GRANTS INTRODUCTION  LESSON #1
   

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Lessons:        1          2          3          4          5          6          7

Lesson 1: Types of Proposals

Any study of grant writing should begin with an understanding of the different types of grant-funded projects. Funding agencies and foundations have their own reasons for preferring one type of project over another. There are five types of proposals:

Program: Grants that help your organization provide services to the community are called program proposals. If your agency provides literacy training for adults in your service area, that’s a program proposal.

Research: These are grants to study a particular issue. A grant to learn more about the effects of a drug treatment on a disease would be an obvious example.

Technical Assistance: Technical assistance grants are sometimes called T/A. When an organization recognizes that it has a deficiency in a certain area, it can receive a T/A grant to cover the cost of hiring a consultant. The consultant can educate the staff of the agency so that the staff does not require consultants in the future. Or, the consultant can provide technical assistance on an as-needed basis. Often, communities hire architects or urban planners to prepare a master plan for the town. This is one type of technical assistance.

Planning/Coordinating: Where one area is served by several different agencies, there might be a need for a planning grant. These dollars cover the cost of coordinating programs among agencies. A hotline for refugees that makes referrals to one program for housing, another for English as a second language, and a third for job training might be eligible for a planning grant.

Capital Improvement: Also known as bricks-and-mortar , capital improvement grants cover the cost of physical improvements to land and buildings. Bricks-and-mortar projects include an addition to your building, a new roof, or a new building.

These grants can be given for a specific project completed within a predetermined period, or can go to an ongoing activity of your organization.

In Lesson 2 we will look at where the money comes from.