Grant Writing for Teachers and Educational Support Personnel

Hours: 24 / Access Length: 180 Days / Delivery: Online, Self-Paced

Course Overview:

Grants are a great way to fund school projects.  The process of obtaining a grant may seem daunting at first, but many educators have successfully obtained money for their school by writing grant proposals.  This course will walk you through the process of developing a plan and writing a grant proposal step-by-step.  You will learn tips and techniques from successful grant writers to improve your chances of receiving the funds you need for your school.

Students will:

• Develop an understanding of the grant writing process.
• Evaluate and locate funding sources that match the needs of the grant project. 
• Discern the guidelines provided in the RFP. 
• Define and describe the needs, goals and objectives of the grant project.  
• Develop an implementation plan.
• Develop an evaluation plan.
• Develop a detailed budget that identifies specific expenditures for the grant project. 
• Write a grant proposal.

Testimonial

"I was interested in, the Grant Writing for Teachers and Educational Support Personnel program because I wanted to find a different career path to make me more valuable as an employee. I’d mention to friend my favorite thing was you can learn at your own pace."

Kate Porter

Course Outline:

Lesson 1: Introduction to Grants

In this lesson, you will develop an understanding of the grant writing process.  You will explore different types of grants and their sources.  You will analyze several Requests for Proposal (RFP) in order to become familiar with the type of information required by companies and organizations that provide grants. 

Lesson 2: Find a Grant

In this lesson, you will research companies and organizations that provide educational grants.  A key component of this lesson is accurately aligning your needs with an appropriate grant fund.  By taking a close look at past grants awarded and carefully reading the RFP, you will be able to determine if the purpose of the grant matches your need.  This is critical and will improve your chances for the award.  After researching available grants, you will select one and obtain the RFP.

Lesson 3:  Developing a Winning Proposal

In this lesson, you will explore best practices and tips for developing a well-written proposal.  You will learn what makes a great proposal, and what makes a not so great proposal.  Also, this lesson includes a look at proposal outlines and templates to get you started.   Finally, you will take a close look at your RFP and develop an outline for your proposal. 

Lesson 4: Write the Needs Statement

In this lesson, you will craft an explanation of your situation and why you need a grant.   Key to this lesson is creating a message that will convince the reviewer that you have a viable need and how it will benefit your students and school.  You will study examples of needs statements to gain an understanding of how to write yours so that it will grab the reviewer’s attention. 

Lesson 5: Write the Goals, Objectives, and Evaluation Plan

The goals and objectives indicate what specific outcomes are expected from the grant project, and drive all of the other components of the grant proposal.  In this lesson, you will study examples of well-written goals and objectives, and then write the goals and objectives for your grant project.  In addition, you will develop criteria for each objective that will measure how well the objective was met, and decide what methods of measurement will be used.

Lesson 6: Write the Implementation Plan

The implementation plan describes what will be done to meet the goals and objectives of the project.  In this lesson, you will describe how the project will be implemented.  What activities, lessons, and methods will be employed to meet the project objectives?  When will these activities occur and who will participate?  Who will be responsible for managing the project?  This is the meat of the proposal and will demonstrate that you have a solid plan for meeting your goals. 

 Lesson 7: Develop the Budget

The budget outlines exactly how the grant money will be used.   In this lesson, you will analyze examples of budgets to see what types of expenditures are normally incurred in school projects.  Then, you will develop a budget that includes accurate cost estimates for every expected expenditure.   This may be the most tedious part of the process for your team, but it is a vital component of the proposal.  

Lesson 8: Review and Submit

A final review is necessary to make sure you have followed the guidelines in the RFP and have included all required elements.  It’s also a chance to check for grammatical errors, and make suggested revisions.   It is recommended that someone outside of the grant proposal process conduct the review for objectivity.  In this lesson, you will explore tips and techniques to enhance your proposal, conduct a final review, revise and edit your proposal, and produce a final copy for submission.  Good luck! 

All necessary course materials are included.

System Requirements:

Internet Connectivity Requirements:

• Cable, Fiber, DSL, or LEO Satellite (i.e. Starlink) internet with speeds of at least 10mb/sec download and 5mb/sec upload are recommended for the best experience.

NOTE: While cellular hotspots may allow access to our courses, users may experience connectivity issues by trying to access our learning management system.  This is due to the potential high download and upload latency of cellular connections.   Therefore, it is not recommended that students use a cellular hotspot as their primary way of accessing their courses.

Hardware Requirements:

• CPU: 1 GHz or higher
• RAM: 4 GB or higher
• Resolution: 1280 x 720 or higher.  1920x1080 resolution is recommended for the best experience.
• Speakers / Headphones
• Microphone for Webinar or Live Online sessions.

Operating System Requirements:

• Windows 7 or higher.
• Mac OSX 10 or higher.
• Latest Chrome OS
• Latest Linux Distributions
  

NOTE: While we understand that our courses can be viewed on Android and iPhone devices, we do not recommend the use of these devices for our courses. The size of these devices do not provide a good learning environment for students taking online or live online based courses.

Web Browser Requirements:

• Latest Google Chrome is recommended for the best experience.
• Latest Mozilla FireFox
• Latest Microsoft Edge
• Latest Apple Safari

Basic Software Requirements (These are recommendations of software to use):

• Office suite software (Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, or LibreOffice)
• PDF reader program (Adobe Reader, FoxIt)
• Courses may require other software that is described in the above course outline.