Different Types of Grants

Different types of grants have different requirements and cultures surrounding who gets funded and who does not. Although the writing and research process will essentially remain the same no matter what kind of grant you are applying for,  it will occur on a different timeline based on what kind of funding organization you are appealing. 

Government Grants: These are grants that are, quite obviously, funded from a state or federal government source, such as the California Department of Education or the US Department of Education. The Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for these grants are usually 60-100 pages, your written proposal will most likely be at least half as long, they have many intricate guidelines, and can take several weeks to put together. When applying for government grants, I suggest giving yourself six solid weeks of preparation, at a minimum. I would warn against applying for any government grants with less than six weeks before the deadline. Government grants are almost always "scored," meaning different parts of your proposal are assigned numerical quantities, which are added up at the end and grantees are determined based on the highest score.

• In the first week, you should begin your research on the grant you're applying for, check with the appropriate leadership for approval to apply for the grant, call the program officer with the funding source and discuss your school's eligibility to apply for the grant and send in a letter of intent to apply for the grant.
• In weeks 2 through 4, you should write the grant, ensuring all along that it is being written to the specifications in the RFP. During this time, you should also collect the necessary budget information from the accountant at your school or district and enlist his or her help in designing the budget for the program. If possible, enlist the help of others to contact other community organizations and school personnel who might be willing to help with the project. 
• In weeks 5 and 6, submit the draft of the proposal to your principal for approval. Have someone (or better yet, multiple people) edit the proposal, removing as many errors as possible. Take the scoring rubric from the RFP and give it to a few people who are not directly involved in the project. Based on the scores they give your proposal, edit it to receive the best score possible. Submit the proposal and cross your fingers!

Corporate Grants: Applying for grants from corporations means you will have increased competition for money. Usually corporations fund a variety of initiatives in broad areas of interest, such as education or environment. Some corporations will fund multiple broad areas of interest and you will be in competition with nonprofits or schools from across the nation, or even the world. Some corporations require that they have employees who volunteer with the organization they choose to fund, so already having a large number of volunteers from their company is not only beneficial, but necessary. So if your school resides in an industrial area with a large number of your students' parents working for the same corporation, enlist their support as volunteers and appeal to the corporation for funding. You can prove that they already have a vested interest in your school because of the large number of employees who serve as volunteers. Applying for corporate grants can be as simple as submitting an online request or as difficult as submitting a 15-page proposal, depending on the regions the corporation serves and the process the corporation has already instituted. As such, there is no precise timeline for applying for these kinds of grants.

Community Foundation Grants: Community foundations are, not surprisingly, based out of a specific community and will generally fund organizations that exist within the community they serve. This also means that the grant your school is applying for should probably be serving the entire community, but if you can make a case that the program will impact the lives of a majority of the community, you might be okay. These kinds of funding organizations will also look kindly upon requests that already have the support of some community leaders because this shows that the program is something that is valued by many in the community. The timeline for applying for community foundation grants varies, but can be thrown together rather quickly, especially if you already have proposals written for the project in mind. In the past, I have written grants for community foundations in a day, but remember: the early bird catches the worm. If you have the ability to begin early, do so! You will not be punished for your preparation.