Win More Grant Funding Opportunities
Enhance your tribal nation’s grant application process.
Contributors
- Jack Greenshields, Sales Development, Foundant Technologies
- George McClellan, IT Director, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa & Chippewa Indians
- Raquel Chee, Grants Administrator, Judicial Branch of the Navajo Nation
- Regina Begay, Court Administrator, Tohajiilee/Alamo District Court
- Stephanie Henning, Senior Policy Analyst, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary – Management U.S. Department of the Interior
- Jean Rice, Senior Program (Broadband) Specialist, U.S. Department of Commerce's NTIA Federal Communications Commission
- Amy Gates, Director of IT, Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort
- Three anonymous contributors
- Writing grants has not been prioritized by the tribal nation.
- The tribal nation is unable to start, finish, and/or continue priority projects or initiatives as it does not have sufficient funds.
- Grants are applied to in an ad-hoc manner by employees who do not have sufficient time and resources to dedicate to the process.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
There are three critical components to the grant application process:
- Being strategic about the grant opportunities your nation chooses to pursue.
- Dedicating sufficient time and resources to writing a competitive grant application.
- Ensuring your nation will be able to adhere to the grant parameters if awarded the funding.
Impact and Result
- By leveraging Info-Tech’s methodology, your tribal nation will strategically select, write, and submit competitive grant applications, securing additional funding sources to support the community.
- This research can enhance the grant writing capabilities of the nation and ensure that every grant chosen aligns with tribal nation priorities.
- This blueprint will drive consensus on which grant applications should be priority for the nation, ensuring resourcing, feasibility, and significance are considered.
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should enhance your tribal nation's grant application lifecycle and increase the number of grants your nation is awarded. Review Info-Tech’s methodology and understand the four ways Info-Tech can support you in completing this project.
1. Identify Opportunities
Identify grant funding opportunities that align with your tribal nation's priorities. Ensure the programs, services, projects, and initiatives that align with these priorities can be financially supported by grant funding.
2. Grant Prioritization
Prioritize applying for the grant opportunities that your tribal nation identified. Be sure to consider the feasibility of implementing the project or initiative if your tribal nation is awarded the grant.
3. Write the Grant Application
Write a competitive grant application that has been strategically developed and actively critiqued by various internal and external reviewers.
4. Submit the Grant Application
Submit an exemplary grant application that meets the guidelines and expectations of the granting agency prior to the due date.
Guided Implementations
This guided implementation is a nine call advisory process.
Guided Implementation #1 - Identify Opportunities
Call #1 - Discuss your tribal nations’ current grant writing capabilities and be introduced to the methodology.
Call #2 - Determine your nation’s priorities. Search for potential funding opportunities.
Guided Implementation #2 - Grant Prioritization
Call #1 - Input information about grants and identify which grants will be prioritized.
Call #2 - Discuss the prioritized list with leadership and pursue funding opportunities selected.
Guided Implementation #3 - Write the Grant Application
Call #1 - Sketch out your grant application.
Call #2 - Conduct a SWOT analysis to critically assess the draft for improvement.
Call #3 - Solicit feedback on the draft from internal and external reviewers.
Guided Implementation #4 - Submit the Grant Application
Call #1 - Submit the application. Follow up with the grant agency and/or program officer once you’ve been notified of the grant outcome. Ask for feedback.
Call #2 - Have a retrospective meeting to discuss the feedback to improve future grant endeavors.
Book Your Workshop
Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Determine Nation Priorities
The Purpose
Determine the key priorities of the Tribal Nation and identify grant funding opportunities that align with those priorities.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Prevents duplicate grant applications from being submitted
- Ensures the grant and nation priorities are aligned
- Increases the success rate of grant applications
Activities
Outputs
Discuss grant funding opportunities and their importance to the tribal nation.
- An understanding of why grants are important to the tribal nation
Identify tribal nation priorities.
- A list of priorities being pursued by the tribal nation
Module 2: Prioritize Grant Funding Opportunities
The Purpose
Identify potential grant funding opportunities that align with the projects/initiatives the tribal nation would like to pursue. Prioritize these funding opportunities and identify which should take precedent based on resourcing, importance, likelihood of success, and feasibility.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Generate a list of potential funding opportunities that can be revisited when resources allow
- Obtain consensus from tribal leadership on which grants should be pursued based on how they have been prioritized
Activities
Outputs
Develop a list of potential grant funding opportunities.
- A list of potential grant funding opportunities
Define the resource capacity your nation has to support the granting writing process.
- Realistic expectations of your the tribal nation's capacity to undertake the grant writing lifecycle
Discuss and prioritize grant opportunities
- Notes and priorities from your discussion on grant opportunities
Module 3: Sketch a Grant Application
The Purpose
Take the grant that was given top priority in the last section and sketch out a draft of what that application will look like. Think critically about the sketch and determine if there are opportunities to further clarify and demonstrate the goals of the grant application.
Key Benefits Achieved
- A sketch ready to be developed into a grant application
- A critique of the sketch to ensure that the application will be well understood by the reviewers of your submission
Activities
Outputs
Sketch the grant application.
- A sketched version of the grant application ready to be drafted
Perform a SWOT analysis of the grant sketch.
- A SWOT analysis that critically examines the sketch and offers opportunities to enhance the application
Module 4: Prepare to Submit the Grant Application
The Purpose
Have the grant application actively critiqued by various internal and external individuals. This will increase the grant application's quality and generate understanding of the application submission and post-submission process.
Key Benefits Achieved
- A list of individuals (internal and external) that can potentially review the application prior to submission
- Preparation for the submission process
- An understanding of why the opportunity to learn how to improve future grant applications is so important
Activities
Outputs
Identify potential individuals who will review the draft of your grant application.
- A list of potential individuals who can be asked to review and critique the grant application
Discuss next steps around the grant submission.
- An understanding of what the next steps in the process will be
Review grant writing best practices.
- Knowledge on grant writing best practices