The Fund Finder News
Public Safety Grants Consulting
The Fund Finder News
A Bi-Weekly Grants News and Information Update By Kurt Bradley
Issue 28, May 20, 2005
"How to Stretch Budget Dollars Into Successful Grant Writing"
Are you visiting CHIEF Grants because the "budget axe" has left your department without the money it needs for equipment and training? Here's what you can do to make do.
This Situation Sound Familiar?
You need money. So you want to write a grant. But you need money to get some grant writing training, so you can write a better grant. But the training costs money. And you need money.
Sound familiar? It's a vicious, never-ending cycle, isn't it? In this Fund Finder, we're going to talk a little about how to find a lot more money:
- How to best put to use what you already have in your budget
- How to better work with local, community resources
- How to get not just any grants, but the right grants
- How to find the funds for grant writing training
We're also going to talk a little more about the new CHIEF Grants Seminars, how they'll help you write better grant applications, what that means to your department, and how you can find the money to attend training events like this.
Investing In the Financial Health of Your Agency
All of us understand that we wish to receive true cost benefit in the expenditure of what little budget dollars that we have. The public we serve expects us to be good stewards of their tax and donation dollars. You have limited resources in the first place, or you would not have a need to find a grant program to help you out. We understand that.
One of the ways to maximize your available budget, is to invest in training that ensures you balance your already allocated budget dollars with the funds you seek from the right grant programs. This way you use the grants process in a way that does not take away from the budget dollars that you already have, but furthers your department's spending power.
This is not something that you learn by having a few conversations with a consultant or by reading a few articles (although those help too). To be really good at writing grants takes knowledge and a set of tools to properly accomplish the task.
For example, most of us have recognized that we have to "invest" money in ourselves in order to secure our retirement. We use financial products like a 401(k) or an IRA to do this. Usually these funds are managed by professional financial advisors. Why? Because they have the know-how to stretch and provide maximum growth of your funds. What is the difference between them and us? They were trained to do it!
Maximize Your Ability to Obtain Grants for Your Agency
It's the same with grants and the funding strategy that a department uses. To look at it another way, if you could put $1000 dollars in the bank, and then go back within a year and get not $1,000, but $25,000 back, how many of you would jump at that opportunity? I know I would!
If you want to play in the "arena of grants", you have to know the game. Just as you had to train at the "police academy" or "local fire academy" in order to do your job as a public safety professional, you must also learn the rules of engagement if you are going to be successful at obtaining grant money for your agency.
That's where grant training comes in. In addition to figuring out how to best use your department's budget dollars, you also learn to play the grants game.
Spending a small amount of money to learn how to properly play this game makes absolute perfect sense. You need to be trained on how to research and develop grant programs that a grant reviewer looks upon as a strong application. That will result in your agency receiving the financial help it deserves.
Just as a bank would expect you to provide a solid business plan before approving a startup loan for your new dream business, a grant funder wants to be sure that your program is going to accomplish what their program's goals. It is not overly complicated to learn how to write program plans and present them in a way that gets your department funded. It just requires proper knowledge and training.
OK, I Want The Training... But Where Do I Get The Money for It?
Is money tight? You can still find the funds to attend a training seminar, such as those we now offer through CHIEF Grants. Remember: a few hundred dollars has the potential to win your department tens of thousands of dollars in grant funding.
If money seems too tight for training, try these ideas to beat the tight budget blues:
- Talk to City Hall about covering the costs. Tell them that in exchange for sending you to the training, you will also use your seminar training to help other departments with their grant writing
- Approach the local Chamber of Commerce for a donation
- Talk with businesses, both local shops and larger companies such as Wal-Mart about possibly funding your training
- Run a local phone fund-raising campaign with area citizens
- Hold a raffle, sponsor a bingo game, BBQ, car wash, etc.
- Pass the hat. Got a 10-member department? If everyone gives $25, you're halfway to a $500 seminar
- Coordinate with other area departments and pool resources to send people who will use the training to help all the community's departments with their grant writing
Something to Remember
Businesspeople and citizens love to see you making efforts to utilize their tax dollars in an efficient, prudent manner. Spending a few bucks to train someone to get thousands back in equipment and programs, means that you are not walking around to them with hat in hand as often. It also means you may not have to be going before city council every year asking for another tax increase.
And that, my friend, is sound, efficient, financial management of your budget dollars.
Take advantage of the "specialized" training in public safety grant writing that CHIEF Grants has developed and is now offering. This is not another grant seminar that just gives you some general information; we will help you learn how to write that grant, as well as show you copies of actual, funded applications.
Through our experience in grants and by listening to you, our customers, we know what you need to learn and we will show you exactly how to do it! See what others have had to say who have attended our training, and learn what a difference it can make for you and your department.
Learn More & Register for CHIEF Grants Seminars
Need more ideas? See How to Convince City Hall: Professional Grant Writing Training Is Worth Every Penny
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