Searching for grant money can be a laborious process. Most grants are meant to provide seed money for new projects or a new model of teaching that significantly increases student achievement and impacts professional development, or helps a district become more efficient and cost-effective. Grants usually have a time frame for implementing the project and using the monies. They will also have specifications about how the money is being used (for example, most grants will not fund operational expenses). All successful grant writers will report that they started with reading the grant thoroughly, and then designed their proposal to specifically fit the grant.

Most grant applications include a rubric for scoring the grant. It is extremely important that this rubric is consulted during the grant writing process. Reviewers will be looking at each application to see if it meets the criteria outlined in each rubric.

Private local organizations within your city or township usually have grant monies and are willing to fund projects for local schools. Check with your city government for information about local organizations. Or consider starting with an organization related to your field of teaching, such as MACUL (Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning). The larger the amount of money, the more work you will need to do to research the granting institution and carefully fashion the grant to meet their criteria. With larger grants, there will be many competing applications. Below are listed some good resources to search for funding.

MACUL offers grants to teachers for technology related projects. These grants have funded projects up to $2000.

The SchoolGrants web site offers links to grants for K-12 teachers, organized by federal, state, and organization. There is also a helpful section for Grant writing tips and tricks.

Kathy Shrock's Grant Sources for Educators on the Discovery School web site has a list of links to search through, and as usual, is nicely annotated.

eSchoolNews Grants & Funding site has a subscription service for Grants and Funding ALERTs as well as free information and resources. To receive this newsletter by e-mail every month, go to the website above and clink on the link to sign up for the newsletter. There is a fee for this service.