Senior Grants Consultant and First Responder Grants founder Margaret Stark shares her journey in starting First Responder Grants, and passes along key tips for securing grants.
You can hear Beyond the Call at SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, and more.
Thank you to our friends at Beyond the Call, the National Police Credit Union, and the Chicago Patrolmen’s Federal Credit Union for having us!
Just added to the training calendar!
Join us in Carpinteria, CA, for 2 days of meat-and-potatoes grant-writing training. We’ve designed our training to turn you into a first-rate public safety grant writer.
Learn how to help your agency get the training, to get the grant, to get the gear!
Register early to hold your seat in class.
You know how we talk about how fast-paced the world of grants is?
That’s why it’s so perfect that you have a great opportunity to join us for a special grant-writing training on May 30-31, 2019.
New Hampshire’s Loudon Police Department has graciously arranged for us to host our training at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Come join us for two days of meat-and-potatoes grant writing training designed to turn you into a first-rate public safety grant writer. Presented in language you will understand.
Learn how to help your agency get the training, to get the grant, to get the gear!
See you at the track!
Image: © 2019 Speedway Motorsports, Inc.
“Critical infrastructure.” It’s a phrase you might find in many grant guidelines and requests for proposal. But what is it? Where is it? How much does your area have? The answers might surprise you.
According to DHS, critical infrastructure comprises physical and virtual systems “so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof.”
There are 16 sectors:
Critical infrastructure can be anywhere.
And that, folks, can be the big hairy unknown. Critical infrastructure can be in or around your area, and you might not know it.
We are working on some new resources to help agencies like yours plan around critical infrastructure and how to include details about critical infrastructure in grant applications.
What questions do you have about critical infrastructure? Please email Kurt Bradley and let us know!
Just south of Chicago, our friends at Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System (ILEAS) are once again opening their doors for 2 days of grant-writing training. First responders and public safety grant writers from around the country will be gathering for plain-talk, meat-and-potatoes training that gives you the ins and outs for writing competitive grants.
Start talking with your chief, captain, or municipal contacts now so your department can join us.
This training is April 4-5, 2019-a great way to get your 2019 grant efforts in full gear.
Remember: The FY 2018 FP&S grant application period will open on Monday, November 12, 2018 at 8 AM ET and will close on Friday, December 21, 2018 at 5 PM ET.
The FP&S Program Office will host 2 webinars to help you with your FY 2018 FP&S grant application. The webinars will provide potential applicants with general information about the FP&S grant program, how to navigate the grant application, and tips for preparing an application. FP&S Program Officers will be available to answer questions.
Details and more: AFGP Workshop Schedule at FEMA.gov
Please make sure to thoroughly review the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) prior to beginning your application, as it contains the latest updates to the FY 2018 FP&S Grant Program. Begin preparing your application now by using the following application assistance tools:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is holding webinars for stakeholders nationwide to discuss the agency’s efforts in updating the National Response Framework (NRF) to incorporate lessons learned from the unprecedented 2017 hurricane and wildfire season. First released in 2008, the NRF is a guide for how our nation responds to all types of disasters and emergencies. As part of FEMA’s renewed effort to build a national culture of preparedness, this update will include the following areas:
The updated NRF will continue to focus on the capabilities necessary to save lives, protect property and the environment, and meet basic human needs during disasters. The NRF will continue to be scalable, flexible and adaptable, using the core capabilities identified in the National Preparedness Goal.
FEMA is hosting a series of one-hour engagement webinars to describe the update and answer participants’ questions. These webinars are geared toward the whole community, including individuals and communities, the private and nonprofit sectors, faith-based organizations, and all governments (state, local, tribal, and territorial, as well as federal agencies).
Advance registration is required and on a first-come, first-served basis. To register, click on your preferred webinar session from the list below.
Webinar 1: Monday, October 15, 4:00 p.m. EDT
Register at: https://fema.connectsolutions.com/nrf-webinar1/event/registration.html
Webinar 2: Thursday, October 18, 12:00 p.m. EDT
Register at: https://fema.connectsolutions.com/nrf-webinar2/event/registration.html
Webinar 3: Wednesday, October 24, 10:00 a.m. EDT
Register at: https://fema.connectsolutions.com/nrf-webinar3/event/registration.html
Webinar 4: Friday, October 26, 3:00 p.m. EDT
Register at: https://fema.connectsolutions.com/nrf-webinar4/event/registration.html
Once summer gives way to fall, we all know how close we are to the holidays… and then to another new year. As we head into the final months of 2018 and look ahead to 2019, there is lots your department can be doing right now to prepare for next year’s grant opportunities.
Proper planning involves a myriad of things, one of which is assuring that you have proper manpower and equipment to carry out your basic mission for your citizens. A needs assessment gives you the facts you need to know about how well prepared your department is to carry out its primary function.
Each year, public, private, corporate, and non-profit organizations provide thousands of grants worth billions of dollars. What programs are out there that your agency could benefit from? What program will you try for for the first time? What programs have you tried for and gotten rejected, but you’re determined that this year be the year you get to the winner’s circle? Remember: Lots of grants open for applications during the first quarter!
Over the years we’ve looked at thousands of grant applications, and we have seen it all. The good. The bad. The ugly. And there are things that consistently set the winners apart from the losers. Put our 4 tips to work in your grant efforts, and you will be far more likely to celebrate a grant award in 2019.
The 4 things grant winners have in common
You can make a well-stated case for why your department needs a grant more than another, but you also have to back up your story with hard data. Luckily, there’s lots of that out there. Demographics, critical infrastructure, economics, you name it.
Get the numbers and facts you need with our resource lists
Just as you train for different incidents, it takes solid training to write a good grant too.
Check out our online training and national training options for what’s right for you
Our expert Senior Grant Consultants are a phone call or an email away.
Law Enforcement, EMS, Emergency Management, Fire Service. You name it, no matter what part of the Public Safety sector an agency is in, when it comes to winning grants those winning agencies have 4 things in common.
Winning agencies don’t wait till the last minute. They tend to start their application and narrative 3-6 months ahead of the grant program’s opening date.
The number one reason grants are rejected is that the applying agency committed “failure to follow directions.”
Know where these directions are?
Every single direction is in one document, known as the NOFO or RFP, the Notice of Funding Opportunity and Request for Proposal. This vital document spells out every detail of a grant program. Losing agencies sometimes barely open or skim the NOFO.
Winning agencies read, re-read, and re-read these documents again, and keep them close at hand for further reference throughout their application process.
Winning agencies have conducted a “needs assessment” in order to identify the highest priority item not just for themselves, but that also falls into the high priority category defined by the grant funding source.
In order to be competitive, you have to know the difference between a “need” and a “want.” They are distinctively different. Only seek “high” priority projects to go after in your grant.
Be sure you have thoroughly vetted your project with agency administrators and command staff. That way, prior to you even starting the grant application, everyone is reading from the same page and knows exactly what you will be writing for and why.
Winning agencies know that you don’t just train for incident response. You train for writing grants too. They get the professional expertise they need to understand the grant process. They seek professional advice and assistance to guide their efforts and check their work for mistakes prior to submission.
As an example, the wrong answer to a single question can result in lowering your grant’s priority from a “high” to a “medium or low” priority. As such, your grant would end up rejected by the computer as not being competitive enough to go further through the vetting process. All because of one error.
While no one person or no amount of preparation can guarantee a grant’s success, these 4 steps can make it far more likely that your grant will make it to the winner’s circle.
How can you put these 4 things to work in your agency’s grant efforts today?
Before we know it, summer will be on the wane. Vacations will be ending. School will be starting. Someday the temperature might even cool off…
As we start to think about fall and–can you believe it?–the year to come, it’s also a great time to talk with your department and municipality about getting grant-writing training. Since our training is only for first responders, emergency management, and public safety agencies, it’s tailored exactly for what you need to write and send out the most competitive grants you can.
Check out our schedule and sign up for the in-person or online class that’s best for you.