 Hello everyone and thanks for joining us today for this webinar on how to apply for a North Central Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program Farmer Rancher Grant. My name is Joan Benjamin and I coordinate the North Central Region Sarah Farmer Rancher Grant program and I am going to briefly tell you about the Sarah program and I'll go over a few grant writing basics and then I'm going to give you specifics about the Farmer Rancher Grant and the online application process. So first I wanted to just let you know what Sarah is for those of you who don't know and Sarah stands for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education. It's part of USDA and it's funded through the National Institute of Food and Agriculture or the NIFA program. All right and so the purpose of the Sarah program which is a national program is to provide grants and outreach to advance sustainable agriculture innovations to the whole of American agriculture. And let's go to the next slide. This is a different kind of a grant program because it is decentralized. There's four regions the North Central, North East, South and West and each of those is guided by a volunteer administrative council and those administrative councils are made up of farmers and ranchers and reach searchers, educators, people from state and federal agencies, business people. It's a grassroots kind of program which means that each of the four regions makes their own funding decisions and they decide which grants they're going to offer. The Farmer Rancher Grant is reviewed by a committee of about 30 farmers and ranchers who represent all 12 states in our region. So when you write a grant for the Farmer Rancher Grant program that's who you are addressing. Farmers and ranchers from the North Central region. They're interested in practical proposals and accurate budgets. And also just want to mention that we have a strong commitment to diversity and proposals that involve farmers and ranchers or youth from historically underserved populations are encouraged. And this is the Sarah model. As I mentioned there's four different regions each has their own administrative council that runs it. So in the North Central region the 12 states that make up our region are Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. We have a national SARE outreach group and they produce information to share the results from grant projects with farmers, ranchers, educators, consumers and others who are interested in sustainable agriculture. And so they put out a whole wide variety of publications from books to bulletins, YouTube videos, other online resources and all of these are available to you free for download. Or if you want to purchase some of them like a book you can actually download it if you want to or you could purchase it for a small price. We have topic rooms on topics like high tunnels or small ruminants. So please be sure to check out our national website and look over some of these resources that are available to you. These are all on the National SARE website at www.sare.org. We also ask you to take a look at the project reports tab on our North Central SARE website which is northcentral.sare.org and there you can see reports from projects in our region and it's always a good idea to review projects that are similar to the ones you're thinking about or on a similar topic so you can build on what's already been done and not kind of reinvent the wheel and that makes your grant proposal more competitive. And in addition to looking at resources that SARE has be sure to also look at resources outside of SARE on the topic that you are writing a grant proposal on so that you have all the information available when you write your grant proposal. Let's go to the next slide. Okay this is the SARE model. SARE focuses on sustainable agriculture and we define that as ecologically sound economically viable and socially responsible. So when you write a proposal you'll have a question in there asking you how you're addressing these three areas of sustainable agriculture and we want you to discuss all three parts even if your proposal just focuses primarily on one of those parts. So for all of our SARE grants and there are six different grant programs that we offer in the north central region. Farmers and ranchers are major stakeholders in all of them so you farmers and ranchers play a huge role in directing our work. So people who apply for farmer rancher grants have to identify specific problems and potential solutions to those problems that they're trying to solve. This grant program is for sustainable agriculture research or education and demonstration projects it's not for startup costs or everyday farming expenses except those expenses that are directly related to your project. So to give you an example if you were doing a livestock feed study maybe you were comparing different types of feed for livestock the feed that you needed for the livestock proposed project could be included in your budget but only for the animals that are involved in the project. If you do involve livestock in your project we have a livestock care form we ask you to fill out that helps us evaluate and see that there's reasonable animal care being carried out. This shows you just a few of the topics in the SARE portfolio so you can see that there's a very wide range of topics that SARE grants have covered in the farmer rancher grant program. We've given out 1400 of these farmer grant grants since the program started in 1992 and that's over 10.5 million dollars. So in addition to what you see here there's topics like agroecology, agroforestry, beneficial insects, holistic farming and ranching, poultry, small-scale livestock, water quality improvement so it's just wide open to whatever issues farmers and ranchers are facing and here's a little bit about the farmer rancher grant program. So these are funds that go directly to farmers and ranchers it's to solve a problem on the farmer ranch using sustainable agriculture practices and then we ask you to share that information with others so they can benefit as well. There's two options you can apply as an individual for up to $15,000 and you can apply as a team of two or more farmers from separate operations who are working together and that teams can apply for up to $30,000. We do encourage you to work with others like nonprofit organizations or universities because often they can help you with outreach or setting up a design for your project and that can be a benefit. We fund about 40 of these projects per year and I coordinate the program so if you have any questions about it or specific questions about your proposal you can feel free to contact me. If you're applying to this program you might be just starting your transition to sustainable agriculture or you may have been doing it for a long time and just want to make additional changes that's fine either way. The purpose of these grants is to help reduce the risk of trying out new ideas. You do not need matching funds and we do not ask you about matching funds so we are not going to ask you about your contribution and we don't want you to put your contribution in the budget. If we did that we would then have to follow up and make sure that you are actually meeting those matches and we don't want to do that or have the people to do that so we don't ask anything about matching funds. If you want to let reviewers know that you are contributing if your project looks like wow it's going to cost a lot more than what you're asking in the budget in the narrative you can explain that you have other funds don't put the specific amount but say that you have funds to cover the additional expenses that aren't part of the... All right so as I mentioned I coordinate the Farmer Rancher Grant program for the North Central Region. I'm located at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. Most of our staff is located at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul, Minnesota and that is because the University of Minnesota is the NCRC or host institution so that's where all the paperwork comes from when you if you're funded. I'm going to go over the grant writing basics for you just 10 quick tips that are good for this grant as well as for other grants and the first thing is determine if this is the right grant for you make sure that your idea fits the priorities of this particular program because if it doesn't it's not going to get funded and it is just going to be a waste of your time. If you have questions about if it's a good fit feel free to call the grant coordinator in this case me to ask about that. We want you to be sure to understand the review process so you and the criteria for evaluating your proposal so you know where to put the most effort out and the way you figure that out is by reading the call for proposals and that has all the directions in it and what you need. So you need to develop clear goals and we also or objectives and then think about you know how exactly are you going to solve this problem make your goals simple and clear so reviewers know what exactly your goal is as they read your application and how you're going to read it. So you want to use simple writing and plain terms you don't want reviewers having to try and figure out what you're talking about because that reduces your chance of being funded. So I have a question are letters of support from partners acceptable. I'm thinking of the person or organization that might be considered a match if a match were allowed. If the person is receiving funds from the grant no do not use them for your letter of support. If they are not receiving funds you can use them as one of your letters of support but if they're receiving funds that looks like a conflict of interest so if they're included in the budget then don't use them for your support letter. All right so the other thing you want to think about is what you can accomplish during the grant time period which is 23 months. You have up to 23 months to finish this project and we know some of your projects are much more long term than that. So think about what can you actually accomplish during the 23 months and what can you document and measure during that time period. Don't promise more than you can deliver and make it reasonable so that it's something that you can actually accomplish within those 23 months. When you're thinking about your project think about the details ahead of time so if you're doing a research project for instance and you're trying to put an experimental design together make sure that the design you come up with is actually going to come up with results that show if this is going to work or not what you're experimenting with. If you need help on a research design maybe bring in a cooperator who can help you maybe someone from extension or we also have a seribult and how to conduct research on your farm or ranch and that might be a good resource for you. So we are going to ask you how you're going to measure your results in the grant proposal so as I mentioned be sure what you're measuring is actually going to tell you if you've accomplished your objectives so for instance that might be crop yield it might be reduced erosion it might be you know more tomatoes might be getting an increased market share for a cooperative or a community involvement increase but just make sure whatever you measure that it's going to give you the results you need to tell okay did this work or not and don't worry if it didn't work because that's the point of these grants we're trying to find out if things work or not and then share that information with others so if it doesn't work out the way you think and it often doesn't that's okay as long as you learn something and are able to share that information with others we consider it a success think about the timing let renew reviewers know when you're going to be doing things so they can get a good sense of are you or have you thought this through do you have time to accomplish all the things you say you're going to do and then involve other people if that works for your particular grant so sometimes you need someone who can complement your skills maybe somebody who is really good with outreach who can help you put on field days or put on a webinar or whatever types of outreach you're planning to work with so develop a clear outreach plan we're going to ask you about that and it's good to have more than one method of outreach so maybe it's a field day maybe it's a workshop or a publication or social media but if you use more than one method of outreach that really helps you broaden the number of people who you reach and that is a big goal of these grants is to get this information out to other farmers and ranchers so they can benefit from it as well develop a realistic budget as I mentioned the reviewers are farmers and ranchers and they they are practical people they want to see that you've done some research and you can look up online you can make phone calls to suppliers to try and get realistic figures to include in your budget and we're also going to ask you for a justification for each budget item and I'll go into that later but what that means is how did you come up with that number so if you say you're going to buy a hundred plants then for the justification you would say a hundred plants times ten dollars per plant is how you came up with that budget item and that's how that's the justification for it how show the math and then we ask you to follow the directions and this was why it's important to read the call for proposals before you get started because it has directions as well as tips for filling out the grant application and you can be disqualified if you don't answer all the questions or or follow the format or the word count but usually the system will cut you off on the word count so that you can't go over whether you're funded or not you will receive reviewer comments back and those are really valuable to help you for future grant applications not all good applications get funded because we simply don't have the funds let's go to the next slide please but you can learn from it and make a stronger proposal the next time that might get funded if you need help with your grant proposal you can contact me or you can contact your state SARE coordinator each state in our region has at least one state SARE coordinator and if you go to our webpage which is northcentral.sare.org you'll see where this red arrow is pointing it says SARE in your state and when you click on that it'll list all the states in our region and when you click on that it will show you who the state coordinators are as well as their contact information so you can speak with them. Another option for getting grant writing help is the grant advising program of the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute and Ren Almitra who is the grants advisor is on this call and Ren I'm going to ask you to go ahead and tell a little bit more about this program and the help that you can offer please. Hey everyone, as Joan said my name is Ren Almitra I'm a grant consultant and wear many hats under that kind of umbrella title so one of my roles is to work with farmers or farmer serving organizations assisting with grant processes, grant reviews. I don't do any writing for you all but I can certainly help talk through proposals and ideas and then I can you know do draft reviews and some editing suggestions as well so as Joan said we kind of well we've been tag teaming between SARA staff and my services so feel free to reach out to me first or your state coordinator first and they might bouncy to me and we'll work with you as we can. Thank you Ren and you can see Ren's contact information here it's also included in the call for proposals and it's you know the more help you get the better as you're developing your proposal and the more eyes on it the better as well because when other people look at your grant proposal if they have questions those are likely questions that reviewers might have. This is when you're ready to get into the system and you want to start looking at some of the information if you go to our webpage northcentral.sare.org you'll see a list of open grant programs under this heading our grant programs and as you scroll down you'll see the farmer rancher grant program is open right now the proposals are due on December 7th 2023 at 4 p.m. central time and you see where the red arrow is pointing you can click on learn more or apply now so what you'd want to do is click on learn more first so you can look at the call for proposals and get all the information before you apply so when you click on learn more you'll see this page that gives you information about the farmer rancher grant program including frequently asked questions that might be helpful to you to see those answers on the right hand side where you see the red arrow there you can download the call for proposals in as a word document or as a pdf what so this call for proposals this is just grant terminology meaning we're asking for applications and you can turn them in and here's the directions for doing that so look through all of this first make sure you use the most current call for proposals and that's what we post online if you have one from a previous year don't use it because there are typically changes each year to the call for proposals we have an online system that we ask you to use but if you aren't able to use it we do allow you to turn in your proposal via email and we will enter it for you but if at all possible try and use the online system yourself because that's how we communicate best with you by sending you emails through that system if we have questions or anything that we need to ask you if you are if you have trouble accessing things let us know we can print hard copies and send them to you we can email you a copy as well if you do end up trying to turn in your proposal by email or by mail we will accept a hard copy if you are not able to use the online system make sure that you turn those in by the proposal due date so if you're mailing it for instance or emailing it it also has to be in our office by December 7th at 4 p.m central time so make sure you allow enough time for it to get there by mail or if you're sending an email we do not accept faxes because they get blurry and they're too hard to read so when you click on download the call for proposals this is what you see this is the actual call for proposals which is a number of pages of instructions and the application that you'll see in the online system where the red arrow is pointing is the link that will take you to where you can start your application or you can click on apply the apply now button all right so when you click on apply now this is what you'll see and you have two options that the sergrant management system comes up and you can if you have never been in the system before you'll need to start by creating an account where you see that lower arrow on the left or if you go into the system and click on apply now you'll see what's in the box on the right so they're just slightly different and but both of them have a create an account button that you can click on and you can enter the system through either of those options if you have already had a sergrant before then you can just log in using the login information that you've had previously all right and now I'm going to guide you through this system so you can see how it works one and we'll go to the next slide but one thing I want to mention if you're having any difficulties at all give one of us a call or email because we use this system every day and it's very familiar to us I know it's not at all familiar to many of you who have never seen it before we can show you how to do something very quickly and don't want you to have to spend a lot of time trying to figure something out if it's something that we can show you so when you click on that create an account it's going to ask you for information like your name address email the email is important because that's how we communicate with you so be sure to use an email that you check you know that you're going to be looking at so and also sometimes from our serr system these do go into a junk file so be sure to check that if you think that that's a possibility so when you fill out all these the information here and the registration then at the bottom bottom left hand corner there's a register button and you can click on that in order to register and then you can get started as part of this we also ask you for demographic information and this is because we're trying to have an ethic of openness and inclusiveness and diversity in all the north central regions serr programs and policies and procedures and so how to help monitor how we're doing on this we actually we do collect demographic information and we appreciate your help adding that the demographic information is not linked to your proposal and if you do not want to answer the questions you have to go through and answer each question but each question has the option that you prefer to not answer so you can you know you have to go through all the questions but you can prefer not to answer if that's your preference so once you've completed all this information and you've logged into the system you click on start a new grant proposal and then you'll see what's available so it will show you all the grants that are open in all the regions on the left hand side where it says apply for a grant you will click on the north central region because that's the one that we're you're looking to apply to and then you will see this box on the right pop up and you want to click the north central farmer rancher grant that's the one you're applying for and click on begin a new proposal when that opens up you're going to see that the first couple items it asks for say missing so it'll say missing title and missing description and in order to fill those out you click on the edit button so here on the top left you'll say it's missing a title so you'll click on edit title type in your title and then click on save um you are limited on this to 150 characters or less including spaces that's about 25 words the system will not let you go beyond that so and and don't worry too much if you don't have your title in mind right off the bat you can just you know put a title for the time being and then um you can save it and then later when you want to change it you just click on edit title again go in make it fix it the way you want it to be and edit it and then click on save again to save your new title all right then after that you're going to fill in the missing description this is just a brief description you have 300 characters for this description but I believe we have a question so it says who applies if a team of farmers is applying for the grant so if a team is applying one of you has to be the coordinator and to be the coordinator that means that you are the contact person for us so it's this is also the person if there is any taxes involved that is the person who the tax burden will be on so you want to make sure and discuss that with your team so you're aware of how that is going to work but the team member is the one who is the team coordinator is the one who is going to get all the communications from north central regions there okay so when we go back to this after you've edited your after you've saved your title you see the title is shown up above and you can edit title if you want to change it below that then you click on edit project description you have 300 characters for a brief project description this is about 300 characters including spaces that's about 45 words and so what we ask you in these is just to put something so that if a reviewer glanced at this or a person who was interested in your project glanced at this they could say okay this is what this project is about or if someone was doing a web search they would understand what your project was about and could find it and then again you'll you'll click on save in order to save your work I have a question do grants also apply for beginning military veteran farmers yes these are these grants are open to beginning farmers but you'll just need to make sure that you emphasize you know why you have the experience to fill to complete the project that you're proposing and then we have another question if I'm the team coordinator working with multiple farmers on a project do I need to demonstrate a history of farming i.e. file a schedule F in order to be eligible to apply no you do not for this grant program the way we define farmer is someone who someone who raises crops or livestock especially as a business that's it it's a dictionary definition we don't ask you about your taxes you don't have to own land you don't have to earn a certain amount of money we just simply say someone who raises crops or livestock especially as a business and if you feel that you qualify through that definition you are considered a farmer or rancher through this program in order to complete your proposal you'll see on the left hand side here that there are several items with red asterisks next to them and those mean that those items are not yet completed you start with general information so when you click on information you'll see what's on the next slide there'll be a series of questions and an edit button next to each one so you'll click on the edit button answer the question and click save so every time you complete an answer be sure to click on save and before you move to the next one to save your work and with all of these you can go back in and edit if you need to make a change on some questions like this question about state you may see a under the answer where it says on the right hand lower corner here where the red arrow is it says select one and when you click on that it will list all the states in our region and you can pick one so sometimes there's a drop down list like that that you can choose from someone asks if cover crop projects can apply yes certainly you can apply to do a cover crop project so after you have completed and saved an answer you'll see a green check mark by it and that means that particular answer is completed if there isn't a green check mark you either didn't save or something and you may need to go back in and save it to get the green check mark so you know that that one is completed then go through and just keep answering all the questions in this section all right so if you are completing a team grant you need to include the contact information for your team members and you do that by clicking on this add a cooperator budget we need their contact information and email as well because everyone who's added as a cooperator and by cooperator we just mean the farmer ranchers who are part of your team so if it's a team of two there's just the two of you if you have a team that includes three farmers or ranchers you can include three but this is what we're looking for here is these cooperators as a cooperative and then when you open that up it will have all those you know a bunch of the same questions as you filled out when you registered the name address email and it's important that you put their email in because we are going to send them an email asking them to confirm their participation in your grant project if and then let's go on if they don't have an email then we will ask you to get a have them write up a brief paragraph explaining their role in the project and you can make a pdf file of that and add it to your add it to your proposal Joan it's Marie yes there are a couple questions in the chat if you can scroll up okay I see all right are there any recommendations for getting ladders of support as a beginning farmer yes it's good to go to an an extension educator might be able to help you or a nonprofit organization farm organization if you're working with any of those you might want to go to your natural resource conservation service just depending on where you are and what kind of project you have those kinds of groups might be able to help you in some states maybe your department of agriculture would have someone who could write a letter for you but it's somewhat depends on your topic if there is someone in the what we're asking for in these letters is for you to say have them say why this project would be of benefit to the community so maybe there's a community member who can explain why this would be really important to them or another farmer who might say you know this is a huge problem in our area so this is why we're interested in this research and why this project would be of benefit another question is can a nonprofit that leases land to a group of farmers and provides education and training to them as they grow their business apply on the behalf of the group we may need to talk about that separately in general nonprofits are encouraged to apply to the partnership grant program instead of the farmer rancher grant program but there is one exception and that is for nonprofits that are actively farming so if there is a farmer who's part of your organization they can apply so you have to be a farmer or rancher to apply if you are a non-profit the if you're funded then the contract could run through your organization but you have to have a farmer rancher who applies and who is the contact person all right so let's go on to the next slide so you've got your team members in you've got all their contact information in and here this just shows how you'll be adding information for the contact information for your team members fill in the email so we can contact them and make sure they are are understanding their role in the project okay and once you've answered those questions and completed that section then you can click on proposal overview and where this left arrow is pointing and that will take you back so you can see what still needs to completed or be completed or you can go to click where the arrow on the right is pointing and just go on to the next section you see you also have the options always of clicking on view draft to see a draft of what you've come up with so far and you can also click on a call for proposals again if you want to review something that that you had a question about right if you return to the proposal overview you're going to see this page that's at the bottom where there's a red asterisk in front of grant proposal because that isn't filled out yet and then I've just copied that and made an insert so you can see that there's four sections yet to fill out each of those has a red asterisk by it but the general information section no longer has a red asterisk by it because you've completed all of that so click on the next section which is grant proposal and this is where all of the the main questions about your proposal are some questions it's good to have a table to answer them it might make it easier and you can fit in more information than you could if you were just using the straight text so if you want to add a table click on then answer where it says answer click on edit and that opens up this answer box that you can see on the right and up above it you'll see the table icon where the arrow is pointing that allows you to create a table in the system in your answer box so you'll take your computer mouse and highlight however many rows and columns you are want in this case there's three rows and three columns and then left click on your mouse and it will insert that blank table into your answer and you can fill it in or you also have the option of creating a table separately and you can copy and paste it into the answer box but sometimes you lose the formatting when you do that so if you can just create a table in the in the answer box itself that helps once you have your table created as you see in this little insert box below it there's a bunch of icons and those allow you to add rows or delete rows and so you can work with the table if you need to once it's created but then when you type in your information go ahead and click on save to save that and let's go on to the next one and this may seem confusing when I'm presenting all of this to you at once but as you go through it hopefully it won't be as confusing and if you have any questions like I said be sure to contact us and we'd be glad to walk you through it for this solution and objective questions where it asks you what's the solution to the problem that you're trying to solve and what are your objectives you have the option of adding a drawing or image and I recommend that you do this you don't have to do it but it's very helpful and the reviewers like it so this could be a drawing or a photo that shows the plot light layout that you're going to use for a crop trial or demonstration it could be the design for a new piece of equipment that you're wanting to build if you're doing an education project it might be a sample page from the curriculum that you're trying to develop or some other aspect of your project you're limited to one page single-sided but you do have the option of adding this drawing optional drawing or image into this solution an objective question in order to do that you would click on this add media button where the arrow is pointing that is above the answer box and then let's go on to the next page the next slide and you'll see what appears when you click on add media then you have you can click on select files that allows you to select a file from your computer and you can insert it into the answer box by clicking on insert into post put a caption so that you know what this is showing and then you can find it later because in addition to putting it into your proposal it will put it into this media library which you see where it says where the circle is on the left hand side of the page so that if you need to make changes to it later you can go in and maybe you erased it by mistake you can go into the media library and and add it to your project again when you click on it the image is going to be embedded into your proposal so let's go to the next slide and when you click on insert into post and you'll see what this looks like so this is a plot map so the image that you selected appears here and you can see it where the red arrow is pointing that's how it would look in your answer box it's showing the layout for these three trial plantings that that someone is setting up for a vegetable trial if you attach a PDF file it will instead appear as a link and that if you look at the blue area blue arrow where it says plot map then it'll appear as a link instead of actually the picture and either way is okay so after you've completed that grant proposal section now you see where the circle areas are there's no asterisk by general information or grant proposal those are completed you can go on to the next section which is the livestock care plan also as always you can go to the top and click on view draft that will open a new window for you and you can look at and see what you've accomplished so far and if it's set up the way you want it to and you can just close that window out to go back to work in your proposal even if your project does not involve livestock you need to open this section and answer the first question which is does this project involve livestock if it doesn't just say no and click save and you're done if it does involve livestock then click on yes and answer the questions that you'll see there and click on save for the purposes of farmer rancher grants livestock are vertebrate animals only so those with a backbone or a spinal column like cows and sheep and things if you're working with insects bees or shrimp things that do not have a backbone they are not considered livestock for this farmer rancher grant all right so once you've completed that and saved it you'll go on to the letter of support okay so in this section the letter of support is something that you do have to attach to the proposal you must have one letter of support from someone in the community explaining why this project would be of benefit to the community you can have up to two letters but no more than two letters if you add more than two it's up to us to erase some and so then you don't know if we're going to pick the ones you want or not so don't put more than two you must have one but you can have up to two in order to add a letter of support you need to save it as a pdf file and then you will attach it just as you attached the optional image or or photo previously by clicking on add media and then select file selecting the file and then you'll see that it appears in this right hand box where it was labeled letter of support one and it's there but until you click on save it won't add it so again save save save whenever you see a save button make sure you click the save button to save your work all right and there's a question what is the definition of community for purposes of this proposal and we don't have a formal definition so whatever your particular community is you know maybe you're an urban farmer and so it's your urban farming community maybe you're a rural farmer and it's your rural community but sometimes people can go much further depending on what the project is about sometimes people work with people from other states because their project covers a broader area so it's just depending on what community applies to your particular topic hopefully that answered your question but if you have any question about that you can contact me separately to ask about it so and and when you go into this and where it asks you about the letter of support you know maybe somebody is working on a project where they're trying to do some kind of a marketing effort with local grocery so maybe the grocery manager would be the person who would write the letter of support for you so it just really depends on what kind of project you have and what what you think is going to make the biggest impression on the reviewers as far as showing that there is support for this effort that you're making and this is the last section the budget and justification and it's an important section because this is where you're showing what how much money you're asking for in the grant proposal and whatever you asked for up to the limit is all that you can receive so make sure you're asking for enough so if it's an individual project that's up to $15,000 and if it's a team project that's up to 30 so the way that you answer this is you click on the the budget section and then be sure first to read the budget instructions in the call for proposals and then you're going to click on add a budget item like you see in the bottom right hand corner you have we ask you to fill in the budget category a description and the details or justification of how you came up with the amount and the amount that you're asking for for each item so this is a detailed budget when you click on category there's a drop down menu and you'll see the the different categories that you can choose from here where the red arrow is pointing so you can it could be travel personnel other direct costs materials and supplies or this top category that's a long one it's equipment permanent fencing perennial seeds and plants or livestock and for all of those items only 50 of the cost can be charged to the grant the way that we define equipment is something that costs $5,000 or more and has a useful life of more than one year if it's under $5,000 it does not meet the equipment definition and it goes under materials and supplies instead and that 50% rule does not apply if you have questions about it just let me know and I can look at the specifics of what you want to include and we can see if it's equipment or not okay and then after you you've filled in all these sections then you will click on save but let's go to the next page and you can see what it looks like as you fill this in so here here this is for this particular example the category is equipment permanent fencing perennial seeds and plants or livestock and that's because this person is asking to get funding for perennial plants in this case 27 potted marshmallow plants for their trial so the description says 27 potted marshmallow plants and you could put you know one quart pots or whatever to give the reviewers a good idea of what it is that you're asking for under the details and justification it gives the exact figures that you have to work with that you've found from your research on what this is going to cost so 27 plants at $15.99 per plant equals $431.73 and then plus they added shipping and all that rounded it to $513 but because this is a perennial plant and only 50% of the cost is allowed they have to say 50% of $513 so $256.50 rounded to $257 can be the amount that you include as the amount you're asking for the grant to pay for and the reason we ask you to round these figures the system only accepts whole numbers so you will have to round your figures in order to put them into this budget when you've completed a budget item it will look like this section that you see at the bottom so it's got the description category and amount listed and shows what you put there and below it it shows the justification and since only one item has been entered in the budget so far it'll show the total as the $257 but as you keep adding items it will keep it'll add the total up for you so you can see if you if you're going over or not so this next slide shows you a sample budget this is part of a sample budget so it shows you the plants that were purchased a dehydrator that was needed a root digger attachment a use of a commercial kitchen a field day lunch and one thing I'll mention if you're including if you have a field day and you're wanting to have a lunch for people on the farm you need to have activities before and after the lunch because otherwise it isn't accepted because if it ends with lunch then the accounting people will say well the day was over there was no more program I mean there was no continuity of program so that you couldn't include the lunch so if you're including a meal like this be sure that you have activities before and after the meal you'll see there's labor included in there and we want farmers and ranchers to if you're paying for your time to carry out this project we recommend at least $25 an hour as wages because we want you to have fair wages as part of this and show that we value your work so you can see at the bottom this one is totaled up all the items that you've entered and it's showing $6,137 and then this person probably still had more items that they needed to add when you're done and have saved it click on proposal overview and go to the beginning again and see what you still if you still have anything to complete all right so then it takes you to this page when you can submit your proposal because all of your sections are completed and there's no asterisk anymore by any of the sections I really recommend that you click on view draft first and go over the whole thing make sure that your answers make sense make sure that they make sense to someone who might be reading the proposal when you click on view draft it gives you a link so that you can share your proposal with others so if you want someone else to look at it either your team members or someone that you just want to read it for you like Ren El-Nitra for example then you can give them that link and they can view your draft once you've looked at the draft check your budget figures looked at your spelling make sure everything looks the way you want it to and that it's easy for reviewers to understand then you can click on submit proposal on the upper where you see the right hand arrow in the upper right corner when you click on that you'll see another submit proposal button show up and that's just to confirm okay you really want to submit this so then you click on that second submit proposal and you'll see what comes up next you'll get an email that sends that says you have successfully submitted your proposal and then if you go back into your proposal you'll see this status line there that says when you submitted it and the time you submitted it if you suddenly say oh no I forgot a budget item then you can click on the unsubmit button and submit proposal button at the top where the arrow is pointing go back in make it change save and then be sure to submit again before the grant deadline because if you don't submit then it's not there for us to look at all right let's go to the last slide and take any more questions that you have so here's my contact information if you need to get in touch with me so we have somebody asking about the equipment is it rented or leased equipment um if you rent or lease equipment you don't then that 50% rule doesn't apply it's only to purchased equipment that you're purchasing for the project and if you rent or lease it then that 50% rule does not apply the full amount can be included up to um the limit of the grant good luck to everybody and if you have more questions about your specific proposal feel free to contact me or your sarah state coordinator or ran al-metra with the michael fields institute