 All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to tips and tricks for the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund grant program. My name is Diana Maxwell. I'm the senior grants manager at the National Trust, and I'm joined today by my colleague LaWanna Holland Moore, who is the associate program officer for the action funds here at the trust as well. So we're going to have a great, not too long session for you today and kind of fill you in on just a little overview of the action fund. I'm going to walk you through some of the things people have issues with when they're trying to use the actual form the technology and then we'll finish up with some frequently asked questions. So off to you, LaWanna. Hello, everyone. And thank you for joining us for our tips and tricks for action fund grants. And I'm LaWanna Holland Moore associate program officer of action fund. And today we'll share info about the action fund and its national grant program. And I'd like to tell you about the action fund itself, which was created in 2017 in response to the events in Charlottesville. The action fund is committed to crafting a narrative that expands our view of history by telling the full story of African American historic sites. We are a multi year $25 million initiative, and we hope to continue to draw attention to the remarkable and still largely unrecognized collection of places and stories of active African American activism and achievement. African American history is American history and through the elevation of those stories, we contribute to that narrative. So I've just wrapped up your three of our grant cycle and awarded $1.6 million to 27 African American historic sites organizations nationwide and four categories, capital projects, which is our bricks and mortar restoration work, programming and organization project planning and organizational capacity and organizational capacity or things such as hiring director, director level staff, part time to full time staff, and also board governance and training and nonprofit training. We have also awarded a total of $4.3 million in funding to 65 sites and organizations so far, so that they may accomplish their goals. And now as we're entering year four of our grant cycle. I'll turn you over to Diana so she can tell you more about how to submit an LOI. Yeah, and one of the some of the most often questions that are asked for to us are about the LOI and people may have the people having some issues potentially with them so we thought this would be a good opportunity to just walk you through it. So when you get to, to get to the site you'll, you'll go to our guidelines page. And then at the bottom of that page is a link to this application. So this is a separate login from the National Trust. So if you have a login for the National Trust website for forum or forum connect. It's going to be different than that so don't try to use yours there. And you don't need an access code once you get there that access code is right boxes right up on the top, but you don't need it. The form is going to be available right below it and just, just for purposes of discussion I may be using LOI and application interchangeably today. Basically it's the same process so if I'm saying application. I assume that it goes for the same thing for LOI as well. So, you can preview the application or the LOI without logging in, but in order to save your information, you do need to make sure that you're logged in. So if you've never logged in before, you can just, you know, start your starting account for your organization. There's a warning when you do that that the EIN is in use your tax ID numbers in use. And you can click past that and if you've got a lot of time, or have a little bit of time if it's not you know the day before the application or the LOI is due. Go ahead and reach out to us in the grants team and we can connect you to your existing account. But if it's the day before two days before. And you just need to fill in that account. Don't worry about it. Just click past that warning. And we can fix it on the back end to kind of connect your applications, your, your LOIs. You may have someone may have filled out a grant application, you know, three or seven years ago or something that has nothing to do with you, but so don't worry about that. That's not a big deal. So this is sort of where you'll start, but I'll walk you through the rest now. So this is what it'll look like if you scroll down a little bit you can see that apply button on the top right, and then below on the bottom left, you can see the preview button. And this gives you a little bit information on the site and then you will click apply to get through to the LOI application. So once you're on that LOI page, you'll see a few things there. First you'll see the contact info of who's filling out the, the form, and note that there can only be one email address linked to an application so only one person can be logging in to fill it out, except we do have this collaborate button you'll see up at the upper right that in blue that will allow you to share the form with someone else. You can allow them to just view it you can allow them to edit it or you can allow them to submit the form to so this is great if you are, you know, on a board and you're filling it out but then a president of the board needs to sign off on it or something like that, or if you just want someone else to be able to take a look at it for you. They will get a link in their email and they'll have to come in and set up an account through our system, but then they'll be able to use it once they've logged in or set up an account. If you have any issues with this, you can email us at grants at savingplaces.org which is the best email for us. And since we're working remotely right now, email is the best way to reach us. On the other page, you can see that I circled question list, and that will make a PDF of the questions on the form so if you don't want to collaborate and use the collaborate tool but you do want to share the questions. I know sometimes people like to answer the questions in a Word document and then bring them in to the form. You can do that that way you can pull it pull them as a PDF and then copy paste them over to a Word doc. Next, as you scroll down the LOI page it'll look a little bit like this. There's a number of different types of questions that you'll be asked there are open ended questions that you type in there's multiple choice, and some have upload spots. So if you will notice some of the questions, most of them actually have little asterisks, and those are required questions. So you will have to answer those if you don't answer them, then you will not, the system will not let you submit the form. If you go over, you'll see, especially on projects or questions where there is sort of a bigger text box that you will have a character limit, and you won't be able to go over that character limit, or again you'll get an error message when you try to submit the form. So if you, or you'll also get the error message if you try to submit something from one of the upload spots and the file is too big. So, this is sort of a lot to just be aware of. But I'll help you tell you what to do to work through each of those steps. Essentially for the for anything that's a word issue you just need to make it smaller, you know, edit yourself, but you do want to make sure that you remember that spaces do count as characters so they will count towards your character count on the form. So this is the photos here are an example of where you would upload a photo so we're going to ask that you submit at least two photos with this lo I and what we're asking for our photos that show sort of what your project is about. But if your project is working on a specific building or a specific site. And please do send us a photo that'll show a current overall view, even if it's an interior project, if you can send us at least one exterior photo, that's really helpful for us just to sort of place your project in wherever it is. If your project. And we do want those photos to be the best quality that you can send and obviously still fit in with the file size maximum there. If you have, if you don't have a specific building or site that you're working on or if your project is for organizational capacity, we just ask that you upload photos that are representative of your work. And then the last thing we'll have you upload related to the photos is a word document or you could use a PDF to, but that tells us what the photo is when it was taken and who took it who the credit is. So for this lo I we, we ask not for you not to send us any historical photos we just want to see current ones, but you will have the option in the application later to send historical photos. And so this is an example. This is a good example of a photo from a previous grantee that shows you know just like where the buildings are what their basic condition is and and helps us figure sort of have a good mental picture. But remember that for the most part we're not familiar with your project so it's not super helpful sometimes to see maybe just a portion of a damaged roof or something like that if we don't know what the rest of the building looks like. So once you have filled in the information you want to fill in, you know, maybe you can do that all in one sitting. Maybe you need to kind of stop for the day take a break. If you want to go go out and get more information or come back or whatever you need to do, you can log off, and then you can log back into the system and edit the li. So this is important when you come back to the site, you're going to log back in, but you instead of going to that page to create a new application, a new li which you don't want to do, otherwise you're just going to be creating a new one. You want to just edit the li you started. So you should end up on a page that looks like this when you log in but if you don't click on the little house button in the icon, the house icon in the menu bar at the top. And then you'll see it'll list sort of whatever you have currently an active request or historical ones, and then you just click the blue where it says edit li and that'll take you back to your li. There are two lois out there. If you only need to submit one. And then finally when you're ready to submit, you'll see down at the bottom of the page, it says save li or submit li so if you do need to log out and come back you can hit save at the bottom or if you just want to save it it does auto save as well. But I know sometimes I like to make sure that I save it if I'm working on something important like this, and then you just submit the li at the end and you may. If something's missing or something that's required, or you don't know where it's where it, you know, you've gone over the character count or something like that, you'll get an error message and it'll, it usually highlights in red, where you need to go adjust something. And actually there's one more thing before we get to the questions. If you do have a file that's, that's too large that you need to submit you can email it to us so if you can't shrink your photo down, we'll talk about this a little bit more in the FAQs but there is a way to get around that if your photos is not, or is too big. So now I'll have LaWanna come back. And we will answer some questions. Okay. Looks like you are muted. So, all right, let me pull up my question list we've got quite a few years of questions here so we had some good ones that get asked a lot so hopefully they'll answer your questions. So we'll just kind of go back and forth here and I'll ask you and then you can ask me later. So we'll start with some eligibility questions. The first being, can you apply for multiple categories of grants. Absolutely. We get this one a lot. Applying for more than one category does not keep you from, we don't wait against you. It's just fine. If you're putting in capital project and programming at the same time is, you know, their weight individually we look at each project on its own merit. Great. And the thing though to remember is that we'll only invite one of those back to submit a full application. So what if an organization has applied for a grant before but Ben turned down, should they just not apply again. We absolutely encourage you to apply. Again, this is a multi year initiative. So, just because you may have applied and didn't make it through the year before or both years it's fine. We've had applicants that have applied over multiple years now and have made it through. So just because you didn't get this year does not mean that it won't happen for you the next, but I will tell you though that this is not just a competitive grant it's an extremely competitive channel grant so please keep that in mind, but definitely keep trying. Yeah, and it's such a different mix every year so you never know sort of what's going to come in. What about applying for other national trust grants and an action fund grant is that good is that bad. What do you think. Well the thing is that applying for an action fund grant does not keep you from applying for any other national trust grant. In fact, we know we encourage people to contact the grants department and let them know about your project to see what other monies are available what other funding is available for your project. Great, yeah. Okay, so this is probably beyond how do I log in. This is probably the number two most asked question, which is, why didn't I get a grant last time. Well you know there are so many reasons and a lot that has to do with the factors that come into play when we're evaluating. You might be up against a project that's in the same city, the same state the same region. We're also looking at, are you in a similar theme. There are so many factors that that come into play when we're really thinking about it. I think that we tell people that just because you know you didn't get grant last time to kind of go goes along with the whole applying doesn't mean you won't. Next year it just might mean, for instance, there may have been a lot of projects from let's say Texas, you know so those are the type of things that's taken to account. So people I think it a little concern sometimes if they're eligible to apply based on what kind of organization they are so does it count if they're a state, not designated nonprofit, what if it's a church, like what what who's eligible for this. Well, in terms of if you're a nonprofit, first of all, I mean it's nice to have that 501 C three designation, but that doesn't stop you, you can actually still apply for it. If it's an appending status, that's fine. Also some organizations and sites might have a fiscal sponsor, instead of being a 501 C three also acceptable. So we're talking about the types of institutions that can apply we're talking public agencies with my city, local governments, state governments, their churches, churches and religious institutions, you're also eligible that's fine. Right and schools to sometimes schools are there quasi government agencies a lot of time so that's fine. And I would just say that with the fiscal sponsor. We prefer not to do it if we, if we don't have to but if, especially if it's pending like that's don't let that keep you from applying. And then just do the site, if there's a site related to the project, does the site have to be listed on the National Register. No, actually, you don't have to be listed in the register that's fine. I think that our requirement follows the 50 year guideline. So, you can also be state locally designated to, but it's not required. Great. And then what about new construction so I understand you know if I'm going to build a brand new building for something that doesn't seem like a start preservation. But what if I want to build a monument. Actually, this grant does not count towards monuments and statues, and we get that question a lot. But also when we're talking about new construction that does mean things like new buildings. Also, unfortunately, additions are also counted as new construction as well. And tying into that too is archival work or archival, you know, management of the collections or preservation of the collections themselves. This grant covers, think of it as this grant covers the structure that the collections would be housed in actual archives and collections are not covered under this grant. Also think of it in terms of curatorial maintenance is not covered for them as well. Great. Thanks, Alana. And then I think the last one is the there's been there's been a little confusion, especially last year I think over the organizational capacity category. So can you talk a little bit about sort of the, the two tracks that can take and what's that what that means for how much money you can request. Um, for organizational capacity building the first track that we are talking about involves hiring and staff. So the grant under ordinance under organizational capacity covers, hiring a new senior or director level leadership staff position. Or it can also go towards increasing your current part time staff to full time status and for the hiring track that ranges from 100 to $150,000 but over a two year period. The second track for organizational capacity involves board convenings in governance, as well as nonprofit management trainings, and organizational development activities such as strategic planning. And for that track, you can request up to $50,000. Thank you, that's really helpful and I apologize if you can hear my dog barking in the background. He's a little crazy. Can we have some questions more about application how to use. Well, I guess the first question would be. Can you mail your letter of intent. You cannot. I mean you could, but no one would look at it, because it's not. It's not able to be accepted in the program unless you fill it out through our online form. So please don't send us anything in the mail. It won't get reviewed. My file is too big to upload. What should I do. That's right and I touched a little bit on this earlier because I forgot that we talked about in the frequently asked questions. But what you can do is send it to us we have a little bit more leeway on our end to submit things from from our side of things. So the first step is to try to shrink it. So if it's a photo. There's some programs online that you can download or you can upload your photo to to make it a little bit smaller. If it's a PDF, try to shrink it down using Adobe. But if that doesn't work, then send us an email at grants at saving places.org. If the file you can attach the file to an email you can send the file then just let us know what project your you want it to be attached to and you know who you are. And we should be able to attach it from our end. If it is so big that you need to have a dropbox link or some other file transfer sharing just send us an email first before you send the link so that we can be ready for it those things can look at you sometimes so we just don't want to disregard something that is an important thing. Okay, so let's say that my project has a lot of interest and people who are really excited about supporting or backing it. Can I include a letter of support on my letter of intent. Because we're so excited when you have community support and you know other organizations that are excited for you to and love your work. But we don't have a spot for letters of support on the LOI there are there are some spots later on the application process, but it's just we're trying to not have our reviewers read too too many things when they're reviewing the LOI so the way to help with this is to to show that's community or support for your project, particularly if you have relationships with, you know consultants or other organizations include that in your project description talk about work that you know maybe you've done with that group that's led up to this work or what you plan to do with another organization so you can can share with us that information in a different way. And then you can also just know that they're ready if in case you, you know if you're going to be invited to submit an application and then they can be ready to submit a letter then. Now of course, you know this is something that happens. I'm having trouble logging into my account in the grants application portal. What should I do. This is probably question number three of the most question most asked questions we get. And we'll have that that link to the website is always at the bottom of the guidelines page on our forum page. And, you know, the, I think the number one thing to remember is that you don't need us to reset your password. Especially if you if it's after office hours we're here nine to five usually Eastern time. So if it's after office hours and you're working on this after you've worked for the day or whatever. You can reset your password yourself it'll send you a link from the login page and you can get there. Otherwise, if it's a regular workday, send us an email grants at saving places.org, and we'll try to work it through with you. And then try to log in before the week the application is due or the day that it's due. We will see a question spike quite a bit at that time. And it's just hard for us to get back to you. So on so quickly we'll do the very best we can but we can't promise anything so if you can try to log in before, you know, before the end of the period for submitting. So we'll try to make sure you can get in and everything makes sense and everything is clear that way. Well now I also just want to tell everyone that when you do submit your LOI really wants you to kind of really think about your project. And because one thing that's very important is it's not so much about how your project description is written as much as what you're conveying within it. So one of the biggest things is that your ask should be clear. We love hearing about the history of your site organization, but we really need to know about what you're trying to do. So the more clear the description is of the project that you're actually trying to accomplish and I tell everyone try to think of it as what can I accomplish within the grant period, the time in the grant period, and to really go through that and really think about it prioritize what you really need. And that's always really helpful to think for. I think that's a good point, Luana and kind of going along with that if your project is part of a larger project. You know if you're doing a really big rehabilitation project but our grant would only fund a part of that so say you're doing, you know the project and windows and, you know, preserving or restoring the floors and all kinds of things but our project would only go towards the windows. Please do mention that overall project, but bring out that that that smaller pieces what we're funding it's sometimes hard to pick out of a big, what especially once we get to a budget on the application form. It's hard to pick out what our grant would be used for, especially if you have other funding that is covering other pieces of it. If you're in the state, if you already have consultants in mind, and also with the work is in progress, you know, in progress with staging you at what do you just like Diana was saying what part of the project do you think that our funding can help cover for you we can't cover a part of the project that's already started we can't cover work that's already happened, but if you're asking us for phase two, and phase one is underway, that's great. And just let us know that so then we know that you're on the on the right track and you're going to be able to complete the project and basically about a year a year for most of the projects and then, as the want to said two years for those hiring position projects. I think, I think that's probably most of what we wanted to say right. I think so. Great. Great. So I do have just, I think. One more. Where are we, where are we, there we go. One more slide. You know, a few final tips to remember, especially around that LOI form. If your organization is already in the system, you might get a warning, it's okay to click past that spaces count in the character count. You have to answer you must answer questions with an asterisk contact the grants team if you have any questions grants at saving places.org the emails up there. The LOI's are due and I don't think we've touched on this yet, but the LOI's are due at 1159 local time your local time so we're not going to our friends on the West Coast we're not going to make them lose out a few hours because of our East Coast homeland. So I think thank you all so much for, for watching the session and the wanna thank you for joining me on it. And, you know, all of you, if you have questions where we're here to answer, and we wish you good luck and we can't wait to hear about your project. Good luck everyone.