Grant Writing for Impact: Grant Writing for School Leaders, #3

By Peggy Downs

We all want to ensure our schools have the resources needed to support our students, but what happens when the money just isn't there?

 

How can you develop new programs, build new facilities, or upgrade your technology on a tight operating budget? How can you partner with those who have the funds you need to reach your goals?

 

In Grant Writing for Impact, you will find a step-by-step system for building a comprehensive grants program for your school. In this book, you will learn how to:

• Envision the program you want to develop.
• Establish systems and teams to support your grants program.
• Engage partners who share your vision.
• Execute your plan to meet your goals.
• Extend your vision with long-term planning.

This book is more than a grant-writing book. It will help you clarify your vision, manage grants effectively, and develop partnerships with grant makers and donors to support your school improvement goals.

 

In Grant Writing for Impact, you'll find:

• Case studies from other school leaders who wrestled with grants, so you can find the model that works for you.
• Information you need in language you understand, so you can take action quickly and move toward your goals.
• Proven strategies tested by schools so you don't have to wonder if this works, which means you can focus on developing your program plans.
• Free resources to make the job easier so you can get back to leading your school.

Free Resources to Help You

This book includes links to free resources that have been tested and shared with hundreds of school leaders. You will find links to:

• Grants Comparison Chart
• School Grants You Can Use
• Grants Tracker
• Grants Worksheet
• Grants Checklist
• Funding Plan Template 

Anyone can learn to write grants. This book shows you how to make grants part of your school funding plan.

 

Get Grant Writing for Impact today and discover how to find high-value grants for your school. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Granting Your Vision
• Release date: Apr 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393562405

Peggy Downs

Peggy Downs is a leading grant writer for charter schools. She supports schools across the country with high quality grants, training, and program development. Peggy has served as a Peer Reviewer for federal grants. Peggy has been involved in five school start-ups in two states, starting as a founding parent of a charter school in Colorado. She became a founding teacher of another school, earned her administrative license, and opened a new school in Utah as the director. She supported another school as they wrote the initial charter and served on the board of directors, and then later wrote the charter renewal application. She has served on the board of directors for a state charter school association and supported the development of a national charter school association. Peggy is passionate about supporting school leaders and founders with the information they need to build strong school programs. She is the author of the Grant Writing for School Leaders series, based on her experience and the questions she hears as she works with schools. She is the owner of Granting Your Vision, providing grant writing, online training and workshop presentations for school leaders. She has given presentations at state and national conferences, and was rated a Top 20 Presenter at #NCSC19. Peggy also supports student teachers in local district and charter schools for an online university. She loves being able to visit all types of classrooms and stays current on trends in curriculum and instruction. Peggy loves to travel and taught at a boarding school in Switzerland for one year. Her favorite quote is, “Fall in love with as many places as you can.”

Book preview

Introduction

Wasted Time

I closed out the training course with a sigh. Printing out the certificate of completion, I contemplated the hours the online training course had taken me and rolled my eyes. That was six hours I was never getting back. What a waste of time!

As the director of a charter school, I felt like I was missing out on an important resource but didn’t know where to look. I just knew we needed money and I was letting my team down.

I had signed up for this training course hoping it would give me practical information for writing grants, but I was disappointed. It was written for independent grant writers who were working with nonprofit organizations. It was all about organizing the search and managing multiple clients. It was not what I needed but it was the only grant-writing course I could find at the time. 

So I set aside my goal to write a grant and got back to my daily tasks. Grant writing fell off my to-do list for the time being...

Do you have grants on your to-do list? Do you feel as if you could be doing more but you’re not sure where to start? And who has time? It can be overwhelming. There’s so much to learn. Where can you get your questions answered? How does grant writing fit into the larger picture of school funding? Is it even your job?

Why Don’t We Write Grants?

Let’s face it: writing grant proposals can be tedious. Large grant proposals can take hundreds of hours to plan and write—and there are no guarantees. As a school leader, you dread putting effort into researching and developing an idea that may never be implemented. Who has that kind of time to waste? 

It’s important to plan ahead and get it right but how will you learn? Most grant trainings are designed for nonprofits or consultants, not specifically for schools. They provide too much unrelated information, which can be frustrating and time consuming. 

Why Do Grants Matter?

Grants can provide important supplemental revenue. They can support needed programs. And they position you as a resourceful leader. You can become an influencer who understands the power of building partnerships to expand the reach of your school. Grants can help you build these partnerships. Adding grants to your professional toolkit offers many benefits.

Leadership

You see a problem; you create a solution. A grant can provide the resources you need to solve important problems, enhancing your influence as a school leader. 

Vision

You see a better future. When you write a grant, you clarify your vision and share your ideas with others. Grants can help you realize your vision.

Partnership

Grants invite collaboration. When you work with others who share your values, you build relationships. These relationships can help deepen your impact and expand your network as you work with other organizations and professionals in your community.

Outreach

You can develop relationships with others in your community. They can help share your story about the great work you are doing. Not only does this spread the word about your work, it can also uncover surprising new partnerships.

Personal Growth 

Grant writing allows you to share your passions and truly make a difference. Winning a grant for a project you created is deeply satisfying.

Why Me?

I’ve been an educator for twenty years. I started my adventure as a founding parent and teacher at a charter school, and ended my formal professional experience as a director of a charter school serving nearly 1300 students on two campuses. I’ve been involved in opening five schools in two states. I’ve been a charter school board member, served on the board of a state charter school association, and helped to start a national coalition for charter schools.

So How Did I Become a Grants Mentor?

After I left my position as a school director, I had a chance to help a friend open her charter school and then she invited me to write grants for her school. At the same time, I was working on the Peer Review Team for the federal Charter School Program (CSP) Grants. As I sought to learn more about grant writing, I struggled to find resources to get my questions answered. There were trainings and blogs and books on the subject, but not much that was specifically for school leaders. I found myself sifting through hours of trainings and articles to find specific information that applied to school grants.

One day, I was staring at a sticky note on my wall for the hundredth time—it said, find a grants mentor. My thoughts wandered…find a mentor. Find someone who can answer my questions, edit my writing, maybe even help me find new grants…all the things I’ve taught myself to do. I’ve read books, watched webinars, talked to grant writers, and worked hard to simply grind out more grant proposals…

And it suddenly hit me. I could become what I had needed when I started writing grants. I could BE a grants mentor for school leaders. 

Now, I certainly don’t claim to have all the answers. But I know what questions I was asking as I tried to learn more about grants. I know how small schools work and I understand your priorities and your challenges. I have developed systems and strategies to make the grant-writing process easier for you.

New Series: Grant Writing for School Leaders

Many of the strategies I developed are recorded in my first book, Charter School Grants: Save Time and Write a Better Grant. Charter School Grants was a #1 Hot New Release in Charter Schools on Amazon, and reached #1 in both the Nonprofit Fundraising & Grants and Education Administration categories.

I am so thankful for the opportunity to write that first book because its success has inspired me to create a new series for school leaders. You can find all my books in this series, Grant Writing for School Leaders, on Amazon.

Start-Up Guide for School Grants: Answers to the Questions You Should Be Asking

Charter School Grants: Save Time and Write a Better Grant

Grant Writing for Impact: Leverage Grants to Increase Funding, Impact, and Credibility for Your School

Grant Writing for Impact Workbook: A Practical Resource for Developing School Grants

I also give grant-writing presentations at school conferences. I enjoy these presentations and look forward to meeting more school leaders at upcoming conferences. See my events page to find out where I’ll be next. 

Check it out at www.peggydowns.com/events.

Through that first book and the presentations I’ve done, I’ve learned what works and what questions you still have. I am excited that you are here today on this journey with me. Every school leader can learn to write grants. It’s not like learning a foreign language or a musical instrument. There is no ideal time to learn how. Grant writing is a skill you can learn at any time in your career.

It’s the connection between grants and leadership that we’ll explore together in this book. But the goal of this book goes much further than that. 

In this book, we’ll explore how you can use grants to serve the greater good. You can use grants to meet your school goals and solve important problems. You can find the resources you need and partner with others who care about solving problems in your school and community. You can build your leadership capability as you build sustainable programs.

What Is Grant Writing for Impact?

Grant writing for impact means that you are building the systems and capacity for grant writing as a long-term strategy, not as a temporary fix. You can become an influencer who understands the power of building partnerships with grant makers to extend the reach and impact of your school. It’s not about the money, although that helps. It’s not about you, although this skill can improve your marketability. It’s not even about your school, although that is the community you serve. 

It’s about impact. It’s about achieving your school’s vision for a better future. And when you partner with other organizations that care about the problems you want to solve, you can improve your community in meaningful ways that can have lasting effects.

Who Is This Book For?

This book is for school leaders who want to learn more about grants. School leaders come in many forms, so when I use this term, I mean anyone who steps into decision-making roles. This can refer to board members, administrators, teacher-leaders, or parent volunteers. You may be the school director planning a new grant proposal or a board member recruited to look into grants. You might be a teacher aspiring to become an administrator, or a parent volunteer serving as grant writer. You could even be a school founder, just beginning your journey into school leadership.

Do you believe that you can create and lead schools that will have a positive impact on your community? Do you understand the value of partnering with others to reach your goals? Are you ready to learn how to lead through grants? Then this book is for you.

Whatever your role, you want to create something new that makes a real difference. I want to serve you with information, support, ideas, and resources to meet your goals. Together, we can create value in a new way and, just maybe, we can change the world.

What to Expect

I wrote this book at the intersection of school leadership and grant writing, because I live in both worlds. This book will help you create programs and partnerships that will have an impact on your community. Impact comes with positive change. Change comes from having a vision of a better future. Grants can help you move closer to that future.

The Five Strategies

This book is organized into five strategies, with three tactics per strategy. A strategy describes a key behavior that is part of the overall system for creating a school grants program. You will notice that each strategy starts with a verb—the focus is on the doing. Each behavior is further refined in the focus statement at the beginning of each chapter. Tactics describe the specific actions you will take to develop each behavior. Each section gives you the information you need to take action on the tactics and move closer to the goal.

Goal: Leverage grants to dramatically increase funding, impact, and credibility for your school.

1. Envision the program you want to develop

Focus: Develop your vision and goals, aligned with your school’s mission

2. Establish systems and teams to support your grants program

Focus: Make sure your school is grant-ready

3. Engage partners who share your vision

Focus: Create partnerships with grantmakers who want to help you meet your goals

4. Execute your plan to meet your goals

Focus: Put it all

Reviews for Grant Writing for Impact

[Jamie Smet · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Clear, practical intro to grant writing for teachers and schools in need of funding.