New Beginner’s Guide to Grant Writing Reaps Rewards for Indiana Communities

Competitive grant proposals are an increasing key revenue source for nonprofits, educational institutions and local governments. One indicator of this trend is that nationally, giving by foundations increased 15% from 2015 to 2016 and doubled from 2002 to 2014 (Giving USA, 2017). Many people working in nonprofits and local governments find themselves in positions in which they need or want to write grants but have little or no formal training to do so. Purdue Extension’s Beginner’s Guide to Grant Writing workshop offers an economical, high-quality training that walks people through the whole grant writing process.

Participants come to Day 1 of the workshop with an idea and leave with a proposal outline and all the resources needed to expand the outline into a full proposal. Participants return several weeks later for Day 2 with their draft proposal ready for a peer review. They learn strategies for finding funding and receive access to a powerful grant search database. After the workshop, the Purdue team offers additional support and guidance for those who are ready to submit a proposal to a funder.

In just its first full year, the new Beginner’s Guide to Grant Writing workshop has helped participants win more than $900,000 in grant funding to improve their communities. This reflects 27 winning proposals reported back to us in follow-up surveys in 2017. Additional outcomes have included 5 organizations that took on strategic planning and thirty five new partnerships that formed as a result of the workshop.

Participants (97%) rated the workshop moderately to extremely beneficial with most (78%) rating it very/extremely beneficial. Comments included:

“…One of the better workshops I’ve ever attended. I’ve always felt that I was a strong grant writer, but this training helped me see grant writing from the perspective of many other organizations and fields rather than just my own. One of the key components I took from this training was the ability to identify short, medium and long-term goals that an organization should have when pursuing and securing grant funding.”

“If anyone asks please convince them that this workshop is very, very important to many people who want to pursue a grant but are too intimidated by formal processes and expensive trainings. Your venue, teachers and information were perfect for my needs.”

LEARN MORE ABOUT BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO GRANT WRITING

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