Grant Writing

Wednesday February 11th, 2009

Today I participated in a grant writing workshop as part of my Peace Corps training. The workshop was invaluable! One great thing about the way Peace Corps structures its in-service trainings is they allow the volunteers to provide feedback on what additional training would be most useful. Then, Peace Corps designs our bi-annual trainings on the topics identified most by the volunteers.

Currently, I am working on two funding proposals, one to be ‘officially’ submitted by the Ministry of Education and the other to be submitted by Hope Academy, a new non-profit organization working to increase opportunity for success for children living in poverty. Both proposals will be submitted to major funding sources, and while I have had some exposure to grant writing, I have never written an entire official funding proposal. Nevertheless, I was suffering from writers block, despite my enthusiasm for the opportunity to play such a large role in these two projects. However, thanks to the workshop from today I feel I have all the tools needed to write a well-received proposal!

The proposal I am writing on behalf of the Ministry is for funding of “Why Try?” in more of the secondary schools, to be rolled out in 3 phases over 2 – 3 years. The second proposal is for the development of a ropes course in Babonneau. The ropes course will support the mission and vision of Hope Academy and help to build confidence, self-esteem, and team work among the students of Hope Academy

Exciting stuff!! Exciting stuff!!