3 Easy Ways to Win Grant Money for Your School

Your budgets are tight and your bosses are asking you to do more with less. Financial struggles continue to hold your students and your school back.

How can you solve these issues? There’s a simple answer that most overlook: grant money.

Winning a grant could be the game changer that helps break things open for your school culture.

As an educational consultant working with 1,000’s of schools across the country I’ve seen local, state, and national grants play huge roles in my clients’ ability to run effective programming on campus and across their district.

Unfortunately, many educators believe these funds to be beyond their reach. But what if I told you those grants are within your grasp?

“Sounds great JC! So, how do we win the grants?”

Well, long time TEEN TRUTH partner Karie Wimberly had THREE fabulously important ideas that can help.

1: Collect the Data

A great grant application is only as good as the data that backs it up. Want to implement an SEL program? Take the time to collect student and staff data that proves the need for such a program. This can be done through simple surveys and assessments or larger bodies of data that professional researchers have amassed for your benefit. Remember, these studies are specifically crafted with you in mind, and are a fantastic starting point for most schools.

2: Incorporate Student Voice

It’s not enough to regurgitate data, you need to bring the facts to life. Talk to your students about the grant and the programs you want to bring to campus. Learn why they think these programs could be valuable on campus. Most importantly, include their voice! Have them write letters, gather quotes from students, and ask for input that you can include directly into the application.

3: Lean on Your Vendor

Most grant applications are written with the hope that you can bring a program like TEEN TRUTH or RISING UP to campus. You are excited and hopeful to bring an awesome team to your campus. Well your vendor is, too! Involve them in the process. Ask your vendor to help write on the grant, have them send you marketing materials that you can copy. Look to them to give you a larger context on how their program can meet the milestones the grant managers are evaluating.

These are three easy ways to make it much more likely that you will win grant money. We know they work, because they worked for Karie…TWICE!

CLICK HERE to watch a short video interview that I hosted with her and learn how she used this model to bring school assemblies, a leadership summit, and an SEL curriculum to her campus!

P.S. Want your students to become next level leaders? You’ve got to watch this short video from Karie on how her students were dramatically changed by being active in our peer-to-peer program. CLICK HERE to watch and share with your team.