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Hands-On Research & Writing of Successful Grant Applications

Length of Seminar: 4 Days
Instructor: Dr. Ron Wells

Course Overview:

Almost half a million institutions in the United States are supported by grant funding each year. The number of police officers and researchers who receive education, equipment, and overtime pay from grants in one form or another is even greater. However, the grant-making boom associated with the past 30 years is over. The days when grants fell like rain have taken their place in the archives of nostalgia.

Programs and projects of similar insignificance will continue to be funded from time to time, however, it isn’t as easy as it used to be. The good news is that grant funds in both the public and private sector are increasing on a rapid basis while the number of institutions and departments funded are decreasing. Grant seekers today must be prepared to meet strict restrictions, powerful competition, and significant oversight.

Today grant seekers not only must be well-trained in the process; competent in their fields of specialization, but they must be skilled in identifying the most likely sources of funding and be able to make presentations and proposals that stand out among the vast and increasing tide of applications now flooding all grant awarding agencies.

Methods of winning in the grants game abound and are passed on from mentor to disciple with the same confidence and authority that characterized the delivery of the Ten Commandments. Some say the idea is all that matters; others insist that it all depends upon the proposal and the final presentation of the idea. Others scorn the whole process and go straight for the political jugular vein and contact a friend who worked in the last presidential campaign. They are all correct, because in grant seeking, as in love, horse racing, or losing weight, there is no system that hasn’t worked somewhere, sometime, for somebody.

However, what ever system is employed every agency seeking grants must decide which organizations to approach and at sometime must present that organization with an application in some form. What is needed in the application process and what forms to fill out are subject to changing trends and modes not unlike those that affect the fashion and automobile industries. Last year’s best seller may be this year’s white elephant, and the forces dictating the changes are often mysterious and nearly always unforeseen.

Every grant seeker must identify their agency, its need, and its position and then identify those organizations that most likely would be interested in funding a solution to their problem. The individual who starts out without knowing what a proposal is, what organizations are funding what type projects, and the different types of proposals for different organizations needs a basic guide - a kind of road map that tells one where to start when you don’t know exactly where you are going.

The purpose of this course is to provide that kind of guide and to suggest a format for approaching and applying to potential funding agencies once they have been identified. Today, review and selection procedures can vary widely but in most cases grant applications are evaluated on the basis of originality and significance to the idea, and on the applicant’s ability, including competence and access to necessary facilities, to carry it out - always assuming that the proposal activity falls within the program guidelines and monetary limitations.

Even though this course is intended to be general and broad regarding grant research and grant proposals, it will also include review of current guidelines regarding program evaluation, compliance with federal regulations on civil rights, protection of human subjects, acquisition and disposition of property acquired with grant funds, patents, and copyrights. Finally it will include discussions on grant management, grant progress reports - always required now by federal grant agencies - and expenditure reports. One important consideration about most grants today is that all governmental granting agencies require detailed management reports and are subject to audit reviews and evaluations by the comptroller general’s office. These reports and evaluations become important for the grant writer, because they become the seeds for future grants with that agency and could put you in a great position to receive additional unsolicited funding.

This will be a unique experience for most attendees: it is not like any other law enforcement training that you have ever received, with the exception of maybe your basic academy. There will be work, exercises, and home work. However, it is not complicated and once the techniques are learned you can position yourself and your department into a very comfortable financial future.