 Hello and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am Krista Burns at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the Library Commission's weekly online event. We cover NLC activities, any Nebraska Library topics that may be of interest to Nebraska librarians in the state. We have presentations by NLC staff and guest speakers that we bring in. We do these every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. Central Time. Our free one-hour session is also recorded, so if you are not able to come to our live sessions, you can watch and listen to our recordings. This morning we are doing a session on grant fund writing that Katherine Brockmire is going to take us through. So I'll pass it on to you. Thanks Krista. Thank you so much. Good morning. My name is Katherine Brockmire and I am here at the Nebraska Library Commission to talk with you today about seeking grant funds and writing winning proposals. And please do note underneath it says an introduction, which means that in one hour we can't possibly cover all of the things that go into grant writing and grant seeking. And so if possible, if you could hold off on your questions till toward the end of the presentation, I am going to take almost the entire hour to go through some of this. So if you need to type questions in, that's fine, but I do apologize with this many attendees. I don't think we're going to have time for a question and answer session until the presentation is over. But we can stick around and answer some questions if need be at the end of the hour if you have time. Otherwise, please feel free to send me emails and I can try to answer your questions at another time. So welcome. Thank you so much for coming today. Again, my name is Katherine Brockmire. I've been here for almost a year now. I'm the Research Analyst and Special Projects Associate here at the Nebraska Library Commission. One of the halves that I have put on since I've come on board is as a grant writer, I also do evaluations. So I evaluate some of the programs that we have ongoing, especially those programs to which we answer to funders that have provided us with grants. And so I've been on both sides of the grant writing process, both in writing and seeking grants. And also on the other end, once we do receive grants, overseeing the evaluation of some of these projects. There's my email address and my phone number. Feel free to contact me after this session if you have any questions. And just to talk a little bit about all of you, what your role is today? Are you here as a library director? Are you here as a trustee? Are you here as a Friends of Foundation board member? And did someone say, we need for you to write the grant? So basically, you are a grant writing session participant becoming a grant writer, which is not uncommon. And your credentials? Well, what do you need to be able to write a grant application? First of all, you need courage. And so being brave and jumping in, especially if this is something new for you, please have courage and know that there are many ways to learn how to write grants, and hopefully some of those tips and tools will be given to you today. But it's a learning process for all of us, and we're all at various stages of learning how to write grants and also seek for grants. So just wear that badge of courage and we'll all be in this together. I took note of who was here, who had signed up. Originally, we had 52 people sign up, and so there you are. And if you're not on there, I do apologize, I might have missed a few. But it was good for me to look to see where everybody was coming in from Nebraska. Grant seeking and grant writing knows no boundaries. And so you can be from anywhere in Nebraska and seek grants, write grants, and receive grants, regardless of where you live, what size town you're in, what size of library you are. But please do keep in mind about yourself. Are you rural? Metropolitan? Micro-Politan, which is a newer term that's coming out these days. Grand Island, Hastings, Carney would be considered Micro-Politan, Norfolk, and Columbus would be considered Micro-Politan. That's not necessarily used in grant seeking, but it's something to know about yourself. And are you a public or are you an institutional library? What region of Nebraska are you from? That will become important as you seek funds when you're looking at various grant providers. And again, because we have a full house, I may need to ask you to hold off on questions until the very end. And even in that case, I may have to answer some of your questions that you have posed today. I will look at all the questions that you pose and try to get back to you in a timely fashion by email if I cannot address them today. Okay, the applicant organization. So who are you representing today? What kind of an organization? Are you a non-profit organization? Are you going to be applying on behalf of a friends group or a foundation, library foundation, on behalf of a school, on behalf of a government agency, which would be the library itself or any other public entity, and also possibly an association? And then also we have the 501C3 status. If you are a non-profit organization, most likely you have a 501C3 status, which means that somewhere on record you ought to have an IRS letter of determination. If not, and some of the grants that you're seeking ask for the applicant organization to be a 501C3, you need to find a partner who becomes your lead partner, not lead partner, who would be the primary applicant and you would be in partnership with them. But again, some of these grant funders like to give money to 501C3s. So if you are many times, the libraries go with their foundation to apply for them and they work in partnership with them. There's also this prospect worksheet. I don't know if we pulled that up. And so I will have that available to you later. And basically it's a way for you when you find grant tours, grant funders, to write down their information, write down your information next to it and see how well you match up. So if they're looking for 501C3s and you know you're not a 501C3, when you work through this worksheet you will see that there's something that doesn't quite match up and then you can make some decisions from there. When the recording of this session is put up, we'll have a link to that worksheet as a downloadable Word document that you'll be able to download and use for yourself. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Why do we search for grant funds? Why do we do this? I had to figure out how to pronounce this. It's no scatay ipsum, which is Latin for no thyself. When we're searching for grant funds, the biggest thing is knowing a lot about ourselves so that we can see how we match up with grant funders. And why do we search for grant funds? Because as you see on this picture, which doesn't happen in reality, money does not grow on trees. Why do we search for grant funds? Because we have a goal and we need it funded. Real quick, let's talk about what a grant is. A grant is a monetary award given by a funder. And grants pay for all sorts of things. One major difference to keep in mind between fundraising and grant writing. Fundraising means working on a project for months before it actually happens. Perhaps you've heard of somebody who had, say, an animal shelter that they've already started and they've got this project going and they are raising money to continue it to keep it going or to really get it started, but they've already got it underway. Grant writing means researching a project for up to six months, that's according to this definition that I have here, before actually writing the funding request. So it exists on paper only. Typically, perhaps your capital campaign, your building does not exist yet. And so you are not just fundraising, you are grant seeking for that. Okay, here's probably the million dollar question. Where do I go to find grant funds? Four of them that you see here today and all of the links that we have for you that I talk about today are going to be available on delicious.com and there at the bottom and then also after this presentation we'll give you information how to access that. Grant seeking is not easy. You've got to have an air of curiosity and you've got to have a feeling of not giving up because it's not easy, there's only one comprehensive site that I'm going to recommend to you, but in the meantime I want to talk about these four right here. Grants.gov is one and that is federal grants and you can go to that website and start digging around. That's mostly what this is, is digging. For other information you might go to fundsnetservices.com, hoovers.com. If you just go to straight hoovers.com they're going to say that you need to have an account or you need to pay. The back door to hoovers.com is hoovers.com slash free and you might be able to glean some information and then grantsstation.com is another. If you go to some of these sites you might be able to sign up for grant notices that they send out notices of grants that have come available. For example grants.gov, I belong to, I signed up and receive a daily update of grants that have come available from the federal government. Okay, here's the mother of all grant seeking databases. It's called the Foundation Directory Online and the reason why not very many of us know about it is that it's a very expensive database to purchase and so there are four that I know of in Nebraska. One is at Butler Memorial Library in Cambridge, Hastings Public Library, UNL Love Library and Omaha Public Library. I personally have had to walk over to the Love Library because they're available on computers, they're available online but you have to actually physically go to these sites to view the website with the database. So there's no remote access, there's no logging in from home. It's an expensive database, it's well worth your time if you can. Some chambers of commerce may or may not participate or have their own subscription to these and please see the fine print at the bottom. The directories are also available in print and I asked permission from the reference area and ILL area to make this public knowledge because I can imagine that they're going to be in high demand and please do keep in mind that they are heavy tomes and so if we're mailing them out to you, you're responsible, it's my understanding for mailing them back and they are worth the money, I have to say. If it's going to cost you five or six dollars to send it through the mail, take the time, take the money, it's well worth your money anyway. And so that's called the Foundation Directory and a wealth of information which I'm going to discuss now. I wonder if there are also maybe other libraries that have it in print too, the database is expensive but I don't know how expensive the actual print is. That's a very good question, Krista, and you might check through OCLC to see if there are some libraries that do actually have the Foundation Directory. The actual print version. The print versions. For example, I do know that he, since public library does have the print versions. Okay, potential grant makers. We're going to talk about who hands out the dough. See that lady carrying the piggy bank? Yeah. Who's got the cash in hand? It might be a governmental source. That might mean local government. That might mean state government that hands out grants. That might mean federal government that hands out grants. And then there's the corporate giving program when you think of Target, Walmart, different companies, banks. A lot of times what they give money to is to their employees and the most common is to give out scholarships. But often I know Target has done campaigns before where various entities can apply for grants. That's what is considered a corporate giving program. Foundations. These are private foundations. These are usually their 501C3s and they have a board of directors and they have a certain amount of money in their coffers and foundations are required by law to give out a minimum of 5% of their assets every year. So sometimes they're, well, in this economy I don't know, but sometimes toward the end of their giving year they're looking to write checks. And so that's important to know too. The 990PF. Grants given. What does this mean? I want to talk about this for just a second. 990s are, every private foundation is required by law to submit a 990 to the IRS. Basically it talks about how they make their money, how they spend their money, who's on their board, and that sort of thing. And taking a look at those gives you a really good idea of foundations and nonprofit organizations, kind of what they're about and who they're giving their money to if that might be a good match for you. I spent a lot of time looking at 990s. And again, like I said, we only have so much time today to talk about some of these things, but I do want to tell you about that. And the link down at the bottom also will help you. If you know of a foundation that you've heard about and you want to know what they're giving to, the link down at the bottom will help you get started on your search. Again, like I said, that gives you board members and often the information that you're looking for either on the 990s or through a website or something is the grants officer or the contact person. Grants officers often are the people who know the most about the grant. They may not be the decision maker because they're not on the board, but they may make recommendations to the board based off of their impressions of your grant application. This is information, and these will be available to you on Delicious, actually their PDFs, but they're linked from the Foundation Center, which is a wealth of knowledge on how to write grants, how to seek grants. I mentioned the Foundation Directorate Online, but the Foundation Center itself has a lot of free information online. A couple of things that they offer are by state, talking about the top 50 foundations by their assets. That doesn't mean that they give it all away, but there are some of the places that you want to start. I don't know that you can see this, and I don't expect you to, but on the right side is this top 50 foundations by awarding grants, how much money they gave away. And there is the Peter Keywood Foundation is number one, and that shouldn't be surprised to very many of us because we know that they assist with many, many capital campaigns. Lead Foundation Trust, how many of you have heard of these libraries that are being built because of the Lead Foundation Trust? They're number seven down on the list. They gave away $4 million in 2007. Okay, so that gives you an idea of who the big spenders are. Okay, I'm sorry if I'm moving too quickly, but again, I just want to make sure that we are getting through as much of this information as possible. Grantmaker Guidelines. Each of these is something that I'm going to talk about coming up here, so I just want to go down the list here and then we're going to talk about each of them in detail. Limitations, purpose and activities are priorities. The grantmaker's field of interest, their geographic focus, their types of support, how they, in other words, how they expect their money will be spent. Initial approach, deadlines, and previous grants. Okay, let's talk about limitations for a second. I'm basically going off of what you can find if you go to the Foundation Directory, or the Foundation Directory online, because they have all of these different sections. And so I'm just talking about each of these sections, but you would be able to find these elsewhere, like at Grants.gov, you'd be able to figure this out that these sorts of limitations are listed somewhere. So giving primarily in. So there might be a foundation that gives primarily in Nebraska, or they may give, a corporate giving program might primarily give in areas where they have businesses. So Bank of the West. Bank of the West may give in areas where they have banks. With an emphasis on, so, for example, giving in Nebraska with an emphasis on Omaha is one that I have seen commonly, or an emphasis on Lincoln, or an emphasis on a 30 or 50 mile radius from some small town in Nebraska, you would be surprised. Another limitation that I see often is no grants to individuals. So individuals who are seeking scholarship funds, which is not uncommon as well, and people are, there are foundations out there that did give scholarships to individuals. But you will see sometimes that there are no grants to individuals. This fourth one we've already talked about before, and it must be a 501C3. That is fairly common. But with some of the smaller foundations, sometimes they're not as picky. It just depends, and it's always good to start a conversation with the grantor and find out. If they make any exceptions, but for the most part, if they're pretty hard-line about that, then you need to find, not a lead partner, but a lead partner, someone who that you can partner up with that is a 501C3 that, and you want them to be not just a partner name only, you really want this to be a true partnership. Sometimes the limitations will say no grants for administration, for travel, for endowments, for advertising. They'll say, you know, what they don't want their money spent on. And so you might be able to apply for parts of your project, but it might not, in your budget, it just may not fund your salary, or it may not fund travel, for example. Or if you need to do publicity, it may not fund advertising. And you would just hope to be able to find funds elsewhere or pony up your own, which is not uncommon, especially with salary. And we'll get to how that all counts up in just a second. The other one, the other thing to be very, very cognizant of is that applications are not accepted. Sometimes the foundations have their pet projects. They do not want to be approached. And so they say that their funds are discretionary. They already have pre-selected who they're giving out their funds to. The back door to this is getting to know somebody on the board so that you do become their pet project. But you must tread quite lightly when you're considering doing that sort of thing. We're going to move on to a different section of the guidelines, purpose and activities. A lot of times they'll tell you what they're about. They'll tell you their philosophy. They'll tell you what their objectives are. They'll tell you their history, their story, their priorities. And it's very good to pay attention to some of these things because you'll get a good idea whether you match up with them very well or not. Okay, fields of interest. We talked about the fields of interest, which sometimes they have a very short list and you know right away that you don't match at all. But arts, now don't forget, just because you're a library, for example, I think we have most people that are here representing libraries, doesn't mean that you have to find the word library in their field of interest. If what you're doing is arts-oriented, you want to bring a musician to your library, or you want to do a literacy project, or you want to do computer training for seniors, you've got to keep in mind your project, not your organization. So if what you're doing is a program for children, then you might look for fields of interest where they're interested in children and youth. If you are looking at working with your Chamber of Commerce on a project, that's considered possibly community development. Human services, if you're offering something through your library that is in partnership with a social service agency in your town, there you go. Sometimes they do actually say libraries or library science, and that's important, especially if you're looking at capital campaigns because you're talking about the building, but you do want to keep in mind what your project is about and that it's not necessarily just a library program. It's beyond that. So rural development, if you're looking at partnering with, again, your Chamber of Commerce or other entities in your area and you consider yourself rural, which is a very broad definition and could include either geography or basically not Omaha or Lincoln, or rural might be... So I'm talking about geography there or the size of your town, and then also a lot of times rural actually has to do with what percentage of your students in your schools are qualified for the lunch... Or the reduced and free lunch program. Reduced and free lunch program. Sometimes they do that by that. Rural or impoverished is actually a lot of times. It just depends. Again, here's the geographic focus, which does rule out sometimes, help you rule out whether you are eligible or not. So giving primarily in... Some of these are national. They don't care where you're from. They just want to find good projects to fund. But if you do see that there's giving primarily in Nebraska with an emphasis on Scotts Bluff or basically, or it'll say, something like Scotts Bluff only or a certain county only or four counties only. And typically that's because the foundation is somebody who started this foundation was from a certain area of Nebraska and their interest is in that area of Nebraska. Okay, types of support. We're still talking about the grant maker, but you want to keep in mind what it is you need. Annual campaigns, capital campaigns. Capital campaigns typically are building a new building, but I don't want to talk about definitions too strictly because there might be broader ways to look at some of this equipment. So if you need computers or different kinds of equipment if you are looking at self-checkout machines or I'm sorry, I'm not sure totally, but I'm just making some things here as I go along. General operating support. That's a very, very broad topic there and you might want to look at what they have funded in the past. Management development capacity building. That's where possibly you're looking at working with your foundation board and looking at the future of your library or the future of a program and so they're giving you perhaps money to look at whether or not you can, whether or not you need a new library, for example. And then matching and challenge support. Sometimes they will say that they'll give money if it can be matched. And then also some other kinds of types of support would be for program development, program evaluation, project support. There's rural development again, scholarship funds, scholarships to individuals, seed money, and technical assistance. These are not exclusive, there are plenty, many more types of support that are given, but I'm just using a few that I found on the foundation directory. Okay, let's see how we're doing. We're doing well on time. I'm sorry if I'm blowing through some of these things, but we've got miles to go here before we sleep. Okay, more guidelines, initial approach. This is quite important to take note because there are some foundations who all they want to hear from you is they want that letter of application and they want to be able to look at it and make a decision. Then there are other foundations where they like to be massaged a little bit. So they like to be called in advance, they like to know a little bit about you before you actually send your application and basically they don't want cold calling and it's hard to know what they want, but if you look at what information they do give you, how to approach them, that's a good indication. So if there is an email but no phone number and you decide, well, I want to talk to them in person, if they're not providing the phone number that probably means they don't want to be called. So email would be the best. In person, who wants to fly down to Las Vegas and meet Ms. Hixon, because that's how you gain an audience with her. I don't think she takes phone calls or emails if you're interested in a new library through the LEED Foundation, for example. Now, what I just said may not be gospel. Please check my facts, but that's my understanding. There's facts, completed application, by invitation only, letter of approach, and proposal. Now, letter of approach is basically a short introduction to what you hope to propose. And a lot of foundations are going with this because they don't want you to go all the trouble of putting in 50 hours or more to put together an application, and then they receive it, and they can tell right away that you're not a good match with them. So a lot of times they do ask for a letter of approach where you write a short letter. Well, it can be a two-pager, but a letter of introduction to give them a general idea of what you're hoping to have funded and basically to start a conversation with you before you write the proposal. And again, proposal should also, in completed application, sometimes those are the same things, and in proposal they'll give you guidelines of what information they're looking for, which we will talk about in just a little bit. Deadlines and timelines. The application deadlines. The board meeting dates. The final notification. A lot of times their board meets four times a year. They want their applications in a month in advance, and they make a decision, and they will announce their awards within one month or so after the board meeting. That is not uncommon. More often than not, when you're looking at federal grants, the process is much, much longer. You may put in an application in December and not here until the next June. It's not uncommon that you wait at least six months to hear back. And then here again, this is where their previous grants that they have funded, sometimes they'll give a short list of grants that they have funded and the amount, but I would go through the back door and look at their 990s because you will see that they will give anywhere between $1,000 and $50,000. For example, a lot of the funders that I look at, the foundations, they'll give $1,000 to $5,000 to $10,000 for local projects, and then they'll turn around and give $50,000 to the Nebraska University Foundation. So they have a couple of focus, foci. They focus on a couple of different things, and so they will give on a much more personal level, and then they also, perhaps, maybe they were a graduate of some college in Nebraska, and then you'll see that they give $40,000 or $50,000 to some foundation for a particular college university. Okay, so we've done our research. We've looked up grant funders, and we think we found somebody who's going to, we just absolutely know, write that check for us. And that's where, again, that badge of courage comes in. You've got to have confidence in yourself. You've got to have confidence in your project. And can I go back just real quick one slide? Yeah, I guess I had a couple of notes to myself. Again, let's talk about the grant funder just for just a couple more seconds. You really want to get to know your funder. That's why I've given you all of these different ways to get to know your funder. You want to know if it's a grants administrator or a grants officer, and once you've made initial contact for larger funders, it's good to make your presence known. And make yourself memorable in a good way. So, for example, with some of these larger grants, I will, they're emailing the grants officer is fine. It seems fine, so I will email and say, I just have a couple of small questions, and go ahead and send off a couple of questions, even if you know the answers. But in some small way, it's good to make yourself known before they get the final copy on their desk. You need to stand out before your application even makes it into their hands. And if you are with the public library, but you're going to be writing the grant on behalf of the foundation, because they're the 501c3, when you are calling or when you are emailing, until you get to know them quite well, you need to say, I'm working with, and that I'm writing on behalf of, because they don't need to know that. They want to know who the lead organization is, who the lead partner is. So, just kind of keep that in mind. Okay, now we will move forward. Okay, a lot of times the words, the terms grant application and grant proposal mean the same thing, more or less. And so, if somebody says they want a grant proposal, a lot of times they will give you the parameters and it ends up being an application. They just didn't happen to make one up in advance. They just are giving you a laundry list of things that they want to see in your grant proposal. Applications, on the other hand, typically involve forms to be filled out, online or on paper. And as you see this little picture, I want you to look at what's on the right-hand side, and I want you to look at the picture on the left-hand side. And as you see, these are building blocks. And the best way to handle an application and to tackle an application, especially the first times, is to break it down one section at a time. Do not overwhelm yourself by seeing that there are... I mean, it's good to look ahead and see what some of the components you will need. But when it comes down to actually writing your application, do not overwhelm yourself. Go ahead and break it down because this is manageable and you will get it done. And there is a form online that we're going to make available to you that you can download that talks about these different sections of an application and goes in depth a little bit more. Okay? So the cover page, what's the cover page? Well, it's the first page they see if they're going to get a print copy of your application. And first impressions, so your cover page, you want to make sure everything is accurate. You've got the date of the application, the legal name of your organization, full address and the name of your executive director. So if this is the foundation, then you'll need the president. There may be a place to list the library director. And sometimes you have to talk with your applicant. You have to talk with the grant organization to find out what exactly they want to know because sometimes that's not clear. And then they want to know if you have 501 CT status. And if not, they will probably ask for who your fiscal agent is, in other words who writes the checks. And that might be somebody from your city administration office. It just depends. Contact name and title of person completing the proposal or application. So again, this is a sticky wicket. Sometimes, for example, I have written grants, but I'm not in charge of the project. So it just depends. And it's good to find out if you can contact the grantor in advance to find out who they really want to talk to when it comes down to if they have any questions or not. Because sometimes it's the person writing the grant that knows a lot about what's going on and sometimes it's the project director. And perhaps you're already figuring that out in your head. Phone facts or email for contact person. So that's the other information. You want to make sure that's accurate when you're typing this in or entering it. And then oftentimes they want to know how much money are you asking. Okay. Also on the cover page, they may want to know your organization's mission statement. So if your foundation has done some sort of strategic planning and has a mission statement, that's right where you plug that in. Program and project summary, oftentimes they will give you a certain amount of space to kind of do an abstract of the entire application as a whole. And it's good to have that pretty much that's basically the condensed and abridged version. And it's good to have that in your head already. You can start to work on that now because that's also often used if you're going to write a letter of approach. What is the goal of your program or project? If you can start your sentence with the words to provide, that is a very good place to start. And who's your target population or what kind of geography are you looking at? Are you looking at serving people in your county? Are you looking at serving people in a four county area? Are you looking at serving people just in your community? However it is, again this is where the knowing yourself comes into play. Board of directors, that's going to be the board of directors of the foundation or the friends or it might be your board of trustees. Sometimes they'll ask for the total number of volunteers for your organization. If your lead organization is the foundation, that's where you plug that in. And then especially they want to know who's working on your project or how many are working on your project. And then the total number of staff working with the project. Sometimes they just want to know how many people are going to be involved just in this project. Again you just need to read the application questions carefully. More to cover, which I'm not going to go into great detail here because this is the part where it's good to start looking through what is required in a grant application because sometimes it takes some time to get some of this information together. Your annual organizational budget for your most recent fiscal year. So if you're applying in October and your fiscal year does not end until December, you need to use the previous year's complete fiscal year. Your project or capital budget confirmed, requested or pending for the project or capital budget. If you've put together this budget but your foundation hasn't quite approved it yet then you can say it's requested or pending. The granting period is going to be a one-time you're asking for a one-time donation, are you asking for it to be a three-year commitment and then also sometimes they'll want to know if you've received funding from them in the past. Okay, the proposal narrative that's basically an application form without the form. It's all of those things that we just you know, a lot of information that we're talking about you have to cover all of the topics that they're asking you to and a lot of times they'll say a maximum of five pages. I've got one coming up that I've got to do in five pages and I'm wondering how I'm going to do that. And sometimes it'll say ten pages and you wonder how in the world can I fill up ten pages. Believe me, it doesn't take much. They want to know a summary of your organization's history, goals and key achievements. They want an overview of the organization's structure and programs including board staff and volunteer involvement and sometimes you put those in as an attachment but a lot of times they want like I said an overview and then they would also like a description of your organization's constituents for the project and that could be the total number and then you break it down by age, gender, race, ethnicity, income levels, disabilities, geography, language spoken. So for example, if you are if you're looking at Spanish reaching out to Hispanics in your community or something to that effect you might want to know in your community or your region what the breakout is of Hispanics versus non-Hispanics or language spoken at home, English versus Spanish or any other criteria that are relevant to your organization or project. Also in the narrative, they want to know what the needs or challenges are or the problem statement. Now, what's your need? Well, you need money. No, they don't want to know that. You need money. What they want to know is what are the needs of the community beyond your organization. So we have kids in such and such town that need to have better test scores. They need to do better in school. That's the need. Our project that we'd like funded is an after school homework assistance program. So I hope you see where I'm going here. Needs or challenges, this is where you give the doom, gloom, drama and trauma saying that this is what's going on in our community or our area and if you don't give us this money we're not going to be able to do this project which is going to help fix this problem. They're going to want to know the level and nature of involvement of the community at large and this is where partnerships come into play. They want to know do you have buy in other entities for this project. They want to see that this has strong support that this is not some fly by night project that you're hoping that you can just get a quick $40,000 to do because you have an idea. This has to be developed and I'm not saying it has to be developed. I'm saying that from Grant Funder's perspective they often are looking for something that has quite a bit of buy in some major partners and has been given a lot of thought and then they do sometimes want a description of the, not sometimes, mostly want a description of the specific request that includes goals and objectives. So if it's a project request you've provided a profile of the project. I really wish I had time to go into talking about goals and objectives for your specific request. I have a feeling this is going to be a completely different presentation all together if we ever want to talk, if we have any interest in that, that's basically going to take up probably at least one other session if not more just talking about goals and objectives. Okay, on to the next slide. Organizational profile and request. If you're requesting operating support you provide information about your organization's overall programs and activities, not just the one that you so operating support is general support and so they want to know how their money might be used and then if you're requesting project or capital support please provide information for that specific project or capital request and then also a description of the specific activities and timetable for meeting your stated objectives. So if you know that this needs to be implemented within a year they want to know what's going to happen between now and then. Basically and a description of future plans or plans for sustaining this effort and strategy for building your funding base. This is called sustainability and this is a tough one for a lot of people to look at but you might want to look around at some example grant proposals and see how other people word this nicely because it's a tough one to talk about. Basically how is this going, after they give you the money, if you have a project is it going to come to an end to continue and if so how is that going to happen? Again identification of program staff and volunteers. Sometimes they just want to know what their title is. Sometimes they want the specific names and then describe their qualifications they'd like to know what what makes them a good you know what makes them a good fit for getting this project done. And identification of organizations that you collaborate with to address the issues in this proposal. That's where either partners come in or people who are writing letters of support for you and that sort of thing. Okay again this would be doing the budget would be completely another hour and so I'm just going to talk about this quite quickly. Your total budget you've got this idea you want an author to come and visit and it's going to cost you, you have figured out $1,195 that's with in kind with in kind match which we'll talk about in kind and what that is in just a second. So what are you ponying up? You're ponying up $3,030. What are you asking for? $1,815. What else has already been given to you $100 or pledged to you $100 and what else do you have out there that you're asking for from another entity, $250. So everything's got to balance. You've got to show that from your income and your expense that you have nothing left over. Without the in kind which we'll look at at the breakdown in just a bit if your organization is only putting up $110 in cash then that's what you need to put there and then you'll see down below that your budget is actually $2,275 and you'll be able to explain away the other what you're putting up elsewhere but there's a big difference between that $3,000 and $100. Okay, we'll move on to the next slide. In the budget narrative which is where you talk about the money you give the project budget time period by fiscal year, calendar year, school year depending on their requirements they just want to know where in the year that's falling. And then the revenue section you provide a line item. This is where again looking ahead so that you can get this information from your city count, from your city whoever is cooking your books provide a line item revenue statement for all the applicable budget categories and include funding from grants and contracts that are applicable to the project budget and include other earned income from donations, sales of products or from fee based programming. And then in the expense section of the narrative they want a line item expense budget with narrative footnotes for those applicable items which need further explanation. So for example if you're showing that you have some income and it's from ticket sales they probably want to know that it's from ticket sales. So here is the proposal expense budget. This is broken out in comparison to the budget summary. So here you see here's where the in kind comes in. You've got this person who is coordinating the author visit and they're going to put in a minimum of 100 hours and then get paid let's say $20 an hour. So we all wish we got paid $100 an hour and so that's for a total of $1,500. Then the artist is coming for three days and you'd love to pay her $500 days in honorarium. And then you have volunteers that you hope will put together about 75 hours in terms of helping promote this and be there and get the kids there and all that sort of thing. There is a website that can tell you how much volunteers in Nebraska are worth per hour. That will be on delicious.com and according to them it's approximately $16 an hour. We all know our volunteers are worth much more than that but supposedly they've got the magic number that you use for federal grant applications. So in kind that's $1,200. The mileage we've got to pick her up from the airport and so that's 100 or this is a three site this is a three site tour. So that's going to be $135 that you're asking for. You need to find out how much they're going to pay in mileage. They may give you a certain amount. They may say we only pay 27 cents a mile. Something to that effect. And then the assume this is to help out with meals and staying over they might tell you there's a cap on that as well. Here I just said it $80 a day for $180. Now, printing, if you're going to promote this and you're going to send out letters of invitation to anybody posters and letters might cost $100 and the asterisk means that that's where you found some money from somebody else that they said yes, I'll rate you a check for $100. This is going to be individual. This doesn't have to necessarily be from another grant funder. And then in kind might be $20 for copies that you're just going to do on your copy machine. Postage, $110 cash match. Let's say that your organization or your library is going to cover the postage and you cost it out and it's going to cost $110. That's where you can put that for cash match. And then rental maybe at two of the sites you are getting that for free and they would normally charge $100 or you can estimate how much that's worth and then at the other one it's going to be $250 and you are seeking money for that. That's what the little pound sign is for but it's cash because you are looking for cash that you can pay for that. In kind in kind. I love that word kind because it means that you're basically giving away a lot that you can get this done. And so this is where you provide information about services of other organizations or your own that will be provided to the project without direct charge to the grant. So for example, you are willing to give blood, sweat, and tears to get this project done and you just know that it's going to be at the cost of your salary that would be considered in kind. Or building facilities used for the project materials or equipment that will be used for the project like your telephone if you're making terms of phone calls to not be purchased by grant funds. Last but not least, they want to know how you're going to say this was a success. They require an evaluation of funded projects. Include the following when addressing the evaluation of the proposed project. And if your project will require an external evaluator which may federal funds do include information about their evaluator including a curriculum Vita or resume. So they want to know where you're again this is this goes hand in hand with goals and objectives. How did you reach your goals and objectives? How did you make an impact? This is another hour for us to cover it another time and I hope I hope I hope there's interest in this and we can talk about this at a later time. But you define your criteria for success for the organization project or capital campaign. You state how you will measure your success in the short term and in the long term and oftentimes we never ever know until with the long term you just have to say that you're going to check in with these people ten years later and find out if they really like that author and if it helps them choose their path in life. We all know that's not going to happen. But you do hear back from time to time. Excuse me what tools will be used to evaluate your program or organization and what is your strategy for implementing the evaluation process. They do ask for attachments more often than not. So beyond information form if there is one or the proposal outline. Find out if they want to know how diverse your organization is whether you have an IRS Form 990 or if resumes are required. They may request a copy of your text, the letter from the IRS that confirms your tax exempt status. They want the most recent one if that's possible that if your tax exempt status was given to you in 1972 and that's the only letter you have. You hope you have a copy of it otherwise and have them send the letter saying yes you are 501C3 and yes you have been in existence since 1972. Current board list with relevant background, affiliations, town residents, the number of times a year it meets. Other attachments you do need the approved organizational budget for the fiscal year most often and if you don't have an independent audit because your budget is too small then on the IRS Form 990 there are several sections and I'm sorry I'm not sure if it's line 9, 9 or 12 but then line 17, 18 and 21. Take a good look at your IRS Form 990 you'll be able to figure that out and again this conversation for another time. Year to date financial statement for the current fiscal year and then they'd like to know where else you're looking for money. They also want to know if you're already getting a commitment and they want that public they want to know they also might want to know that you're asking for a different section of your grant project from a certain funder so you're looking for advertising dollars from one funder you're looking for operational support from them and that you're looking for something else from somebody else and they also want to know how much of that's already being committed pending or anticipated. Okay these I have just now wrapped up the application section in 20 minutes what takes hours and hours and hours to figure out and I appreciate you all hanging on with me here I just want to talk about a couple of resources here that you can go to to give you some peace of mind to open some doors for you so you give you some more food for thought if you have the grant already enough already and these are also going to be available all of these links don't write previously here we've got a delicious account and we're going to give you the link to that so that you can take a look and so foundationcenter.org they are the parent organization for the foundation directory online but they have a wealth of knowledge that's free and you ought to go and take a look because they do talk about breaking down the application process or about approaching grant funders and so on and so forth the grantsmanship center the free management library I use this a lot I use this for lots of different things this is good for boards who are looking at doing strategic planning free management library is just a wealth of knowledge for a lot of different things for non-profits non-profit guides and then I have to to our horn here at the Nebraska Library Commission we have a wonderful website called Nebraska Access that not only gives you links to databases but also gives you some wonderful links lists one of which is for grants grant resources I should say and some more resources here online there's the associated grant makers there's this video grant making for economic impact you need to register but it's free there's a great it has another wonderful power point or presentation and other things to download and the catalog of federal domestic assistance often times if you're going to call the Nebraska Library Commission and ask say I got a project and I need a grant to be funded where do I start this is one place to start along with grants.gov print versions again the foundation center directory and as Kristen mentioned there are copies floating around and so you might be able to ILL one from another library I highly recommend the foundation center's guide to proposal writing which they also publish and that might be available to you through interlibrary loan one of my favorites is grant rating for dummies and I met the writer of this and she has quite a track record under her belt so she knows what she's talking about and that's kind of a fun book for dummies books are always they're just not taken seriously enough there's a wealth of knowledge in that and so you might look at actually investing in that one and then another directory that is put out that is another good place to start is the Nebraska foundation directory and that is put out by the that is published by the Omaha Junior League and so there are copies of that floating around as well and they publish that either annually or every two years or so and so it's kept quite up to date and so that's also a good place to start I see we're almost out of time and I don't even know why I bothered to write if you have questions because I'm so sorry I blew through this and I can't haven't been able to address them at this time but please do know that if you did care I did talk with Laura Johnson and this is available for CE credits and if you're not familiar with CE credits you should find out why and talk to Laura Johnson and get yourself on your way to being accredited is that the word? certified certified depends people can be certified the library can be accredited right so start today if you don't know what I'm talking about start today and call Laura Johnson and say I attended this and I want to get started on my path to being accredited or certified and here's my first hour and then I'll be sending out an email to you please please I would love your feedback on the content of this presentation today I'm an evaluator what can I say so I want to hear back from you what you thought of today's presentation and so it's a short evaluation and any information you can give back to me will help make some decisions whether we're going to continue on this path of offering sessions about grant seeking and grant funding next page yeah so there is a couple of upcoming sessions here on Encompass Live one is on a Thursday November 12th Thursday not a Wednesday this is very specific this is grant information about continuing and education training and continuing education and training grants which are going to be opening up and do pretty soon and same with library improvement grants which will be opening up and then do soon not not soon after that I think they do both in December please do not quote me on that but they will be open by November 12th and so if you have any inclination as to the possibility of learning about what these grants are and how they might help fund a project that you have in mind or you just want some more information on how to navigate the process of filling out the applications this is the time for you to sign up for that grants information session on Encompass Live getting us a Thursday and then I do hope through the evaluation through emails or talking to Krista or talking to Debra that we will hear back from you that you got something out of today but that I blew through it so quickly that you'd love to hear more you want to know more and so it's quite possible that we would have some future sessions part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 just whatever it takes to help people get done what they are hoping to get done in their grant seeking and grant grant writing agendas I'm not sure if there's one I'm not sure we'll have to see that's it that's the last slide and I'll turn it over to Krista okay great yes thank you very much Catherine that was a lot of stuff I had no clue about but yes it was obviously very quick a lot of information in the hour we don't have questions right now but that's okay you can contact Catherine with any questions you have and she can get back to you if you did have any that were in that you did enter into the questions section in the go to webinar interface we do have that saved and so she'll be able to get back to you on those as well we've got those saved and I'll get them to her as you said yes on November 12th there will be a follow up sort of session to this one more about grants it is a Thursday so be aware of that on Wednesday but Wednesday November 11th is Veterans Day and we as the Library Commission stayed until you're closed so we bumped it to Thursday so we can still have a session that week so it'll be on Thursday same time though 10 a.m. so just be aware of that special time for that session and definitely if you want other topics we take I take requests from the audience anything you want us to talk about at all on Encompass Live about grants about any topic that you want send me an email give me a phone call and if it's an idea you have or something you want to present about or if you just want to know more about something I can find someone to present on it any topic definitely contact me and let me know what you want to hear on our Encompass Live so thank you very much for attending today this has been recorded the recording should be up and available to you to re-listen to again if you want to tomorrow I'll say the PowerPoint presentation will be available for you to download the worksheets that we're talking about that Kevin talked about will be available for you to download the news as well and links to our delicious account where all the URLs all the websites that she mentioned will be available to you all in that recording information so you have information about all that when that gets put up I'll probably get it ready for you tomorrow so thank you very much bye bye