The Fund Finder News
Public Safety Grants Consulting
The Fund Finder News
A Bi-Weekly Grants News and Information Update By Kurt Bradley
Issue 29, June 3, 2005
"Fire/EMS: From Wait-and-See to Get-the-Grant"
Some of 2005's major grant programs may be reviewing your applications, but more big Fire and EMS grants are on the horizon. Here's how you can turn wait-and-see time into get-the-grant time for these funding opportunities.
The big grant of the year, the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program, has closed and the peer review panels have already met in Emmitsburg, MD. Are you chomping at the bit to find out if your department will be awarded funding? I can empathize – I too am "wringing my hands and keeping my fingers crossed," waiting for the results of our hard efforts to assist you.
Even though programs such as AFGP are closed for applications, this is not the time to sit idly by. Other major grants are already looming on the horizon. What should we be doing, to turn this wait-and-see time into get-the-grant time?
Stay Informed… And Check Your Mail
The USFA has already sent out the first round of letters to departments (including a number of CHIEF Grants clients) asking you to confirm contact and bank information and asking if you still want your grant. This letter is usually the "preliminary" indication that your grant will be funded, and it's important to respond promptly.
About a month after receiving this letter, you can expect a call from your local Congressional representative. He or she will be congratulating you on your award.
If you do not already do so, you should be checking your email at least weekly. Also, once a week log in to your online grant application to see if USFA is trying to get a message to you. If you have received a message or an email, you should respond ASAP.
Also keep tabs on the Open Grants and Grant News & Information areas of CHIEF Grants. We update these areas regularly, and they contain the most current information available regarding grants. For example, Open Grants lists our profiles of available grants, and Grant News gives you "early warnings" regarding the "opening" of grant periods or other information relevant to your grant preparations.
Start Doing Your Research
Research isn't glamorous, but it is essential. Now is the time to start doing the research that comes with applying for grant programs. Information your department needs to compile for its grant reporting includes in-house statistical data and demographic information for your area. If you get this information together now, then you have it available for any grant program you apply for.
Here is some other "grant homework" for you:
- Conduct a "needs assessment" of your department and community (more on this below)
- Do your yearly inventory and equipment checks, to determine what is wearing out, what need to be replaced or what needs to be repaired
- Anticipate the equipment, vehicle and building needs you will have during the next 5-10 years, and begin the planning stages of how you will acquire and fund these items
- Identify critical infrastructure (more on this below)
Identify Critical Infrastructure
A community's critical infrastructure is a component of many grant guidelines. Do you know your community's exposures?
Understand what the Department of Homeland Security considers "critical infrastructure", as well as the responsibilities your department has under your State's Homeland Security plan. Make some phone calls, hold discussions with your personnel, and ask a bunch of questions, such as:
- Do we know what kind, and what amounts, of hazardous materials move through the city every day? If you don't know, find out. For example, assign someone to videotape the trains as they pass through town and start scanning the placards on their sides so you have a good idea of what risks your community is exposed to on a daily basis.
- Do you know how many gallons of propane are stored at that tank farm or storage facility just outside your city? Or how many gallons of LP flow through the pipeline that is right under your local elementary school? How about that "photo processing plant", what kind of toxic waste chemicals and amounts are stored there?
Chemicals and fuel are only one component of critical infrastructure and potential haz-mat threats to your community. Identify the potential threats to the public, what the likely targets are, and how your department needs to prepare and respond to emergencies involving them.
Conduct Studies of Your Community
SAFER and the Fire Prevention & Safety Grant (FP & S) programs almost always require a proper "risk assessment" or "needs assessment". These are just fancy words for conducting a study, but these studies are essential to your application having any chance of success.
If you plan on applying for the FP & S grant in September, count on including data from a study you have conducted. In talking with departments who have received their "Dear John" letters, almost without fail their letter has said something to the effect of "Great grant... but you need to have a needs assessment".
Conducting that study is not complicated. For example: If your 2005 FP & S application outlines a program to install smoke detectors in area homes and businesses, how would you go about conducting that study to actually determine if the program is needed?
Conduct a phone or face-to-face survey. Ask your local Scout Troop or Explorer/Cadets to stand in front of the local Wal-Mart for a few weekends, and ask patrons a few simple questions. One question could be, "Do you have children under the age of 14 or senior citizens over 65 living at home?" Follow it up with, "Do you have a smoke detector?" Tally the survey results and bingo, your have just completed a needs assessment.
Here's another example. What if your FP &S application seeks money for a "school safety program"? Get with the school board to design and distribute a simple 5-question test to gauge the level of fire-safety knowledge of kids under 14. Collect the tests, tabulate the results, include them in your application, and you are done.
If you do something like this though, be sure to conduct a followup test. Following the school safety example above, after you get your grant and deliver the training program, re-administer the fire-safety test to the students. When you tabulate these results and compare them to the original test, you can evaluate the effectiveness of your program. If the overall scores on those tests were raised, that means you just conducted a successful program! You promised and delivered what you said that you would, so use this data to request more money for next year, or to expand the current program.
A needs assessment is not hard to do – but it is essential. There's one last thing though, that is even more important...
Remember the "3 Ps" of Grants
Finally, don't ever lose track of the "3 Ps "of grants. They are:
- Persistence. Squeaky wheels get oiled. Keep trying and applying, no matter what. Being told "no" does not mean "never"! If your grant application failed this year, try and try again. If you don't know what you did wrong, contact us or better still, attend one of our new training seminars and learn how to do it right.
- Patience. Don't get in a hurry. Grants, and especially Federal grants, move slowly. Fire Act grants usually have multiple rounds of funding, so if your name is not on this week's list, check next week. Unless you have a "Dear John" letter in your hand, you are still in the running. If you do have a Dear John letter, go back to #1.
- Preparation. If you fail to prepare, be prepared to fail!
After all the work it takes to apply for a grant, it's tempting to sit back and wait. Take a breather, but remember to keep working towards the next grant application. That extra diligence is what makes the difference between waiting and seeing, and getting the grant.
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