Grant Writing for Public Safety and First Responder Agencies
Tuition: $499
This interactive and comprehensive training was developed for and targeted specifically at First Responders and Emergency Services Providers and is focused on imparting the skill sets needed to properly research, develop and apply to grant funding streams specific to those career fields.
We Speak Grants!
The training is taught by a former or current public safety administrator who is also a nationally recognized grant consultant and expert. Grant writing does not require scholarly academic achievement; it requires critical thinking skills. The course is taught in a style and manner that is easily understood by the agency or public safety professional; from the administrator to the line officer. The student will learn how to comprehensively read and understand exactly what the funding source must see in order to affect an award for their agency.
Participants will be taught how to form the nexus between their need and the funding source’s priorities so that their applications are approved. The course focuses extensively on identifying and presenting your need and program to the “reviewing panel” in a manner which removes the negative factors that typically result in a rejection notice. The student will leave the seminar with the knowledge to assist them in researching and identifying grant funding opportunities, reading and comprehending RFPs / Program Guidance documents and organizing and writing the critical sections of the application. Laptops are encouraged.
What Will I Learn?
This course covers the skills and strategies essential to any grant writing process but with heavy emphasis on First Responder grant programs specifically. It will give you the basics you need to successfully compete for funding streams available from corporate, nonprofit or governmental entities. Specific emphasis is placed on researching and writing grants associated with Criminal Justice, DHS and those associated with the First Responder community. You will learn how to:
- Translate “Federal-ese” into plain English
- Comprehend Program Guidance and RFP Documents to Discern Eligibility, Program and Funding Priorities, Rules and Regulations
- Research Grant and Funding Opportunities and Identify Resources Useful for Doing So
- Use Critical Thinking Skills for Problem Solving
- Initiate and Implement Proper Grant Strategy into Your Agency
- Express Need and Justify Your Proposals
- “Give Them What They Want”, In Order To “Get What You Need”
- Conduct a Proper Needs Assessment for Your Agency
- Start Thinking Outside the Box!
Learn by Example and by Doing
Attendees will be shown examples of successful grants and learn “why” they were successful. Through training exercises, will begin their new level of grant writing.
Students will participate in “mock peer review exercises” and be given recent, funded examples of grant applications as they are taught the method of “thinking like a reviewer” in developing applications for their own agencies.
Topics Covered
- Preparatory steps to apply for grants
- Types of grants
- Determining eligibility and suitability of funding opportunity
- The politics of grants
- Performance measures
- Forming grant writing teams
- Reviewing grant writing formats
- Describing your organization
- Developing a compelling problem statement
- Writing a program approach
- Showing financial need
- Describing cost benefit
- Planning the evaluation process
- Demonstrating sustainability
- Planning the budget
- 10 most common reasons grant applications are rejected
- Alternative funding methods
Who Should Attend?
- Any first responder,public safety or emergency services providers with interests in accessing grant funding streams
- Regional, state and local public safety and emergency management employees
- Grant Writers interested in updating skills for applying to public safety specific grants
- Both novice and seasoned grant writers that wish to increase their rate of funding success with DHS and other federal grant programs
- City managers/ local governing board members seeking a better understanding of the current arena of grant funding available to their public safety departments
Important: Training Handouts
7-10 days prior to attending a training you will be sent an email from firstrespondergrants.com (be sure when registering to give us an accurate/active email and set spam filters to allow email from us). That email will have a zip file of PDF and MS-Word.doc documents which are the handouts for your training. You should print those handouts and bring them to the training as printed handouts will not be available.