Free, My Favorite Four Letter Word

by Tracey Wong, September 2018

If you ask any school librarian about their budget, chances are they will tell you it is nonexistent, inadequate, or has been cut. Many school administrators do not realize the full value and impact of the library media center. As a result, the library budget tends to be the first source to pull money for areas that are non-library related. While some school districts do give their school libraries the state aid mandated per child, others use it at their discretion.

Six years ago as a school library media specialist starting out, I used grant funding to build resources and create stimulating learning opportunities. Through grant writing, I have grown tremendously as both an educator and a person. The school library and its wonderful scholars have been able to participate in transdisciplinary learning through these projects and activities: an invitation to visit Michelle Obama's garden at the White House; an elevator pitch to Warren Buffett; a $5,000 check from HSBC for a water creation project; a New York City award presented by Council Member Ritchie Torres; and ten Surfaces from Microsoft for being filmed playing Mystery Skype for ABC's Born to Explore series with Richard Wiese.

Donors Choose

Anyone who is interested in writing grants should start with Donors Choose as it provides an excellent foundation to learn how to write high quality grants. When I first started teaching in the South Bronx as an elementary teacher, I discovered Donors Choose. I had heard about a site that would help teachers cut through administrative red tape and quickly put materials into the kids' hands. All the wonderful and fun things I envisioned as a teacher were suddenly possible. Donors Choose was my stepping stone into the world of grant writing and I still use them to this day. Most recently, Donors Choose had their #BestSchoolDayEver when Ripple funded every single live project to a total of $29 million. Donors Choose first qualifies teachers by their district through a drop down menu and asks for a picture of your students to be uploaded in order to put a face on the project. The site then walks you through a three-part, simple process of grant writing. Providing answers to questions about your students, your project, and what you hope to accomplish are all you need to complete a proposal.

In order to be successfully funded on Donors Choose, please have these tips in mind. Keep your requests reasonable. Sticking to a $300-$500 range project will enable you to quickly get funded. Donors tend to shy away from large projects, and donors who may only have a few dollars to spend will feel their donation is more greatly appreciated on a smaller project. If you do have a big project and the funding is steep, break it up into several different requests labeling them Part A, Part B, and Part C. Always look at the funding opportunities before you begin to write. Often different companies like to promote different learning dispositions or topics and will automatically fund half a project. Once when there was partner funding for any project that was garden related, I was able to secure two iPads for the library. Since the library had already created a garden and I had connected it to the science and math curriculum by having kids document growth with plant size related to days, I proposed using iPads to record the growth process in a series of pictures as well as in creating digital stories to present learning outcomes. As I learned how to more finely tune this habit of thinking outside the box and creating transdisciplinary connections and collaborations, I became able to grow as a writer and a teacher.

Six-Figure Grants

After getting funded on many Donors choose projects, I began to look for bigger funding opportunities of anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000. I applied for every grant I could. I spent approximately twenty hours a week on my own time writing grants. I wanted my scholars in the Bronx to be able to have learning opportunities that would enrich them since they suffered from so many disadvantages as it was. Since the library is literacy based, I knew that I could teach almost any topic around research and reading and make it into a transdisciplinary learning opportunity by communicating and collaborating with other teachers. Through grant funding I was able to provide family engagement workshops, health and wellness hands-on classes for classes and parents, summer school programming, after school enrichment, desktops, iPads, field trips to Broadway, cultural enrichment art-based units, gardening, and composting. The sky was the limit. If I could think of it, I would write about it.

By applying indiscriminately to medium-sized grants, I began to get bombarded with numerous emails about more grant opportunities. The old adage "practice makes perfect" is very true. If you practice anything long enough, it is easy to master it. Writing is no different. Looking to create specialized programs and wanting to have a bigger impact on the learning community, I turned to foundation, state, and federal grants since the funding available is much larger.

In applying for bigger grants, it is important to allot a sufficient amount of time to complete them and not feel overwhelmed. Additionally, it is a good idea to work on sections of the proposal at different times. It is beneficial to write and later revisit the writing two, three, or even four times to reread, edit, and improve what you have already written. Use the language provided in the grant guidelines and directions in order to craft your response. This can often be as simple as turning the questions into sentence starters to frame your writing or working from a word bank you create specifically for the proposal. As you later go back to your draft, you add to and create your vision, which then begins to take a life of its own. The various sections drawn from the questions should be highlighted as headings within the proposal to make it easier for the grant reviewer to see where you are answering what they are seeking. This not only makes your proposal clear and clean, but it also assists you in the drafting process as it will become obvious how you will need to align your writing to the questions.

Always use data. This will help paint a true picture of the learning community. In order to obtain the most recent data, visit the National Center for Education Statistics (https://nces.ed.gov/) for statistics on ethnic breakdown, total student population, and the percent of teachers to students. You will need to provide data on the population you service. State benchmarks are relevant, as well as the percentage of special education, English language learners, and the percentage of students who receive free/reduced meals.

Helpful Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

Though you will be asked about the materials and/or budget being proposed, do not spend too much time on this. Instead, concentrate on how you will create a multi-sensory learning experience. Use powerful words and details to bring your project to life. Create a mental image for the reviewer. Have a printed copy of Norman Webb's Depth of Knowledge handy that you can refer to as you write (https://static.pdesas.org/content/documents/M1-Slide_19_DOK_Wheel_Slide.pdf ). This will help you focus on the learning you need to inspire so you can vividly describe the experience. What will children be doing? Why is it beneficial? Avoid using education-specific vocabulary that the grant reviewer may not be familiar with. Instead, write out any abbreviations and use a formal tone. Always use the third person.

A solid grant proposal often has good measureable outcomes. Measureable outcomes are often the difference between grants that are funded and grants that are not. How will funders know their grant made a difference? What learning transpired and how will it be measured? A favorite thing I like to do is to use student service learning to implement the grant. As I work with a team of scholars, who are essentially the board members, I rely on them to deliver the grant and turnkey it to the general population. This has always been a wonderful experience as it builds confidence, leadership, and has other students mindful of how they behave as they want to be asked to lead a grant.

Additionally, many funders are concerned with sustainability. They do not want to fund a proposal only to have it languish or die off after the first year. Since you are requesting to fund a special learning experience, how can it be continued? What steps will be taken to ensure that not only will it target the greatest number of students possible but also has a lasting effect?

After you have finished writing and have submitted the proposal, save your work and make sure to organize it in a manner that will be easy for you to recall and retrieve. As you begin to write more and more grant proposals, you will notice they have many similarities. It is not uncommon for a good grant writer to recycle, reuse, and repurpose what was written before.

In conclusion, grant writing is an art form and a numbers game. The more grants you apply to, the more you will have accepted. While you will get rejected on some, the key to being successful is to stay focused and persist. By collaborating with colleagues, creating transdisciplinary curriculum, and utilizing data and Webb's Depth of Knowledge, many grants are within your reach. Lastly, besides the amazing experiences scholars will enjoy, a very important side benefit to grant writing is that they will advocate for the library media center and the work you do. Too often, parents, administrators, and even other teachers are under the mistaken belief that school librarians just check out books. Writing grants will help to highlight the special learning that transforms children's lives and forms memories well into adulthood.