The Access Grant for Local Governments workshop was held virtually in January and you can view the workshop recordings now. The purpose of this workshop is to learn about grant opportunities for communities to acquire land and make improvements to beach and waterfront access, parks and boating facilities. Participants will learn what makes a successful grant proposal and how to leverage funding from multiple grant sources.
The funding agencies represented at the January 2021 workshop included:
- North Carolina Land and Water Fund
- Water Resources Development Grant Program
- Recreational Trails Program
- The Parks and Recreation Trust Fund & Land and Water Conservation Fund
- Boating Infrastructure Grant Program
- NC Pumpout Program
Grant writing tips are included in throughout the recordings and include organization tools and strategies, leveraging funding, and assembling and polishing the application. Be sure to complete the workshop homework activities – reviewing a mock pre-proposal and a successful proposal – before watching the recordings.
See the agenda for complete details.
Day 1 homework activity: the pre-proposal
You can think of your pre-proposal as a blueprint for developing a complete proposal. Your most important collaborator/partner is your future self, so set your future-self up for success by creating a workable blueprint and setting SMART objectives. SMART objectives are: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound. Setting them will guide your understanding of internal capacities and needs of your organization before seeking funding.
Before you watch part one of the grant writing workshop,
- Look over the POME$ (Problem, Objectives, Methods, Evaluation, $ Budget) worksheet. We recommend reading the worksheet first, so you know what to be looking for before you start reading the mock pre-proposal.
- Review the case study of a mock pre-proposal and setting SMART goals.
- As you are reading the mock pre-proposal document, consider the following:
- Are all of the components on the POME$ worksheet included?
- If not, which ones are missing? Why might that be? (Hint: if you’re unsure what to include in your own pre-proposal, look in the directions or Request For Proposals!)
- What components of a full proposal are most emphasized in the pre-proposal?
- Complete the POME$ worksheet (linked in step 1) to evaluate the mock pre-proposal.
- Once you complete the POME$ worksheet, check your answers against the answer key.
Note: You can and should use the POME$ worksheet for your own proposal planning and development, too! It is also a great tool for quickly identifying the core of your proposal’s contents on the back end. If it is hard for you to find the information in your completed proposal, chances are it will be hard for the people reviewing it, too.
Watch access grants for local governments - Part 1
Day 2 homework activity: the proposal
This exercise illustrates the fact that reviewers really may only give your proposal one close pass, and highlights the need to be clear and organized in your presentation of the information they are looking for. Also, it is an expansion of the POME$ worksheet from Day 1 homework, similar to how the full proposal is an expansion of the pre-proposal.
- Review a full successful proposal
- Quickly identify the components on this one-page grant proposal worksheet.
- Once you complete the proposal workshop, check your answers against proposal worksheet answer key.