Grant Writing Project Description (Instructor Facing)

Overview

The Grant Writing Project asks students to research and present an idea for a grant, then write the grant application based on their ideas.

Both Projects 2 and 3 constitute the Grant Project, and the project can be integrated into any PTC course (i.e., 2210, 3250, 3246).

A pre-selected grant application is linked into the ORG: Sparks! Ignition Grant Application for Libraries. The grant is sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). This grant application has been curated for the Grant Project to ensure that the project can be completed within the available time, and to include only the deliverables that are fundamental to grant writing.

However, if you want to find a different grant, the following resources can help:

●Grants.gov

●IMLS Grant Search

Also, Grants.gov has loads of information for instructors and students about grants and how to successfully apply for them in the Grant Learning Center. Any additional questions from students about specific deliverables are answered explicitly the Sparks! grant application.

The Sparks! Grant awards range from $10,000-$25,000. Grants are awarded to encourage libraries and archives develop new tools, products, services, or organizational practices that improve the services they provide to the community. Students should frame their project from the position of a non-profit organization or collation of interested and relevant businesses/companies that want to give back to the community.

The objective of the assignment are as follows:

●Identify, articulate, and focus on a defined purpose for the creation and design of a grant application

●Evaluate and respond appropriately to the needs of the target audience--both the community on which the students’ proposed program is focused, and the grant application review committee

●Employ research skills that develop a realistic and robust understanding of a) a specific community and its needs; and b) exemplar library programs nationwide

●Demonstrate an ability to ethically write in the genres necessary to craft an effective grant application

●Employ flexible and collaborative strategies for generating, revising, editing, proofreading, and circulating texts

●Identify and ethically engage with the cultural connections between language, information, and power

Project 2: Grant Idea Presentation

Students will develop and present individual elevator pitches for specific programs/services that could be used for in the Grant Application Project.

In the presentation, students should address the following:

●Need: Specific community need and goal of project

●Plan: What is the idea and what are the specific benefits

●Impact: How the plan will help the community, to include method(s) of assessing impact

●Cost: Estimated cost of the program/service. Keep in mind grant awards range from $10,000 to $25,000

This iteration of the Elevator Pitch requires more research than the Project 2 currently included in 3250. However, the research students do for the pitch lays the groundwork for the content required in the grant application’s Narrative deliverable (i.e., impact, statement of need, etc.).

Students will research a specific community to identify the character and needs of the community, and identify a specific library in which their program/service would be housed. The library should be researched, too--i.e., what programs currently are offered; what’s working, what’s not. Additionally, student may be encouraged to find and identify innovative and realistic programs/services by researching the types of programs/service offered by libraries around the U.S.

To facilitate cohesive lessons and narrow the scope of the project, you may wish to give your students a community/library on which to focus. For example, West Tampa is both local and diverse, and the West Tampa Library currently is actively pursuing programs designed to address the needs of underserved groups within the community.

If you wish to consider West Tampa and the West Tampa Library as sites for your students’ programs/services, Wikipedia has some good information (no joke, it really does):

●West Tampa

●West Tampa Free Public Library

Additionally, here are some categories you students may consider for their programs/services, along with resources to facilitate research on these categories:

●Financial literacy: Business databases on the USF library website

●Health literacy: WedMD, National Library of Medicine (NLM)

●Mental Health literacy: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)

●Gaming clubs: American Library Association, or Google “gaming clubs + libraries”

●Book Club: American Library Association

You may wish to limit your students to these five categories to focus and streamline development of the project.

Once your students have presented their ideas, use whatever method you prefer to select with of the proposed programs/services will be developed into grant applications.

Project 3: The Grant Application

The Grant Application project is a group project. Once you/students have selected programs/services on which to focus and divided into groups, focus shifts to the development of the grant application deliverables.

The deliverables are as follows:

●Narrative

●Budget Form and Budget Justification

●Abstract

●Organizational Profile (i.e., Resumes)

●Bibliography

All deliverables are clearly explained in the grant application--both in terms of content and format. The Spark! Grant PDF is hotlinked to jump the specific content deliverables. This table of contents starts on page 9/52 in the application.

Pacing is entirely up to you, and you may reduce the number of deliverables to accommodate your time constraints and/or the class’ needs.

To help you plan, here’s a possible pacing for the project:

●1st Submission

○Narrative Draft--This document is the linchpin of the application.

■You may wish to take time to discuss it, do peer review, and provide feedback. This deliverable is the core of the application.

●2nd Submission

○Budget Documents Draft (Budget form and budget justification)

■Note that there is a blank budget form included here in the ORG as an editable Word doc

●3rd Submission

○Abstract

○Bibliography Draft

■The bibliography is Supplemental Document 1 in the grant application

■The bibliography must be 100 percent accurate. It’s a big deal to grant review boards. As such, strongly encourage your students to rigorously maintain the bibliography as they work.

●4th Submission

○Final draft of the project

■To include "Organizational Profile"

■This deliverable is optional. Most useful for a discussion of professional ethos. But students have resumes from the Employment Project, so you can have them attach the resumes.

The Organization Profile and Bibliography could be cut if you want to spend more time on content development and/or peer review and/or feedback discussions. The Organizational Profile is optional entirely, and the bibliography could be submitted in the final documents without submission of a draft.

You also may wish to ask for a initial draft and final draft of the Narrative, since it is fundamental to the success of the application.

Depending on your pacing and the available time, you may wish to have a presentation at the end, when the students submit their final documents. As always, it’s your call.

If you have any questions about the assignment, feel free to give Tanya or Mark a shout.