Grants

Grants Information

Note: I have included many sites containing links to grants and other sites that are direct to grant givers.

AOL Foundation's Mission: To pioneer the development of strategies and programs that leverage the power of the emerging global medium to benefit society by improving the lives of families and children, and empowering the disadvantaged.

At Home Page: Technology grants and grant writing for Wisconsin teachers.

Barnard/Fain Foundation each year awards grants ranging from $5000 to $30,000 to tax exempt organizations engaged in exploring new approaches and programs in education, particularly in the sciences.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a source for grants for libraries, learning, and health

Box Tops for Education General Mills Box Tops for Education website.

Corning Foundation grants program, here is a sample of a foundation's web site and information about its grants.

Council on Foundations is a place for connections to foundation links and information, offers a text only option.

CURRICULUM ASSOCIATES: Cabinet Grant Program As the Teachers Who Publish, we will honor teachers who exhibit excellence in K-8 teaching practices by selecting three educators to participate on our Excellence in Teaching Cabinet Grants.

Ed-Tech Alert offers a free 30 day trial subscription to their grant finding resources.

Educate the Children raises funds to help provide books, technology, and supplies in underfunded K-12 schools.

EIPP is the place to go to apply for those Department of Defense Computers.

Empowering Minds Foundation (EMF) is dedicated to bringing opportunities to developing areas through new technology and sustainable educational programs. Working with host country governments around the world, EMF responds to community requests by providing computers and trained teachers to youth clubs, existing school facilities and other qualifying locations.

EPA Grant Writing Tutorial

Fed. Register is the Federal Register for the Department of Education, here are announcements, and other information about grants available.

Fedstats: One Stop Shopping for Federal Statistics More than 70 agencies in the United States Federal Government produce statistics of interest to the public.

Foundation Center another site to link grantmakers with grantseekers, very organized.

Funded Research is the company known as the Community of Science, a very focused matchmaker more suited to undergrad or graduate level research.

Funding Factory will collect empty inkjet and laser cartridges and give you software and hardware in trade.

George Lucas contains links to information about the education foundation, its goals, products available, and other grant resources. Visitors to the site are given the option to use the latest browser or an older one. A well organized site containing information for educators.

Grant Info-Link is from the National Association of Elementary Principals, a source page filled with links to grants and how-to sites.

Milken Family Foundation sponsors many different programs and offers resources for training and teacher support.

National TRU Program - Technology Transfer Apply for permission to download training materials, etc..

NFIE a foundation begun by N.E.A. Here are teacher grants and information about grants and grant writing.

ORS - The Grant Getting Page is from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Although designed for UIC personnel, the site offers links to Federal Offices and other grant information.

PDPTA Technical Assistance for professional development.

Private Foundations on the Internet is a site with a grant search engine and links to most all foundations.

SAMI the science and math initiative site, a site managed by the Annenburg CPB foundation.

SchoolGrants claims to be the one stop shopping area for grants and information.

SEDL Southwestern Education Development Laboratory, SEDL is the regional education laboratory serving Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.

techLearning is a great resource complete with search engine and grant writing areas. Sponsored by Technology and Learning magazine.

Technogrants THE DISTANCE LEARNING FUNDING $OURCEBOOK: A connection for grants and funding for technology and telecommunications.

Technology Grants is a listing of grants specifically for technology teachers and other teachers using technology in their classroom.

TRAM was developed to give Texas teachers access to grant resources.

TrueGift, a small California nonprofit corporation implementing direct contributions of school supplies to individual classrooms. We allow a teacher to request specific school supplies and ask donors to provide those supplies. Not for just California schools.

Winterline Foundation is a non-profit, private foundation supporting programs, institutions and organizations that encourage the development of individuals equipped to be citizens of the world.

Teacher's presentation on grants, complete with links:

~ Many teachers are interested in knowing where to find alternative sources of funding for major classroom supplies such as technology, as well as how to go about applying for this funding. Before you become overwhelmed by everything that goes in to writing a grant, remember that in most cases your town or school district has a person whose job includes organizing and writing grants for outside funding. This person is usually the curriculum director or assistant superintendent. In larger districts, there is often a person whose only job is grant writing and distribution. Usually, money is funneled to grant recipients through this district coordinator, who will be responsible for keeping track of expenditures. This person should be aware of sources for funding that you could look into, and often has the background information and statistics you will need to write a grant. They are usually thrilled to have teachers who are interested in leading a grant and will give you many pointers. You probably should also get support for what you are planning from your direct supervisor (principal). Even if s/he does not know much about grant writing you will need support from your building administration in the long run.

~ Before you can write a grant, you need to know your town’s technology plan. This is usually an enormous book kept in the media center/library or office. Know the initiatives for your specific grade level.

If your school or town does not have a technology plan (All MA public schools are required to have one) download the Guidebook for Developing an Effective Instructional Technology Plan from the National Center for Technology Planning. http://www.nctp.com/

~ Once you know the initiatives, it will be easy to proceed. You will want to show that you are incorporating the town’s technology plans and grade level initiatives into your curriculum or the specific project for which you are writing a grant. If you are currently attempting to “seamlessly integrate” technology into your curriculum, you are probably already meeting some of the initiatives laid out. If you teach more than one subject, try to incorporate at least one different initiative into each subject. (For example: if teaching both Math and Science incorporate spreadsheets in one subject and data bases in another, rather than focusing on only spreadsheets.)

~ The next step is to think of a specific project you would like to focus on. Perhaps a telecommunications project with a school in another country through Global Schoolhouse for which you need a modem and computer, a writer’s workshop for which you would like AlphaSmart typing tools, a science laboratory for which you need specific probes and gauges. It doesn’t have to be big, just something for which you currently lack the supplies/hardware. (Sometimes it’s a good idea to think of hardware your school needs, and build a project around it!)

~ With the proposal in mind, you need to gather information/statistics about your school and town. You will need to know your current student/computer ratio, student/teacher ratio, percentage of students on free/reduced lunch, percentage of students covered by Special Ed plans, and cultural make-up of the school and/or town. If you are writing a local grant or a state grant, this information is not always needed. You can get this information from your principal, guidance counselor, or assistant superintendent’s office.

~ Now you’re ready to write the basic grant proposal. You need to know the costs, your time-frame to complete the project (Sometimes it’s not a specific project, just a way to improve your classroom teaching, and will take place all year.), the intended audience/participants of the project, and any goals or outcomes.

These two sites give a good basic outline of how to write a grant. Focus on Fundraising from the Philadelphia Education Fund gives a nice outline of how to write a grant, as well as links to foundations sponsoring grants. http://www.philaedfund.org/focusonfunding.html

What Every Grant Should Have: Grant writing Information and Strategies for Technology is the outline of a course from the state of Wisconsin. http://athomepage.com/what.html

~ When writing the grant, think about things that will impress the grant committee such as background research, perhaps a quote from a respected educator. Also keep in mind all the current politically correct “buzz-words” such as heterogeneous, multi-cultural, varied learning styles, ‘varied socio-economic backgrounds,’. . . You could think of hundreds!

They're all here, all the power words that will impress your principal and make grant committees reach for their heckbooks. Caution: Keep your tongue planted firmly in your cheek when reading this file, located in the Arkansas Public School Computer Network Gopher Server.

Ensuring Equitable Use, making sure all members of the learning community have access to the technology, is critical in developing a grant. http://www.ncrel.org/skrs/areas/issues/methods/technlgy/te400.htm

~ At this point, have your principal or assistant principal check the draft over and be your proof-reader. Get suggestions and additions to the information you are submitting. Remember, you can do nothing in any organization without support from those at the top.

~ Finally, you’re ready to find an organization to fund your project. All you will have to do is “tweak” it a little for the specific foundation/organization offering the grant.

~ The following sites have links to organizations that offer grants as well as offering grants themselves. The most information was found when doing a search with Dogpile @ http://www.dogpile.com, using keywords grant* + educat* + technology, in any order.

Kathy Schrock has an entire page on Grant Sources for Educators. http://www.capecod.net/schrockguide/business/grants.htm

YAHOO! has an index of organizations that sponsor grants for education. If the grant isn't listed on this page, you will find one here. http://www.yahoo.com/Education/K_12/School_Funding/Technology_Funding/Organizations/ as does Excite http://www.excite.com/education/universities_and_colleges/financial_aid/grants/

A Grant-Seeker’s Guide to the Internet is a very helpful paper on using the Internet to find grant information. The beginning of the paper is all about getting connected, but the rest is all on grant information. http://www.mindspring.com/~ajgrant/guide.htm

Wisconsin Department of Public Education gives advice and links for grant writing. http://athomepage.com/grantswriting.html

Resource Guide to Federal Funding for Technology in Education http://www.ed.gov/Technology/funding.html

Links to Internet Grantwriting Resources is from the State of Indiana with links to federal and private grants. http://www.drugs.indiana.edu/prevention/grants/grants.html#Links

Education Technology and Conservation Exchange Program began in New Hampshire. It is a program where towns can get computers and peripherals for their schools from empty laser and ink-jet cartridges donated from people in the community. (Similar to Campbell’s Labels for Education) http://www.etcep.com/

Some Grant Information on the Net is from Louisiana State University with links and addresses for all forms of education grants. http://www.leeric.lsu.edu/educat/grantres.htm

Elizabeth elizbog@massed.net

visitors since September 16,1998

Teacher's Home pages | Technology & Curriculum | Wee Moose

Updated 1/9/2002