Beginners Guide to Grant Writing

View the Beginner's Guide to Grant Writing Brochure (Spring/Fall 2009)

Grant writing is both a skill and a talent. Skilled grant writers use persuasive writing to describe their ideas and initiatives. Good grant writers also use their creative talents, providing vivid descriptions of the activities that will take place or services that will be provided, allowing funders to see their funds in action. The Beginner’s Guide to Grant Writing workshop is designed to build community skills which promote growth and sustainability.

Today, Indiana is home to new community playgrounds, expanded libraries, improved businesses, schools, and community agencies that are meeting the needs of Indiana residents through newly-funded programs and services. Organizations across the state have received over $5.5 million in funded proposals in the first four years of the grant writing program.

For example, in less than one year after completing the workshop, the Girl Scouts received four grants totaling $98,000 to expand programs and volunteer training. Schools in Greene County raised $135,000 in grant funds, with another $60,000 pending award. Grant monies are helping libraries across Indiana digitize community history and expand resources that will help many Hoosiers for years to come. New buildings are going up and old buildings are coming down, making room for new and improved facilities, community revitalization, and infrastructure improvements totaling more than $300,000. How will you fund your next project?

The two-day Beginner’s Guide to Grant Writing program is a great skill builder for the beginner or intermediate grant writer. Even grant writers with years of experience describe the workshop as helpful and enlightening. Whatever a person’s skill level, they can come with an idea and be ready to write at the end of the first day when they have a proposal outline and all the resources needed to expand the outline into a full proposal. Participants return a month later for the second day of the workshop with their full proposal ready for a peer review, learn strategies for finding funding, and the have the opportunity to polish their proposals and then get feedback from grant-writing professionals.

PCRD and Purdue Extension partner to offer this program two times each year at several locations across the state. The instructors teach via 2-way video and Extension Educators at each site serve as specially-trained facilitators.