{"id":6364,"date":"2013-05-01T00:01:08","date_gmt":"2013-05-01T04:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=6364"},"modified":"2013-04-23T22:46:21","modified_gmt":"2013-04-24T02:46:21","slug":"how-i-learned-to-write-grants-good-and-how-you-can-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/how-i-learned-to-write-grants-good-and-how-you-can-too\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Learned to Write Grants Good and How You Can Too"},"content":{"rendered":"

I started my professional career in the lowest-circulating branch of the Dallas Public Library, a small library in a geographically isolated low-income community.\u00a0 I realized almost immediately that to bring more people into the library, I\u2019d have to go outside the library.\u00a0 How to do that?\u00a0 I applied for a grant from the Texas State Library through what was then the Library Services and Construction Act, or LSCA.\u00a0 We received a $64.000 LSCA grant to promote our small branch library in the community.\u00a0 Among other things, it provided us with funds to make a professional outreach video filmed in the library that was taken out and shown to kids in schools and adults in agencies throughout the community.\u00a0 As a result of the grant we were able to demonstrate a significant increase in gate count and circulation.<\/p>\n

What I learned from writing and then implementing that first grant made it possible for many more successful grants over the years, which in turn made a lot of things possible for my libraries that wouldn\u2019t have been doable otherwise.\u00a0 So what are some of the tips to write a successful grant proposal?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Quantify your objectives.\u00a0 This is such a simple rule and so easy to do.\u00a0 I\u2019m stunned when I\u2019m on the other side of the equation, reviewing grant proposals, how many people still forget this.\u00a0 So I repeat:\u00a0 Quantify your objectives.\u00a0 The grant in Dallas was successful because we didn\u2019t just say, \u201cwe want more people to come into the library because we\u2019re, like, not very busy.\u201d\u009d\u00a0 Instead we said that we wanted to see gate count increase by a certain percentage over a specific time period.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t say, \u201cwe\u2019re going to make a video and maybe then we\u2019ll show it to some people.\u201d\u009d\u00a0 We presented a plan with a goal as to how many kids would see the video.\u00a0 Tip: Always make your goals realistic, and lower than what you think you can do.\u00a0 You\u2019ll automatically exceed your QUANTIFIABLE goals, and look really good to your funder.<\/li>\n
  2. Find out what the community needs, not what you THINK they need.\u00a0 Despite the Steve Jobs maxim that people don\u2019t know what they want until you show it to them, the truth is that when a grant asks you to demonstrate need, you should be able to back up your statements with facts and research.\u00a0 You can\u2019t just base your need on anecdotal evidence\u2013\u201cwe think that there\u2019s a need in our community for more Coast Guard test books, because we think that maybe some people around here have boats, and if we buy some, maybe our circulation will go up.\u201d\u009d\u00a0 You have to be able to say, as we did in Dallas: \u201cHere\u2019s the number of people in the community, and here\u2019s the number of people coming into our library coming into our library on a monthly basis.\u00a0 That\u2019s a very small percentage, right?\u00a0 So we\u2019ve got to get out into the community to find out what it would take to get them to come.\u201d\u009d<\/li>\n
  3. Use local resources.\u00a0 In Dallas we hired someone who had grown up in the community and knew it well as a grant coordinator.\u00a0 He was the key to getting us connected with groups and people that we might otherwise never have known.\u00a0 He also knew all the neighborhoods\u2013the good, the bad and the seedy.\u00a0 I\u2019ll never forget the driving tour we took with the grant administrator from the state library when she came for a site visit, and her reaction when the grant coordinator took the time to point out the crack houses, and other sites of similar interest.\u00a0 The point here is really to get buy in from local groups.\u00a0 Talk with them as you work on your proposal.\u00a0 Get their support, both verbally and in writing.\u00a0 Form partnerships.\u00a0 Ask yourself how can the grant provide both benefit to the library and to community partners?<\/li>\n
  4. Don\u2019t promise anything you can\u2019t deliver.\u00a0\u00a0 Many times, grant funding is used to create library services that you hope will draw more people to the library.\u00a0 Let\u2019s say you want to attract the Latino community, and order more Spanish books.\u00a0 The time to promote your wonderful Spanish-language collection to the community is not<\/span> when you\u2019re out trying to get a grant to buy the collection.\u00a0 It should seem obvious that the time to promote is after you can deliver, when the collection is actually in the library.\u00a0 Often times this step is part of the evaluation piece of a grant proposal, so you need to make sure that you have the timing right.\u00a0 In Dallas, we had to work out the timing for producing our video, and then scheduling massive numbers of school visits and other programs where we could show the video.\u00a0 The video featured kids from the local arts magnet high school, who even wrote an original rap which they performed over the closing credits.\u00a0 The video was filmed in the library, so everything we were promoting was already there.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Grant writing can be very rewarding.\u00a0 It\u2019s especially rewarding if you actually get the grant.\u00a0 But what is most rewarding is the difference you are able to make through what the grant money makes possible for you.\u00a0 Good luck!<\/p>\n

    *******************************************<\/p>\n

    Our guest blogger today is Tim Wadham, who wrote this piece as a member of the Managing Children’s Services Committee<\/a>. Tim is also t<\/em>he director of the Puyallup Public Library<\/a> in Puyallup, WA. <\/em>
    \n<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

    If you\u2019d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at alscblog@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I started my professional career in the lowest-circulating branch of the Dallas Public Library, a small library in a geographically isolated low-income community.\u00a0 I realized almost immediately that to bring more people into the library, I\u2019d have to go outside the library.\u00a0 How to do that?\u00a0 I applied for a grant from the Texas State Library through what was then the Library Services and Construction Act, or LSCA.\u00a0 We received a $64.000 LSCA grant to promote our small branch library in the community.\u00a0 Among other things, it provided us with funds to make a professional outreach video filmed in the library that was taken out and shown to kids in schools and adults in agencies throughout the community.\u00a0 As a result of the grant we were able to demonstrate a significant increase in gate count and circulation. What I learned from writing and then implementing that first grant made it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[98,134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grants-and-fundraising","category-guest-blogger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}