Taking the mystery out of obtaining a grant...
From the research I have done, I am beginning to understand why, when organizations place a request for a grant, it is a collaborative effort. That is, many of the staff get involved in the steps of finding, qualifying, collecting, verifying, and writing the draft, as well as checking, and changing as needed, before anything is turned into for final approval and before it is finally drafted and signed off on, then submitted by the deadline imposed by the grants committee. No easy task...
There are many steps, the first being - identifying the appropriate grant for your stated purpose. I read an article yesterday on a public broadcast site regarding a grant they are going to be giving.The stipulations were immense, and it became clear that matching the purpose with the requirements is a job in itself.
The first step in locating a grant is you must define your purpose.This is done by clarifying the purpose of your project by writing a concise mission statement. Once accomplished, seek funding that is a match for your project, including who will benefit, and how the grant money will be applied to meet the stated purpose. That's just in the preliminary phase, and the work hasn't even begun in processing the application.
So, I am wondering, as I am only one person, do I have the ability to identify, locate, define, collect, and process such a request, alone? I don't know.
I have been given a couple tools called the Federal Money Retriever and another called the Grant Gate. These are two databases which contain a huge number of institutions, both private,non-profits,and governmental sources which are in the business of giving grants to causes. Some contain grants only to organizations, some will give monies to individuals. What is important, as I see it, is the tools are instrumental in the search. They've taken a lot of information and made it possible for someone to locate the right grants, and research these as well.
There's a lot of hubbub on the internet about "getting a grant", such as, the Lesco fiasco. Basically, Matthew Lesco is a consultant who has put together a lot of information to sell to people who do not know anything about grants. People think when buying his products that they will be able to get a grant, simply by buying his products. This is incorrect. People are so desperate for funding, and hear all the fantastic stories, that they will take the risk by spending money (often money they can't really spare) to become in the know. The problem with this is, once you get the book, you quickly see, it is a bunch of information that doesn't tell you much more than you knew already. And half the phone numbers are outdated or bogus. Years ago I purchased Matthew Lesco's book on grants. I found it to be silly and not very helpful in understanding what one has to do to find a grant, let alone write an application for a grant. Most of what he wrote in there was horse sense, and I think that's what he used to fool people (me included) into purchasing his materials. The truth is, finding a grant is very hard work, and the process in getting a grant is harder still.
That's the beauty in the tools I mentioned. There's no other products anywhere, that takes the stress out of the search as these do. The databases are loaded with GOOD information and direction, and if one is very vigilant, finding the correct grant is made a lot easier. Then your work really begins! So I say, don't be fooled into buying useless junk when you can obtain (for free!) the Federal Money Retriever and the Grant Gate at Aidpage.
Now all I have top do is get my courage up to achieve what I have been dreaming of doing.
To learn about the Federal Money Retriever, and the Grant Gate go to:
http://www.idilogic.com
or, read the following Aidpage regarding Idilogic and it's tools:
http://us-federal-government-aid.idilogic.aidpage.com
Happy Hunting,
m_99
