This is my 25th year teaching. In that time I’ve gotten 38 grants. I have been getting at least one grant a year for the last 17 years straight. I’m working on making that 18 years straight. Of those 38 grants, 17 were awarded for one project, my environmental stewardship project.
I’ve learned that there are two secrets, at least in my experience, to getting grants.
- Have a great project where kids are doing some pretty cool stuff.
- Find grantors that are looking for projects like yours and write proposals for them, over and over again.
That’s the key, writing proposals over and over again. I think, although I haven’t actually kept track, that I get fewer grants than I send out. This year I got a grant from a local foundation to test out the Sphero Robotic Ball and a grant from the National Environmental Education Foundation for my stewardship project. But I did not just submit two proposals last year to get those two grants. I actually submitted four. This year I found out that I did NOT get a grant from a CenturyLink Foundation as well as from the No Child Left Inside program.
I hate not getting grants but getting those sad, “thank you for submitting a proposal, unfortunately blah, blah, blah,” letters or emails actually fuels my resolve to get more equipment to have my students do awesome projects! I was lucky enough to be able to work with a great team of educators to adapt an NEA Grant Writing for Educators Course for us to present here in WA state. We did it as part of a grant for our Washington Education Association (WEA). Three of us in the team have presented the course to two groups of educators, each, in different parts of our state. It’s being met very well. Teachers are very interested in getting money to do better things with their students than their building budgets can afford.
As part of the course we found some grants that were due at the time of the course. I myself submitted FIVE proposals in the last few weeks. I submitted a professional development proposal to the NEA, as well as a student project proposal, an environmental proposal to the Ocean Guardian School, a similar proposal to the VOYA Unsung Heroes, and a small proposal to a local bank foundation. I figure I stand a better chance of getting something funded the more I apply. I mean the opportunities are out there. Yes, it does take work. But isn’t it worth it if something gets funded?
Sure, I could get none of those funded and all the time I spent writing would have been wasted. I won’t let that stop me. So I don’t know if I have amazing perseverance or if I’m just obsessed with writing grants. Either way, my record is proof that a classroom teacher, with no training, can get lots of grants, over $340,000, by just not giving up. So find some grants and submit proposals!
