Grant Writing For Educators - Where To Start and What You Should Know

In this video, I'm happy to share some information with you today to help you do a more effective grant writing job, especially as an educator. Enjoy!

• Grant Writing for Education
• The Importance Of Teamwork

Hey my friend, Rodney Walker here of Grant Central USA, thank you for joining me. I'm happy to share some information with you today to help you to do a more effective job of grant writing, especially as an educator. 

Are you seeking grants to help your school or your district? Well, I have some information that's going to help you to do a more effective job of that. That said, let's dive on in. 

Grant Writing for Education

What I will share with you in this video, the difference between education grant writing and some of the others and some things that you want to consider as you start applying for grants. The first major difference when we start looking at grants for education is that most of these grants are going to have a different funding source from some of the others. For instance, nonprofits typically go to a lot of foundations and then they also have niche areas that are interested in funding their cause. Well, in a similar way as an educator, they're grants that are specially designed from some foundations who desire to give to education, but also from the government side of things there are grants they're going to be coming, especially from the Department of Education, that haven't focused interest in giving grants for education, okay?

So the main difference is where is the funding source coming from? Was going to be very important for you as a grant writer or someone starting out in grant writing is to find those who give to your cause. Not every funder wants to give to education, but there are a number of them that do and we want to find them. And the second thing that we want to do is once we find and identify them, we want to start nurturing a relationship. 

Now, here's where the fun part comes in. A lot of people are just grant writing, but you have the opportunity as an educator to start cultivating in a relationship with potential funders that will be likely to get to your calls over the course of time. And one of the things I'm going to encourage you to do as you start grant writing is to not just plunge straight in, because one of the beautiful differences between just doing grant writing as a solo individual versus doing grant writing for your classroom or for your school district is that you have the opportunity to do grant writing as a team.

The Importance Of Teamwork

And then we'll forget some educators that I was working with at our Education Grants Conference. And the beautiful thing is they were doing grant writing and instructed them to do it as a team. They started taking those principles and going back to their institutions. And instead of just being one person, they had the benefit of organizing and working as a team, which made them more successful. 

I never forget the little school in our small school, very small school. But they were able to get some tremendously successful results because they pulled together and had the support of their principal and they came together different areas of interest within the school. But the teachers started working together. They bought more resources to the school as a result. So the main difference is I want to encourage you to look at as you start off, two things. One, realize that you going to have a different funding source from many of the other non-profits, or at even many of the other governmental agencies. The second thing I encourage you is to do grant writing as a team. And you could take this as a solo approach. But I don't recommend you do this, take this as a team approach and you have greater success. 

Now, what are some things that I encourage you to do at these early stages as you're looking at the differences and as you're getting started? Well, here's another thing I want to encourage you to do. I really want to encourage you on the onset to get training for your team. I never forget there was a private school in the New Jersey area. And this one principal who was like the superintendent/principal of his school decided that he was going to get training on the onset. He got training. And let me tell you what happened. As a result of the training that he received, he ended up receiving as much money as a much larger school district.

Actually, the school district in his area, this little private school that had less than 300 somewhat students, received the same amount of money, roughly about 100 somewhat thousand dollars, the same amount that the school district in his area receives. Now, what happened? I'll tell you, he did grant writing the smart way. He first got the information. He learned how to do it effectively. And then he went back. And as he went back, he pulled together a team. And his team, he started working with them to help them to go about applying for grant, finding the grant opportunities, applying for the grant opportunities, and doing the things that he had learned in his grant writing course.

So what I want to encourage you to do on the very first onset is you're doing grant writing for education and for as an educator, I want to encourage you on the onset to go and get the right education so that you won't have to worry about whether or not you're doing this right or wrong. You can do it with confidence and then your team since your team is working together, can do it collectively, knowing that you're doing it the right way. 

I want to thank you for taking a moment to watch this video. And if you found it helpful, I want to encourage you to like it. But in addition to that, if you need more information to help you to become more successful, I want to invite you to go over to grantwritingforeducators.com and there's more information there to help you to continue to grow, continue to develop, to get the monies for your school and district. 

All the best! And remember, be brave, be bold, be brilliant and take charge.

Rodney Walker is today’s leading expert in Grant Development Systems™ and President of Grant Central USA - Grant Writers Association. Learn more about his online grant writing courses today.