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Funding through Grants

Budgeting in human services organizations brings about many challenges. Human services agencies must be creative in managing their budget due to the increased demands on the agency and the needs of the clients and stakeholders. There are many legal, contractual, and other requirements under the concept of financial management, as such agency administrators need to be creative to obtain funding. Applying for grants in both the private and public sectors is one access to funding resources. Most grants will require that you present a proposed budget for use of the funds. Thus, grants and budgeting often go hand in hand.

For this Discussion, think about grant writing and the elements needed to write a successful grant. Then, review sample grants at https://grantspace.org/resources/sample-documents/. Identify one grant to discuss.

By Day 3

Post the following:

• Describe the key elements to grant writing.
• Provide a brief description of the grant proposal you selected and explain the strengths of the proposal and any areas where it could be improved.
• Explain how you would improve on the grant proposal to convince the funder that funding this program would have a positive and measurable effect on the community.

Support your post with specific references to the resources. Be sure to provide full APA citations for your references.

By Day 5

Read a selection of your colleagues’ posts.

Respond to at least two colleagues in one of the following ways:

• Compare and contrast the key elements of grant writing identified in your and your colleague’s post.
• Provide a constructive critique of your colleague’s ideas for demonstrating a positive and measurable effect to a funder.
• Provide recommendations to find funding sources for this proposal.

Referenes:

Lauffer, A. (2011). Understanding your social agency (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: Sage.

Nelson, D., & Ruffalo, L. (2017). Grant writing: Moving from generating ideas to applying to grants that matter. The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, 52(3), 236-244.

According to Nelson and Ruffalo (2017), “Grant writing has been described as a writing style that is not the same as writing a peer-reviewed audiences” (p.237). Grant writing is a traditional academic writings method looking back at what happened, the result, and intervention or clinical practice.  Grant writing help agencies look ahead at what might happen in the future and propose advance strategies to facilitate the opening of new knowledge (Nelson & Ruffalo, 2017). “Grants are institutional gifts that permit recipients to pursue activities of their own design within the purposes set by the funder “(Lauffer, 2011, p. 301). The key elements to grant writing is motivations, interests, partnerships, and actions. Motivation is very important in grant writing because sets the tone for the rest of the process. For example, if the right people are not contributing to the right mindset the work will be slow and not go forward at all. Interests are what the grant is about and “needs to be rooted in a gap or need that is unfilled or needs further investigation, and supported with evidence to validate the gap” (Nelson & Ruffalo, 2017, p. 240). A partnership is important to critically think of identifying the right people for the team. These people need to recognize a need for an initiative, a desire to collaborate with other entities, and who are committed to the project (Nelson & Ruffalo, 2017). Actions involve formulate goal and objectives, search for funding sources, identify people that need to be involved, assess the idea to stakeholders, and write the grant (Nelson & Ruffalo, 2017, p. 242).

The grant proposal I selected was LifeLong Medical Care to Bella Vista Foundation. This proposal was a request for funding to conduct an evaluation of the parenting support program for low income, high-risk women with infants. The long term outcomes and strengths of this proposal are mother-infant bonding, mother self-efficacy/confidence in parenting skills, mother mental and physical health, and infant health (Rosencranz, 2007). These factors will give children the best possible start in achieving healthy social and emotional development (Rosencranz, 2007). Areas, where this proposal could be improved, is getting formal studies on demonstrating the effectiveness of the Centering Parenting program. This program is supposed to demonstrate positive outcomes for mothers and babies.

I would improve this grant proposal to convince the funder that funding this program would have a positive and measurable effect on the community by explaining the statistics of the women who did not go through the Centering Parenting program with the women who did. I would also explain the mother infant bonding would increase self-efficacy, and improved mental and physical health for the mothers would increase along with their babies.

References:

Lauffer, A. (2011). Understanding your social agency (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: Sage.

Nelson, D., & Ruffalo, L. (2017). Grant writing: Moving from generating ideas to applying to grants that matter. The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, 52(3), 236-244.

Rosencranz, N. (2007). LifeLong Medical Care to Bella Vista Foundation | Sample Documents. Retrieved from https://grantspace.org/resources/sample-documents/proposal-from-lifelong-medical-care-to-bella-vista-foundation/

Meaghan

The following key elements to writing a grant are Title Page and Cover Letter, Institutional Background, Program Goals and Objectives (Outcomes), Methods/Implementation, Evaluation Plan, Future Funding/Sustainability, Budget Identifies, and Other Personnel Components. These are the basic terms to writing a grant (Nelson & Ruffalo, 2017).

I have worked with domestic violence victims before at Harbor House of Central Florida. Harbor House is a federal and state funding non-profit agency (Bowman, 2011).  The grant proposal selected for more funding was for transitional housing for long term clients that need housing after their abusive relationship. Transitional housing would house families from abuse for a longer term than what shelter offered. This time would be used to give savings and proper transportation and basic needs before transitional completely on their own. The agency only carried two families every six months. One of the issues with victims returning to their abusers is because they did not have no support systems or other options of living long term. Returning back was their easy way out. It is hard for victims to gain independence back. When victims have been controlled with everything and has not been allows to go places or interact with family and friends, it can be a lot to adjust back from.

The improvements in the program is the structure having the clients stick to their goal planning. The agency slacked in areas when it came to communication with victims. There biggest issues were empowering the women but hindering them from being responsibilities (Lauffer, 2011). The advocacy turns into more of housekeeping in the shelter because most of the women would lay in bed for the whole depressed and did not completed not one goal. When it was time to exit program after the 6-8 week stay, they would put in multiple extensions because they did not have no where to go. After running out of options, they would return to abuser. The 3-4-month stay wouldn’t help because there was no one following up on clients to ensure goals were being met. In order to get the funding, you must show the progress and the progress of the stay was hard to gather in the proposal for the funding.

My plan was to get 10 candidates who wanted the help and were making progress and map out a plan to present to funding. The plan would have to income women with income verse no income or limited to compare the difference. This plan would have positive and measurable effect on the community. We can use the elements in the grant to track the progress.

Reference

Bowman, W. (2011). Financial capacity and sustainability of ordinary nonprofits. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 22(1), 37–51.

Lauffer, A. (2011). Understanding your social agency (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: Sage. Chapter 9, “Fundraising and Development” (pp. 285–320)

Nelson, D., & Ruffalo, L. (2017). Grant writing: Moving from generating ideas to applying to grants that matter. The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, 52(3), 236-244.