SVEP Hosts Grant Writing Event in Wilmington
No matter what projects you are trying to accomplish with grant funding, there are tools and resources to help you be successful in your applications.
To learn about these tools and resources, 45 participants from across Southern Vermont gathered at the Old School Community Center in Wilmington on August 22nd for a grant writing workshop sponsored by Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation’s Southern VT Economy Project (SVEP). Typical of SVEP events, the day brought together participants from across Southern Vermont who are doing work in an array of fields: health care, childcare, education, housing, human services, community development, municipal infrastructure, and more.
“The biggest mistake I see people make is not reading the entire grant application carefully,” said local consultant Gretchen Havreluk (who also serves as Wilmington’s Economic Development specialist) in the day’s opening panel. Fellow panelist Elisabeth Marx, Senior Program Manager for Vermont Community Foundation, encouraged attendees not to be seduced by big dollar amounts that also require a great deal of work both to get the grant and to administer it, but to work their way up from smaller grants. And the Retreat Farm’s Lindsay Fahey, who helped secure $7.85M in federal funding for their complex 7-year North Barn project, urged persistence and patience when funding big projects – a long and at times discouraging process.
“The bigger the geographic region served by a grantor, the more competition you’ll have,” noted Jed Blume (Green Mountain Grant Writing), who was joined by VCF’s Elisabeth Marx for a breakout session to help participants learn how to research grant opportunities, identify opportunities that are a good fit for their organization and project, and develop strong relationships with funders.
Guilford-based independent consultant Maggie Foley presented another breakout session on the elements that make for a winning federal grant application, sharing tips for staying organized, establishing good partnerships, and getting clear buy-in from leadership at every step of the process. She urged federal grant applicants to “vet every opportunity carefully, with a set decision point by which to pull the trigger and apply, or wait.” That decision should be based on whether you think you can satisfy all the scoring criteria precisely or if some might be a stretch, as winning applications must score close to 100%. She also urged applicants to invest in a “mock scorer” to review their application before submission, and urged federal grant applicants to “be extremely nice to your financial team” since they will have a lot of responsibility for not only making the budget, but also following up with timely compliance, reporting, and requisitions!
After lunch, some participants worked on creating their own letters of interest based on a general outline provided by Jed Blume, while others followed up from the morning session on federal grants by digging into how to set up solid structures for grant management with BDCC’s own finance team, Bobbi Kilburn and Kris Plante.
The day wrapped up with a group goal-setting session, with attendees invited to choose one actionable item that they could accomplish, based on what they had learned at the workshop. Examples of attendee goals were building a shared database of prior grants and ongoing grant possibilities, or setting out to find fiscal sponsorship for a newly forming 501c3 organization.
At the end of the day, attendees expressed appreciation for the “outstanding speakers across the board,” “very concrete, realistic suggestions,” and “knowledgeable and creditable presenters providing high quality technical assistance and information.”
About the Southern Vermont Economy Project (SVEP)
The Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation’s Southern Vermont Economy Project provides training and technical assistance to increase local capacity, skills, and resources in the Southern VT Economic Development Zone (encompassing Bennington and Windham counties, and the town of Weston) in order to advance local projects critical to Southern Vermont achieving critical community, economic, and workforce development goals. SVEP is funded in part through the USDA Rural Community Development Initiative. For more information please visit: https://brattleborodevelopment.com/svep/
