Grant

• Look at, one large grant for full funding, or some smaller grants for you to build you funding.
• Most grant makers will fund smaller grants faster and easier.
• You will write a grant fund one Semester or Quarter at a time.
• You, the student, will apply for each grant two – four times a year; as long as you are in school.
• If you drop-out, it’s is very hard to reapply for a grant, to get back into college. Do not drop out of College!!!
• Get a Two-year degree or go for the total four-year degree.
• The first two years are going to be the hardest.

 Frequently Asked Questions

What is grant?

What is grant?
It is money from the government or a private charities a loan? NO, you never have to pay back, unless you default on your agreement.

Can we spend the grant money for other purposes?

You can only use the grant funds according to the rules stated in your application or proposal for the grant you are applying for. If the funds are for College, you must spend it for that very purpose and not for your personal needs. For this reason, funding organizations require a detailed budget plan to guarantee that grantees you will spend the money for what the grant is attended for. Likewise, most foundations demand a monitoring of the months of operations, and even through-out the whole grant period. This is to makes sure everything goes as stated in your budget proposal. They ask the grantee to submit a monthly grant reports, to show how you have spent the funds of your grant.

How do you find a good grant writer?
The best way to find a good grant writer is by word of mouth. Is another agency using a grant writer who has successfully written grants for them? Ask them about their experience and how much the grant writer charged.

Approximate How many hours does it take to write a grant?
Applying for a federal grant, with an estimate of 100-hours, into anything less than a month is going to be a challenge. That’s true even for a full-time grant writer. But a grant writer may be able to turn around a foundation grant, with an estimate of as little as 10-hours, in a week or less.

Who is eligible to apply for grant funds?
Most people think that grants are only for persons with disability, women, specialness, and the elderly. In most cases that is not true, anyone is eligible to apply, as long as they or their organization qualifies under there categories.

Is a grant the answer to my entire financial problem?
No, absolutely not! A grant application involves hard-work on your part, and very high competition rate. You must, answer these all of the questions first, before you apply for your grant:

• Will fundraising solve my problem? Try fundraising, first, before requesting for grants. It may give you faster results.
• Can I apply for loans? YES, think of applying for loans before seeking grants. Only applicants with bad credit cannot get a student loan approval. You must payback all of the money plus interest.
  
• It’s a small bridge, that helps you to obtain your college education, help you with cost associated with attending college. It’s all about your budget.

What is a typical fee for a grant writer?
Typically, as a rule of thumb, grant writer fees are usually 2-3% of the total grant award. If you win the grant, you cannot use the money to pay the grant writer. Grant writers should not work on a contingency basis or a success fee. We at Educators Helping Student Write Grants, have obtained our own grant, that is why there is no charge to you the applicant. If you are successful in obtaining a grant, we are successful also.

Success rates are often inflated or misrepresented.

Let’s say I’m a new grant writer. I struck gold with the first and only application I ever submitted. I’m feeling bulletproof, so I strike out to make a name for myself and land a full-time job as a nonprofit grant writer. During our interview, you ask me my success rate, and I proudly announce that my rate is 100%. You are amazed and impressed, right? But would someone with such little experience be the ideal candidate? I’d rather hire a grant writers who has submitted a lot of requests with years of experience and higher that a 10% success rate.

Typically grant writers can’t prove their past successes. They could tell you they applied for, were granted a particular request to a grant-maker. You could verify that the request was funded by digging through the grant-maker’s IRS Form 990s, but you can only prove the name of the organization and the amount awarded. They aren’t going to list who wrote the request. And the organization that applied for the grant is unlikely to share a copy with you or discuss the details of the request. And while this leaves the door-open for less truthful grant writers to inflate their rates, it also makes it hard for honest grant writers to prove their skills with a positive result in awards.

 Note

This grant process is all about you the student. You will have to inter-act with the grant makers all of the time. When they (The grant makers), respond to you, you are under the gun to comply, and answer all of their questions each time they ask. They will give you a time-line to respond. If you do not respond with-in that time line, they will drop you from their program. Which means you cannot reapply to them with-in that year. (Please, think of the grant makers. They have 1,000’s of applicants seeking their funds. The grant makers have limited funds, they all have more applicants the funds). That is why you must apply for 2 – 3 grant at one time. If you are awarded the full funding for your grant. You must notify the other grant makers as to what you received full funding from. You must also remove your name from their application stage. You must be above board at all times. Information on you status will change all of the time, you must keep them informed at all times. Look at your email 2 – 4 times a day, be ready all of the time to respond to them. Even after you are awarded funds, they will stay in touch, so must you STAY IN TOUCH. Most of the grant makers will track you progress through-out you college time. After you graduate from a college, you may think about donate funds to help keep them afloat to help other students.