The Fund Finder News
Public Safety Grants Consulting
The Fund Finder News
A Bi-Weekly Grants News and Information Update By Kurt Bradley
Issue 2, May 13, 2004
"The TEAM Sport of Grantsmanship"
Volunteer Fire Departments from across the country came together recently under the auspices of
VolunteerFD.org for a series of roundtable discussions regarding finding solutions to various problems besieging our industry.
To those of you who did not make this seminar, you missed a golden opportunity to discuss your problems and find solutions for everyday issues confronting your agencies. Congratulations are in order for Jason Zigmont, founder of VolunteerFD.org, who did a good job of organizing and staging this informative and educational series of discussions. If you do not belong to this organization, you should, it is free. The information and advice posted is worth taking a hard look at. You can find them on the web at
VolunteerFD.org.
The networking and think tank type discussions covered a broad range of topics from by-laws and hiring to SOGS and personnel problems. Grants and fundraising activities were also a topic of discussion.
It became quite obvious that a great many of the volunteer departments across the country are struggling to achieve funding yet consistently missing the mark when it comes to applying for grants. This is understood, given the volunteer nature of this particular facet of public safety work.
Grant writing is not something to be undertaken with a hurried or rushed attitude and the vast majority of us do not devote ourselves to our volunteer departments with the needed frequency to stay current or on top of the grants game. That being said, it should also be understood that the volunteer fire departments are probably some of the neediest, of all the fire departments, across the country in accessing and receiving federal grant funding.
Developing a successful grant requires effort, time and commitment. It is not something that can be done in a day or two. It requires a lot of research, gathering of statistical data and above all, coordination of effort within the agency and local government.
Grants are programs with stated goals and objectives that must be met. They are not just a needy agency saying, "I am poor and please give me money." Most grants fail because the grant application was rushed, not properly thought out and poorly written. Yes, I know most of you are not English majors or literary geniuses. The point is you do not have to be.
The RFPs (Requests for proposals) clearly spells out the information needed, the type of programs or equipment that is eligible to be funded and the order that the information should be presented in.
The problem area that most of you run into is that you have not previously thought out exactly what it is that your agency needs most. This is why, in any successful grant strategy, a "needs assessment" is performed within your agency to determine what your most needy area is.
This is where many heads are better than one. Get your organization together and brainstorm these issues. We tend to develop individual plans of what we perceive to be the most serious problems in our departments. We get tunnel vision and the actual problem may be staring us right in the face. By encouraging an open, round table discussion with your members, you will be surprised that what you may perceive as a problem, may not be the same as what the other members see. This is why a discussion group is warranted to reach consensus on what issue to address and develop a plan of action to deal with the problem.
The VolunteerFD.org "Cruising for Solutions" seminar did exactly that. It brought together a group of professional volunteers from all over the US. Each of them had various problems and opinions about how to deal with these problems. By combining the multiple years of experience, of all of these members, it was easy to formulate new plans to deal with old problems. What was learned about a department in rural Ohio dealing with obtaining a new building was found to be entirely a new approach that had not been thought about by a department in Arizona.
It is the collaboration of ideas that encourages and fosters a new approach and develops new and innovative methods to deal with these problems. Many eyes see many things. Use this to your advantage. At the end of a needs assessment exercise you should have reached a consensus amongst your members as to what direction the department needs to proceed in, formulated a plan to address these needs and you have now focused everyone's attention on the one goal. Remember a"team" concept is what you are striving for here: Together Everyone Accomplishes Much!
Now that you have done this within your department, expand this to your district and sister departments surrounding you. Bear in mind that FEMA and US Fire Administration encourage "interoperability" among agencies. It will garner you much higher scores on your grant applications if this factor is included within, so why not encourage a roundtable discussion of what each department is applying for. This avoids duplication of effort and would show that what you are doing is in concert with the efforts of the mutual aid interests that you also serve. Protecting your turf is not a strategy that should be encouraged. Cooperative, coordinated effort is the ticket for the grants being offered in this day and age.
Developing a grants strategy and grants team is one way to maximize your efforts in planning, developing, applying for and receiving the grant funding you so desperately need to continue your missions.
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