9 Steps to Writing Successful School and Library Grants

In a perfect world, your budget would provide you with the funding you need to make the updates your library and classrooms deserve. But in reality, school and library budgets, staff, and resources are often stretched thin, forcing you to seek other funding sources for your projects.

The good news is there are funds available in the form of grants. If you’ve never written a grant before, it may seem like a daunting task. But I’m here to tell you that you — yes, you — can write a winning grant proposal and get the dollars your community deserves to fund your projects.

It’s easy to think of all types of excuses for not going after grants, but guess what? I’m going to show you ways to work your way out of all those excuses! Start with the following tips, and view my complete webinar on the topic, Anyone Can Write a Grant.

Forget the Excuses

• I Can’t Afford a Grant Writer and Don’t Have Time to Do It Myself
  The best part of this one is—you don’t have to! You can bring together community and colleagues to form a team to put the grant proposal together. Begin by thinking about the diverse talents of your staff and community members and how you can tap into them. When you break grant-writing down into smaller tasks assigned to members of a team, it becomes less-formidable and easier to accomplish.

• Nobody Will Give Us Money
  When you research what funding organizations want to support and grants they’ve awarded in the past, you will find that they match up closely with the mission of your school or library: creating flexible learning spaces, supporting STEM skill growth, building early reading skills, providing employment and citizenship assistance, etc. There are many grants out there that support the of services that schools and public libraries offer, and they’re just waiting for you to go after them.

• I’m Not a Good Writer
  Writing a grant proposal requires more than writing, and that’s why you need to bring in various skill sets. Even if your writing skills are not up to par, you might be great at project management and be the right person to oversee the entire project. Or you might be the team member who focuses on the budget. If you have a great writer or editor on your team, but you’re closest to the information, write out a rough draft or an outline with key points and let your writer finesse the final draft.

• It’s Too Complicated
  Just like anything new, grant writing might seem complicated. But you’re already on your way to making it less complicated by educating yourself and gaining tips from experts. Grant writing is a process that can be learned, and, just like anything, it will get easier with practice. The ultimate reward is that your library will benefit from your hard work.

Break Grant Writing Down into Steps

1. Educate Yourself

Find online or print resources about grant writing, or ask a local grant writer for tips. You may even want to volunteer with your state library association to review grant applications. This will help you get a feel for what a winning application looks like and understand how grants get graded.

2. Gather Your Team

Assess your resources and their skill sets. You’ll want someone who’s a big-picture thinker, someone who’s good with numbers, and someone who can write clear and compelling copy. If each member of the team has only a portion of the work that matches his or her skill set, no one should feel overwhelmed. Tap into your own staff, and don’t be afraid to seek volunteers with grant-writing skills through volunteer job postings. You’ll be surprised how many people will be willing to help.

3. Set Your Goals

Instead of browsing grants first and writing your proposal to fit the grant, begin by evaluating your schoool or library’s needs. For public libraries, is there an issue in your community that could be resolved or benefit from a program or resource your library could implement, such as high unemployment? Perhaps you want to help ensure kids keep reading over the summer or introduce more STEM opportunities. Make sure you are picking a need that has a broad impact, not something that will serve only a handful of people.

4. Identify Problem, Solution, and Opportunity

Once you’ve identified the problem, start gathering data to back it up. Then figure out the solution to that problem. For instance, if you have large unemployment rates, a helpful solution would be job training services. Then identify the opportunity for your library. The opportunity for the library in this example is to open a career center that hosts programs, speakers, and interview and résumé-writing workshops.

If you see a lack of STEM opportunities for your students, figure out ways you could provide those opportunities, such as starting a makerspace in your school or creating mobile maker carts for classrooms.

5. Think about Other Organizations that Share Your Goal

These might be your local schools or public library, government organizations, local businesses, human services organizations, or nonprofits. Approach them to partner with you — bring them onto your team and involve them going forward. This will broaden your reach. Be sure to include this partnership information in your grant.

You can get organizations to partner with you in different ways. They don’t necessarily have to be on your grant-writing team. Perhaps you can work out a partnership where they help promote your services or plan a series of workshops together. In the career center example above, you could partner with an organization that provides free business clothing for interviews.

Many businesses are looking for philanthropy opportunities for their employees and would be more than willing to hold a fundraiser, a book drive, or send technology experts to your school to help facilitate a family tech night.

6. Set Your Timeline

There are usually timelines and calendar requirements for each individual funder. Start with a realistic big-picture timeline, and tweak it for each funding source that you apply for. Be careful that you are always setting realistic deadlines, and make sure you have someone on your team whose job it is to keep the project on track to hit them.

7. Know Your Budget

Here’s where that team member who’s good with numbers comes in. Follow the specific guidelines each funder requires for outlining your budget. Some might require that a portion of the money be matched by your school or library budget. It’s very important that you follow the guidelines, as not doing so drastically lowers the possibility that you’ll be awarded the grant.

Provide an appendix to your budget that defines specific products you plan to purchase and their costs so that the funder can see the breakdown and realistic estimates of how the money will be spent.

8. State Clear Objectives

Your objectives need to be very clear. You need to state your problem and articulate the data that supports it. Then, you’ll want to be able to describe your proposed solution and your plan to address the problem. Be prepared to explicitly state your expected impact on the problem — these will be the objectives you outline in the grant application.

Think about the following:

• What steps have you taken already?
• How can you show that you’ve already taken initiative to get the program running in small ways or that you have a successful program that you could scale with the right space and equipment?
• What do you believe you can accomplish by implementing your plan using the grant money?
• How will you measure the results once the plan is in place?
• How will you know you’ve achieved your objectives?

Take the time to do some research and educate yourself and your team as to what exactly an objective is and how it should be written, as unclear objectives are a common problem in grant proposals. There’s plenty of information on the Internet, including this concise description.

9. Plan for Future Reporting

If the grant was a large award, it’s likely you’ll have to do quarterly or monthly reporting once you’ve been awarded the money and have put your plan into place. Don’t be afraid of the reporting — remember, you’ve already found an expert on your team who can help you with this! You can plan for your success by making sure your objectives are achievable and leave you lots of opportunities for success.

Along with the quantitative measurements you’ll likely be asked to include in your follow-up reports, you’ll also want to incorporate stories from students, parents, and community members who used your services. Decide on a way to capture those stories beforehand so you are ready to do so when reporting time comes.