9:45:09 GMT -6
I'm in college you can take graduate courses or non graduate courses in grant writing in the education department. That is where I would start personally. Get the certification you need to literally write grants.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2009 10:00:40 GMT -6
Dave Cisar knows alot about this kind of stuff PM him and see what he reccommends
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Post by davecisar on Mar 18, 2009 14:56:24 GMT -6
I'm in college you can take graduate courses or non graduate courses in grant writing in the education department. That is where I would start personally. Get the certification you need to literally write grants. Not needed. I got over 100k for my teams in Omaha. You have to be MUCH more than a football team to get anyones attention. Anyone with reasonable brains and writing skills can "apply" for grants. |
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Post by coachiminime on Mar 18, 2009 20:46:01 GMT -6
coach how did you get the money?
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Post by 5straight on Mar 18, 2009 22:05:53 GMT -6
Thanks for all your assistance. But my question for Dave is, "How do I even go about finding potential grants that are out there waiting to be applied for? Thanks again.
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Post by oline644 on Mar 19, 2009 5:24:40 GMT -6
BIg schools have a grant writer. Sometimes we'll write the local senator and ask for some money. He usually throws us a least a couple thousand dollars.
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Post by davecisar on Mar 19, 2009 6:16:00 GMT -6
#1) You have to be MORE than a football team in need of money in order for it to be worth your time and effort to apply. It does take plenty of time to fill out all the paperwork and apply for the grant. We were a program that just happened to use football to bring kids together. We had an academic accountability and reward program ( gave out over 300 used computers and more as prizes). We had weekly academic reward pizza parties. We had a character development program. We didnt charge the kids any $$$ to play. We had a community service requirement and did a number of huge projects. We were in the news a lot etc ( an observer to one of our practices was shot, murdered right in front of our kids) We reclaimed 2 abandon and overgrown practice fields, installed our own goal posts, grass etc, with just the coaches, kids and a few parents. In the end we had a big donor even pay for our 2 best academic teams to go to Florida and play in Bowl games. So IMHO you have to build a program that is a lot more than football first, then get some ink. Donors came to us to begin with, then we went to www.foundationbook.com and bought the book for our state. It shows where each foundation has given money the last 2 years. It shows you which are in your strike zone and the application process, 95% of them you have to be a 501c3 non-profit to apply. Really not that big a deal to apply, just takes time and once you have a template, can kind of use it for most of them. BUT IMHO you have to do the above stuff well before. We didnt get any $$ from anyone for the first 3 years. We showed what we had done, pics, results, testimonials, newspaper articles etc. Even then we were at about a 15% success rate and we only applied to orgs that were 100% in our strike zone of: youth development, athletics, faith based, academic development, inner-city, communnity improvement. An org had to be focused on at least 4 of these before we bothered applying. |
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Post by 5straight on Mar 19, 2009 9:39:38 GMT -6
Dave, thank you. That is definitely a starting point.
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Post by davecisar on Mar 19, 2009 11:40:08 GMT -6
FYI:
Most grant awards are made about 9 months after application, rarely many inside of that window.
You have to have a very clear mission statement for what your Organization is all about
You have to have an "elevator pitch". Something you can say in 1 minute or less about who you guys are and why it makes sense to donate money to you.
You can't have the common platitudes: academics, sportsmanship, character without having proactive, consistent programs in place to stress it, teach it and hold kids accountable to it.
So often I see coaches and organizations TALK about those things. When I ask them exactly what they are doing to promote those outcomes, I usually get a bunch of platitudes, buzz words, ers, uhms, vague notions, even more vague "ideas never implemented" and even lies LOL. It's great to have good intentions and model outcomes in front of kids, but that only goes so far and won't win you a cent of grant money.
Dont let this all discourage you, there are some tiny grants available here and there that have shorter windows, but those all came to us because of community awareness to what we were doing and our results. You just have to have your ducks in a row in order to chase the bigger ones down, otherwise you are wasting your time. Now would be a good time to get those ducks in a row so you can apply in 2010.
We already had all the character development, academic awards, camps, guest speakers, community service stuff in place and a track record with it before we applied, which is what they want. The funders want to feel good that the $$ are going to be well used and that they will get a better "return" for those $$ than those you are competing with for the $$. Simple enough. So you can see why you need to be very well organized, have a crystal clear mission and show people how in real life you are meeting those goals in your mission statement.
The "sports is great to keep kids out of trouble, we need to keep our parents cost down" pitch won't hunt.
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