Grant Cycle Process
The process of advertising, reviewing, awarding, and following up with grants can seem daunting at first. With these steps and the documents provided in the grant program package, though, the process should be made significantly easier. If questions still remain or further support is needed, contact us, and we will happily assist you.
Timeline
We recommend holding only one grant cycle each year, with advertising starting in the fall, presentations taking place throughout fall and winter, grants due at the end of February, grants reviewed in early March, and grants awarded in late March. You should keep an eye open for new board members throughout the year, but board applications should generally be due a week or two after the end of the school year. This due date helps ensure that you can invite youth project leaders to apply for the board after seeing how well they planned and carried out their project, and it recognizes that the end of the school year can be too busy to expect students to have time to complete an application. Board applications should be reviewed based on the process outlined in Selection Process, and applicants should be informed of their decision no more than three weeks after the date that their applications were due.
A “Master Timeline” for the program can be found in the “Board of Directors” folder of the program package. Keep this timeline handy to make sure you stay up-to-date on important actions.
We recommend holding only one grant cycle each year, with advertising starting in the fall, presentations taking place throughout fall and winter, grants due at the end of February, grants reviewed in early March, and grants awarded in late March. You should keep an eye open for new board members throughout the year, but board applications should generally be due a week or two after the end of the school year. This due date helps ensure that you can invite youth project leaders to apply for the board after seeing how well they planned and carried out their project, and it recognizes that the end of the school year can be too busy to expect students to have time to complete an application. Board applications should be reviewed based on the process outlined in Selection Process, and applicants should be informed of their decision no more than three weeks after the date that their applications were due.
A “Master Timeline” for the program can be found in the “Board of Directors” folder of the program package. Keep this timeline handy to make sure you stay up-to-date on important actions.
Master Timeline | |
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Advertising
A combination of email, in-person, poster, flyer, online, and media advertisements will help you reach the largest audience possible when spreading the word that your grants are available. The School and Youth Outreach Committee will head the in-person, poster, and flyer advertising, giving presentations to interested groups of young people and distributing information to schools. The Media Outreach Committee acts as the program’s connection with the press, putting forth press releases for both print and online sources and cultivating relationships with the media to invite future collaboration. These committee jobs are described in more detail below.
In addition to these committees completing their tasks, all board members should be talking with their personal connections, such as the clubs of which they are a part and the students they know who might be interested in leading an environmental service project. Messages such as “Email – Advertising Grants to Scouts” and “Presentation Solicitation Email” can be modified to be sent out to individuals or groups known more personally to tell people about the grant availability. Word of mouth is also helpful. Merely starting a conversation about the grant program and environmental service at a school or work lunch table can intrigue people enough to visit your website and look into applying.
It is vital that all board members participate in this advertising in addition to the outreach committees. Although the outreach committees are effective in reaching out to new groups, contacting people or groups with which you have a personal relationship increases the odds of them responding to you and reading your message fully.
Finally, be sure to reach out to those groups or schools that have applied for and/or won grants in the past. Oftentimes certain schools or clubs are more open to supporting environmental service than others, and making sure that those groups are aware that funding is available for them can increase your applicant pool significantly.
A combination of email, in-person, poster, flyer, online, and media advertisements will help you reach the largest audience possible when spreading the word that your grants are available. The School and Youth Outreach Committee will head the in-person, poster, and flyer advertising, giving presentations to interested groups of young people and distributing information to schools. The Media Outreach Committee acts as the program’s connection with the press, putting forth press releases for both print and online sources and cultivating relationships with the media to invite future collaboration. These committee jobs are described in more detail below.
In addition to these committees completing their tasks, all board members should be talking with their personal connections, such as the clubs of which they are a part and the students they know who might be interested in leading an environmental service project. Messages such as “Email – Advertising Grants to Scouts” and “Presentation Solicitation Email” can be modified to be sent out to individuals or groups known more personally to tell people about the grant availability. Word of mouth is also helpful. Merely starting a conversation about the grant program and environmental service at a school or work lunch table can intrigue people enough to visit your website and look into applying.
It is vital that all board members participate in this advertising in addition to the outreach committees. Although the outreach committees are effective in reaching out to new groups, contacting people or groups with which you have a personal relationship increases the odds of them responding to you and reading your message fully.
Finally, be sure to reach out to those groups or schools that have applied for and/or won grants in the past. Oftentimes certain schools or clubs are more open to supporting environmental service than others, and making sure that those groups are aware that funding is available for them can increase your applicant pool significantly.
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Application Process
When a group decides to apply for a grant, they should be able to do so entirely using documents and information that can be found on your Website. Make sure that your website contains the most up-to-date information and the most recently-edited application documents from the Website and Documents Committee. All updated materials should be put up several months in advance so that applicants who download materials early do not accidentally download and fill out the previous year’s application materials. The main document that applicants will need to complete is the “APPLICATION FORM,” a several-page-long document asking for basic group information, two pages of short answer questions about the proposed project, a budget, and signatures verifying the presence of a nonprofit project sponsor and the acquisition of all necessary permissions. Throughout the application process is important to make sure that all potential applicants are aware that board members are available to help answer questions about the application form. Board members can even volunteer to give comments on the application materials as a whole if the application is completed and submitted a week or more before the deadline. This gives an organized group sufficient time to edit the application and re-submit it to make sure their project is in line with the funding criteria of your program. Applications should all be submitted to the program manager.
Groups may need help identifying a project sponsor, a required partnership with a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that will receive and handle reimbursements of grant money for each funded project. This project sponsor is necessary, as outlined later, so that funding can transfer from your nonprofit fiscal sponsor to the group’s nonprofit fiscal sponsor tax-free. Finding a project sponsor usually does not require going too far, as schools and religious institutions (and therefore groups within those institiutions) have 501(c)(3) status. However, for scout groups and other groups, a nonprofit sponsor is a little farther away. You can help groups find a sponsor by creating a list of local nonprofits and descriptions of those nonprofits, sending the list to those having trouble finding a sponsor and asking them to look for a nonprofit on the list that shares a mission with their potential funded project’s goals. You can send emails (“To Potential Project Nonprofit Sponsor,” “Seeking Nonprofit Sponsor – Youth Project Leader,” or “Seeking Nonprofit Sponsor – Youth Project Leader,” depending on who is sending the email) to potential sponsors to request sponsorship. Visiting in person works best, though.
One other obstacle for groups is obtaining proper permission for carrying out their project. Projects taking place in a park must have park permission before applying for funding, and projects taking place in a school definitely need school permission before earning funding.
Check with important locations, such as parks and school systems, to see if applicants need to go through any specific process in order to get permission for a project at that specific location. If locations request a certain process by which projects should obtain permission, be sure to make this process known to grant applicants by posting it on the website. This avoids the potential problems that could arise if an applicant, not knowing about the proper process, asks and obtains permission from someone who does not have the power to give permission for the project.
For example, as the Carmel Green Teen Micro-Grant Program became more established in the community, more and more students in the district schools were applying for funding and needed permission to complete their application. Because one school in the district was particularly large, it had multiple assistant principals, several of whom were approached to obtain project permission. Although each of the assistant principals had power to give permission according to our program’s requirements, the school had a different system of obtaining approval that was different than our program (ie, the school requires all project proposals must go through the same individual, while our program just requires a signature of approval from a school administrator). Because one applicant group was unaware of and therefore did not follow the school’s approval process, their school project could not be funded even though it followed the program’s permission requirements. To avoid this problem in the future, our program created an “Administrative Approval Form” for all projects taking place in that school. The form requires a short summary of the proposed project and includes information on who to send the summary to in order to get project approval.
If you find that one or more of your schools requires a special permission process, consider creating a form for this process and posting the information on the website to prevent permission discrepancies from occurring at the expense of your grant applicants’ projects.
Beyond troubleshooting these harder parts of the application, the most important part of the application process for the board members is being available to support grant applicants and field questions. Check email frequently, and be prepared for most of your questions and applications to come in on the day of the grant deadline. Send grant applicants a reminder of the deadline a week before the grants are due, reminding them that all application materials must be received by that deadline for an application to be considered complete, and send one final reminder the day before the grants are due.
Applicants should be sent “To Grant Applicants – Application Received” upon receipt of their grant submission.
When a group decides to apply for a grant, they should be able to do so entirely using documents and information that can be found on your Website. Make sure that your website contains the most up-to-date information and the most recently-edited application documents from the Website and Documents Committee. All updated materials should be put up several months in advance so that applicants who download materials early do not accidentally download and fill out the previous year’s application materials. The main document that applicants will need to complete is the “APPLICATION FORM,” a several-page-long document asking for basic group information, two pages of short answer questions about the proposed project, a budget, and signatures verifying the presence of a nonprofit project sponsor and the acquisition of all necessary permissions. Throughout the application process is important to make sure that all potential applicants are aware that board members are available to help answer questions about the application form. Board members can even volunteer to give comments on the application materials as a whole if the application is completed and submitted a week or more before the deadline. This gives an organized group sufficient time to edit the application and re-submit it to make sure their project is in line with the funding criteria of your program. Applications should all be submitted to the program manager.
Groups may need help identifying a project sponsor, a required partnership with a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that will receive and handle reimbursements of grant money for each funded project. This project sponsor is necessary, as outlined later, so that funding can transfer from your nonprofit fiscal sponsor to the group’s nonprofit fiscal sponsor tax-free. Finding a project sponsor usually does not require going too far, as schools and religious institutions (and therefore groups within those institiutions) have 501(c)(3) status. However, for scout groups and other groups, a nonprofit sponsor is a little farther away. You can help groups find a sponsor by creating a list of local nonprofits and descriptions of those nonprofits, sending the list to those having trouble finding a sponsor and asking them to look for a nonprofit on the list that shares a mission with their potential funded project’s goals. You can send emails (“To Potential Project Nonprofit Sponsor,” “Seeking Nonprofit Sponsor – Youth Project Leader,” or “Seeking Nonprofit Sponsor – Youth Project Leader,” depending on who is sending the email) to potential sponsors to request sponsorship. Visiting in person works best, though.
One other obstacle for groups is obtaining proper permission for carrying out their project. Projects taking place in a park must have park permission before applying for funding, and projects taking place in a school definitely need school permission before earning funding.
Check with important locations, such as parks and school systems, to see if applicants need to go through any specific process in order to get permission for a project at that specific location. If locations request a certain process by which projects should obtain permission, be sure to make this process known to grant applicants by posting it on the website. This avoids the potential problems that could arise if an applicant, not knowing about the proper process, asks and obtains permission from someone who does not have the power to give permission for the project.
For example, as the Carmel Green Teen Micro-Grant Program became more established in the community, more and more students in the district schools were applying for funding and needed permission to complete their application. Because one school in the district was particularly large, it had multiple assistant principals, several of whom were approached to obtain project permission. Although each of the assistant principals had power to give permission according to our program’s requirements, the school had a different system of obtaining approval that was different than our program (ie, the school requires all project proposals must go through the same individual, while our program just requires a signature of approval from a school administrator). Because one applicant group was unaware of and therefore did not follow the school’s approval process, their school project could not be funded even though it followed the program’s permission requirements. To avoid this problem in the future, our program created an “Administrative Approval Form” for all projects taking place in that school. The form requires a short summary of the proposed project and includes information on who to send the summary to in order to get project approval.
If you find that one or more of your schools requires a special permission process, consider creating a form for this process and posting the information on the website to prevent permission discrepancies from occurring at the expense of your grant applicants’ projects.
Beyond troubleshooting these harder parts of the application, the most important part of the application process for the board members is being available to support grant applicants and field questions. Check email frequently, and be prepared for most of your questions and applications to come in on the day of the grant deadline. Send grant applicants a reminder of the deadline a week before the grants are due, reminding them that all application materials must be received by that deadline for an application to be considered complete, and send one final reminder the day before the grants are due.
Applicants should be sent “To Grant Applicants – Application Received” upon receipt of their grant submission.
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Grant Review Session
Once the deadline has passed, all completed applications should be emailed out to all board members for review. (Incomplete applications can either be immediately rejected or be given a few days’ grace period to submit missing application parts, depending on what your board feels is appropriate.) Board members should carefully read through all applications, writing down questions and comments about each one as they read.
At the same time that board members are emailed the applications, grant applicants should be sent the “To Grant Applicants – Upcoming Review Session” email letting them know about the grant review session.
The grant review session is an informal, ten-minute interview between the applicant group and the grant program board. (Alternatively, if you have a lot of applicants and little interview time, your board can split up into two groups, each in a different room interviewing a different group, therefore doubling the number of groups you can interview in a given time. In this case, the interview would then be between the applicant group and a subset of the board.) It should be planned by the Award Ceremony and Review Session Committee far in advance so that board members and grant applicants can plan around it, as it is a mandatory event. Grant applicant groups who fail to send any representatives to the review session will be denied funding unless absence was due to an unplanned emergency. Exceptions can also be made for groups that notify the board beforehand that absolutely no members of their group can attend the session, in which case board members can set up a separate time and location for an interview.
Each project is allotted ten minutes of interview time, with 10-15 minutes of board member deliberation time immediately afterward and then about an hour of discussion and decision-making after all projects have been interviewed. As the interviews take place, interviewing board members should use the “Tips for Interviewing Applicants” and “Interview Checklist” to kindly critique projects.
Each applicant group is asked to bring to the review session at least two youth representatives and one adult sponsor, with as many youth project participants attending as possible. For the first five minutes of the interview, youth project participants are invited to tell the board members about their project, explaining details of the project and letting the board know why they decided upon that specific project idea. The point of these explanations is to find out how much the young people own the project and have done the planning themselves. Groups with strong youth ownership will typically have youth confidently explaining the project with little to no adult input. It is fine for adult sponsors to prompt the young leaders with open-ended questions (ie, why don’t you tell the board members about the educational component of your project?), but if they begin to speak at length or dominate the conversation, politely tell them that you’d really like to hear from the youth. In cases of particularly young applicants, adult sponsors can speak more and help out the youth as they explain their project. For example, it makes sense for the adult sponsor of a Daisy scout project to be more involved in the proposed project than the adult sponsor of a high school environmental club project.
After the group has finished telling the board about their project, the board has the last five minutes of the interview to ask the group any questions about the project or the group’s application. Here it is helpful for board members to use the notes that they made while first reading through the applications. Bring up any questions about the budget that have not yet been addressed. Ask how they decided that they wanted to address their particular environmental issue and why they cared about it. Ask about the impact they wish to make and the educational component of the project, if not yet mentioned. Are there any concerns that the board members have about the potential success of the project and, if so, what part of the project makes you have those concerns? Ask about that.
To wrap up the review session, ask the applicants if they have any questions for you. Thank them for coming, and let them know when they’ll be hearing back from you with their grant decision.
Once the group has left the room, the board interviewers should take 10-15 minutes to briefly discuss the project. Youth board members should speak first, giving their impressions of the project and stating what they felt were the project’s strengths and weaknesses. Once youth have spoken, adults give their impressions, and an open discussion begins. The board makes a preliminary recommendation to fund the project fully, fund the project partially, not fund the project, or set aside the project for further discussion once the rest of the projects have been interviewed.
All members of the next project are then invited into the interview room, and the process continues until all projects have been interviewed and have left.
The board then convenes for discussion. (If the board divided into two groups so that two applicants could be interviewed at once, the two groups will come together at this point.) One by one, projects will be highlighted and discussed. A youth board member will give a short description of the project to jog the board members’ memories and then will summarize how the interview went, give the strengths and weaknesses that the interviewers agreed upon after the interview, and give the preliminary recommendation for or against funding. The project will then be opened up for whole-board discussion, where all concerns about and praises for the project can be voiced. If the board split up for interviews, those who did not interview this project can ask questions to those who did about how the interview went.
If the board feels that the project might deserve funding but would need certain improvements, the board can determine conditions for funding. For example, if the board feels that a tree-planting project would be great for the community but lacks an educational component, they can decide to vote on project funding with the built-in condition that, if funded, the group will use some of the funds to buy an educational sign to put next to their planted trees. Conditions should be specific and realistic, given the group’s abilities and their funding constraints.
Once board members have discussed conditions and feel that their questions have been answered, a vote will be taken. If conditional funding was decided upon as necessary, this will be built into the vote (ie, voting for full funding indicates that you support full funding with all decided upon conditions). Members with a conflict of interest relating to the group (for example, if a board member is or was part of a club asking for funding) will abstain from the vote, and the remaining board members will vote “yes” or “no” on funding.
If a “no” on funding gets the majority vote, no further voting is required. The project will not be funded. Discussion moves on to the next project.
The projects that get a majority “yes” on funding will have another vote taken in which board members vote for either full or partial funding.
If “partial funding” gets the majority vote, discussion will open up again on how much funding should be awarded. In these cases, it helps to go back to the project budget and see what items could be cut from the project while still maintaining its essence and impact. A board member will make a motion for the amount of funding that they see is fit, and if the motion is seconded, a vote will be taken. Board members will either vote in favor for that amount of funding or against it. If the majority votes against that amount of funding, another motion should be made for amount of funding to award. This process continues until the majority votes in favor of a proposed amount of funding to award.
Once all projects have been voted on, the grant review session ends. The program coordinator will send follow-up email to the board that night, summarizing the grant applicant groups and the amount of funding that will be awarded to each. Board members should check this for accuracy.
Once the deadline has passed, all completed applications should be emailed out to all board members for review. (Incomplete applications can either be immediately rejected or be given a few days’ grace period to submit missing application parts, depending on what your board feels is appropriate.) Board members should carefully read through all applications, writing down questions and comments about each one as they read.
At the same time that board members are emailed the applications, grant applicants should be sent the “To Grant Applicants – Upcoming Review Session” email letting them know about the grant review session.
The grant review session is an informal, ten-minute interview between the applicant group and the grant program board. (Alternatively, if you have a lot of applicants and little interview time, your board can split up into two groups, each in a different room interviewing a different group, therefore doubling the number of groups you can interview in a given time. In this case, the interview would then be between the applicant group and a subset of the board.) It should be planned by the Award Ceremony and Review Session Committee far in advance so that board members and grant applicants can plan around it, as it is a mandatory event. Grant applicant groups who fail to send any representatives to the review session will be denied funding unless absence was due to an unplanned emergency. Exceptions can also be made for groups that notify the board beforehand that absolutely no members of their group can attend the session, in which case board members can set up a separate time and location for an interview.
Each project is allotted ten minutes of interview time, with 10-15 minutes of board member deliberation time immediately afterward and then about an hour of discussion and decision-making after all projects have been interviewed. As the interviews take place, interviewing board members should use the “Tips for Interviewing Applicants” and “Interview Checklist” to kindly critique projects.
Each applicant group is asked to bring to the review session at least two youth representatives and one adult sponsor, with as many youth project participants attending as possible. For the first five minutes of the interview, youth project participants are invited to tell the board members about their project, explaining details of the project and letting the board know why they decided upon that specific project idea. The point of these explanations is to find out how much the young people own the project and have done the planning themselves. Groups with strong youth ownership will typically have youth confidently explaining the project with little to no adult input. It is fine for adult sponsors to prompt the young leaders with open-ended questions (ie, why don’t you tell the board members about the educational component of your project?), but if they begin to speak at length or dominate the conversation, politely tell them that you’d really like to hear from the youth. In cases of particularly young applicants, adult sponsors can speak more and help out the youth as they explain their project. For example, it makes sense for the adult sponsor of a Daisy scout project to be more involved in the proposed project than the adult sponsor of a high school environmental club project.
After the group has finished telling the board about their project, the board has the last five minutes of the interview to ask the group any questions about the project or the group’s application. Here it is helpful for board members to use the notes that they made while first reading through the applications. Bring up any questions about the budget that have not yet been addressed. Ask how they decided that they wanted to address their particular environmental issue and why they cared about it. Ask about the impact they wish to make and the educational component of the project, if not yet mentioned. Are there any concerns that the board members have about the potential success of the project and, if so, what part of the project makes you have those concerns? Ask about that.
To wrap up the review session, ask the applicants if they have any questions for you. Thank them for coming, and let them know when they’ll be hearing back from you with their grant decision.
Once the group has left the room, the board interviewers should take 10-15 minutes to briefly discuss the project. Youth board members should speak first, giving their impressions of the project and stating what they felt were the project’s strengths and weaknesses. Once youth have spoken, adults give their impressions, and an open discussion begins. The board makes a preliminary recommendation to fund the project fully, fund the project partially, not fund the project, or set aside the project for further discussion once the rest of the projects have been interviewed.
All members of the next project are then invited into the interview room, and the process continues until all projects have been interviewed and have left.
The board then convenes for discussion. (If the board divided into two groups so that two applicants could be interviewed at once, the two groups will come together at this point.) One by one, projects will be highlighted and discussed. A youth board member will give a short description of the project to jog the board members’ memories and then will summarize how the interview went, give the strengths and weaknesses that the interviewers agreed upon after the interview, and give the preliminary recommendation for or against funding. The project will then be opened up for whole-board discussion, where all concerns about and praises for the project can be voiced. If the board split up for interviews, those who did not interview this project can ask questions to those who did about how the interview went.
If the board feels that the project might deserve funding but would need certain improvements, the board can determine conditions for funding. For example, if the board feels that a tree-planting project would be great for the community but lacks an educational component, they can decide to vote on project funding with the built-in condition that, if funded, the group will use some of the funds to buy an educational sign to put next to their planted trees. Conditions should be specific and realistic, given the group’s abilities and their funding constraints.
Once board members have discussed conditions and feel that their questions have been answered, a vote will be taken. If conditional funding was decided upon as necessary, this will be built into the vote (ie, voting for full funding indicates that you support full funding with all decided upon conditions). Members with a conflict of interest relating to the group (for example, if a board member is or was part of a club asking for funding) will abstain from the vote, and the remaining board members will vote “yes” or “no” on funding.
If a “no” on funding gets the majority vote, no further voting is required. The project will not be funded. Discussion moves on to the next project.
The projects that get a majority “yes” on funding will have another vote taken in which board members vote for either full or partial funding.
If “partial funding” gets the majority vote, discussion will open up again on how much funding should be awarded. In these cases, it helps to go back to the project budget and see what items could be cut from the project while still maintaining its essence and impact. A board member will make a motion for the amount of funding that they see is fit, and if the motion is seconded, a vote will be taken. Board members will either vote in favor for that amount of funding or against it. If the majority votes against that amount of funding, another motion should be made for amount of funding to award. This process continues until the majority votes in favor of a proposed amount of funding to award.
Once all projects have been voted on, the grant review session ends. The program coordinator will send follow-up email to the board that night, summarizing the grant applicant groups and the amount of funding that will be awarded to each. Board members should check this for accuracy.
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Decision Notification
Once decisions have been made after the grant review session, groups will be notified of their decision via one of the following emails: “To Grant Applicant – Grant Accepted” or “To Grant Applicant – Grant Rejected.”
The “To Grant Applicant – Grant Accepted” email will not usually need major modification. However, if your group decided on conditional funding, all conditions should be clearly spelled out in this email. Be sure that the group feels comfortable with these conditions and knows that you can clarify the conditions for them, if necessary. In this email, you can also choose to let the project know who their project mentors are. Project mentors are members of your grant program’s board who will be in contact with the funded group throughout the process of the project completion and who will act as a support system for the group. Project mentors can also be given to groups in a later email, “To Grant Recipient – Project Dates Requested.”
The “To Grant Applicant – Grant Rejected” email should be strongly modified according to the project that you decided not to fund. Because the point of this program is to empower youth in environmental action, it is of the utmost importance to make this email kind and supportive to make sure that rejection for funding does not lead to discouragement from future environmental service. To avoid applicant discouragement, try to focus first and foremost on the strengths of the proposed project. Even if the project itself wasn’t especially strong, compliment the young peoples’ presentation or enthusiasm. If the application was well-written, say so, and make sure that the applicants know that you appreciated the time they put into the entire application process.
Kindly state why the project was not chosen for funding. Did it not meet the basic selection criteria? Was permission not obtained? Did the project have a non-environmental focus? Was there not significant environmental impact or educational aspect missing? Say that because these basic criteria were not met, your program is unfortunately unable to fund the project.
Finally, unless the project is dangerous, harmful to the environment, or has been rejected permission, encourage the applicants to continue forward on the project, if possible. Donated materials and other grants can help make this happen. If you know of another opportunity for small-scale project funding, let them know. United Way’s Youth as Resources (YAR) is a similar granting program to the Green Teen programs, but it has a focus of service in general rather than environmental service specifically. If your grant applicants either need more time to create a better project plan or have a service project with a non-environmental focus, check to see if there is a YAR in your area, and if there is, send your grant applicant information on YAR. If you know of any other resources that would be useful to the applicant, send those, too.
Finally, close the email by encouraging the applicant to apply again next year if they are still interested. Thank them for their dedication to service and the environment, and wish them good luck in future endeavors.
Have someone else read the email to make sure that it leaves a positive feeling about service before sending it off.
Once decisions have been made after the grant review session, groups will be notified of their decision via one of the following emails: “To Grant Applicant – Grant Accepted” or “To Grant Applicant – Grant Rejected.”
The “To Grant Applicant – Grant Accepted” email will not usually need major modification. However, if your group decided on conditional funding, all conditions should be clearly spelled out in this email. Be sure that the group feels comfortable with these conditions and knows that you can clarify the conditions for them, if necessary. In this email, you can also choose to let the project know who their project mentors are. Project mentors are members of your grant program’s board who will be in contact with the funded group throughout the process of the project completion and who will act as a support system for the group. Project mentors can also be given to groups in a later email, “To Grant Recipient – Project Dates Requested.”
The “To Grant Applicant – Grant Rejected” email should be strongly modified according to the project that you decided not to fund. Because the point of this program is to empower youth in environmental action, it is of the utmost importance to make this email kind and supportive to make sure that rejection for funding does not lead to discouragement from future environmental service. To avoid applicant discouragement, try to focus first and foremost on the strengths of the proposed project. Even if the project itself wasn’t especially strong, compliment the young peoples’ presentation or enthusiasm. If the application was well-written, say so, and make sure that the applicants know that you appreciated the time they put into the entire application process.
Kindly state why the project was not chosen for funding. Did it not meet the basic selection criteria? Was permission not obtained? Did the project have a non-environmental focus? Was there not significant environmental impact or educational aspect missing? Say that because these basic criteria were not met, your program is unfortunately unable to fund the project.
Finally, unless the project is dangerous, harmful to the environment, or has been rejected permission, encourage the applicants to continue forward on the project, if possible. Donated materials and other grants can help make this happen. If you know of another opportunity for small-scale project funding, let them know. United Way’s Youth as Resources (YAR) is a similar granting program to the Green Teen programs, but it has a focus of service in general rather than environmental service specifically. If your grant applicants either need more time to create a better project plan or have a service project with a non-environmental focus, check to see if there is a YAR in your area, and if there is, send your grant applicant information on YAR. If you know of any other resources that would be useful to the applicant, send those, too.
Finally, close the email by encouraging the applicant to apply again next year if they are still interested. Thank them for their dedication to service and the environment, and wish them good luck in future endeavors.
Have someone else read the email to make sure that it leaves a positive feeling about service before sending it off.
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Award Ceremony
In order to celebrate and show appreciation for grant awardees and their dedication to service, about two weeks after the grant decisions are made, a grant award ceremony should be held. (See the Award Ceremony and Review Session Committee section for specific steps that can be taken to plan this ceremony.) All members of the grant-winning projects are invited to attend, as are their families, project adult advisors, project sponsors, representatives from your sponsoring organization(s), and special guests.
The ceremony is typically held at an outdoor venue, weather permitting. This makes for a more natural-feeling environment and for better photos. If you hold your ceremony outside, though, be sure to identify an alternate location in case of surprise inclement weather.
The ceremony will begin with opening remarks from a youth board member. The remarks should welcome everyone to the ceremony, tell a little bit of background about the program and why you started it, state a few impacts of the program (or perhaps the expected collective impact of the newly-funded projects), and convey the excitement you have for the newly-funded projects.
The microphone then turns over to any special guests that you have invited to the ceremony to speak. These special guests can potentially be your mayor, a superintendent, a principal, a well-known teacher, a governor, or any other person whose presence at the ceremony would be exciting for the youth awarded with grants and would reflect well on your grant program. If your guest obliges, you can invite them up to the podium to speak. Make sure you communicate with your guest at least one week beforehand (and more for bigger public figures or busier individuals) about whether or not they will be speaking, what the topic of their remarks will be, and how much time they have allotted for their remarks.
The next part of the award ceremony is the presentation of the checks, during which board members take turns awarding big checks to the grant awardees. Board members should present checks to the project that they have been assigned to mentor. During the presentation of the checks, board members will introduce themselves and welcome all members of the mentee project up to the podium. The board member will then introduce a spokesperson from the group, inviting them to give a two-minute summary of the funded project and why the group chose to do it. While handing a big (11”x17”) check to the group, the board member will congratulate the group for its work and officially award the grant money. All people standing up at the podium (group members, adult advisors, special guest speakers, and the board member mentor) then pose for a photo together with the big check in hand. People are invited to be seated, and the process is repeated until all projects have received their big check.
After the grant presentations, the program manager takes the stage and thanks the board for their hard work. Members are invited up and introduced by name. Any exiting board members (those who will not be returning next year) are personally thanked and, if funds allow, given a small token of appreciation. This can be anything from a recycled-materials keychain to flowers.
While all other board members sit back down, the one who gave the opening remarks remains at the podium to give the closing remarks. These remarks include final thank-yous and project encouragement. Once the remarks have concluded, all members of all projects are invited up for one big group picture. All people are then released to mingle and eat refreshments. (These refreshments will hopefully be food and drink donated by local stores. Be sure to use environmentally-friendly materials – cutlery, napkins, cups, etc. – and provide recycling bins for proper disposal of materials, as well.)
Before project leaders leave, be sure to get from them their “Project Contract Form.” In return, give them a folder containing the “Project Report Form Cover Letter,” “Project Report Form,” and the actual check cut by your fiscal sponsor.
In order to celebrate and show appreciation for grant awardees and their dedication to service, about two weeks after the grant decisions are made, a grant award ceremony should be held. (See the Award Ceremony and Review Session Committee section for specific steps that can be taken to plan this ceremony.) All members of the grant-winning projects are invited to attend, as are their families, project adult advisors, project sponsors, representatives from your sponsoring organization(s), and special guests.
The ceremony is typically held at an outdoor venue, weather permitting. This makes for a more natural-feeling environment and for better photos. If you hold your ceremony outside, though, be sure to identify an alternate location in case of surprise inclement weather.
The ceremony will begin with opening remarks from a youth board member. The remarks should welcome everyone to the ceremony, tell a little bit of background about the program and why you started it, state a few impacts of the program (or perhaps the expected collective impact of the newly-funded projects), and convey the excitement you have for the newly-funded projects.
The microphone then turns over to any special guests that you have invited to the ceremony to speak. These special guests can potentially be your mayor, a superintendent, a principal, a well-known teacher, a governor, or any other person whose presence at the ceremony would be exciting for the youth awarded with grants and would reflect well on your grant program. If your guest obliges, you can invite them up to the podium to speak. Make sure you communicate with your guest at least one week beforehand (and more for bigger public figures or busier individuals) about whether or not they will be speaking, what the topic of their remarks will be, and how much time they have allotted for their remarks.
The next part of the award ceremony is the presentation of the checks, during which board members take turns awarding big checks to the grant awardees. Board members should present checks to the project that they have been assigned to mentor. During the presentation of the checks, board members will introduce themselves and welcome all members of the mentee project up to the podium. The board member will then introduce a spokesperson from the group, inviting them to give a two-minute summary of the funded project and why the group chose to do it. While handing a big (11”x17”) check to the group, the board member will congratulate the group for its work and officially award the grant money. All people standing up at the podium (group members, adult advisors, special guest speakers, and the board member mentor) then pose for a photo together with the big check in hand. People are invited to be seated, and the process is repeated until all projects have received their big check.
After the grant presentations, the program manager takes the stage and thanks the board for their hard work. Members are invited up and introduced by name. Any exiting board members (those who will not be returning next year) are personally thanked and, if funds allow, given a small token of appreciation. This can be anything from a recycled-materials keychain to flowers.
While all other board members sit back down, the one who gave the opening remarks remains at the podium to give the closing remarks. These remarks include final thank-yous and project encouragement. Once the remarks have concluded, all members of all projects are invited up for one big group picture. All people are then released to mingle and eat refreshments. (These refreshments will hopefully be food and drink donated by local stores. Be sure to use environmentally-friendly materials – cutlery, napkins, cups, etc. – and provide recycling bins for proper disposal of materials, as well.)
Before project leaders leave, be sure to get from them their “Project Contract Form.” In return, give them a folder containing the “Project Report Form Cover Letter,” “Project Report Form,” and the actual check cut by your fiscal sponsor.
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Project Completion
In the months following the award ceremony, your grant awardees will be hard at work carrying out their funded projects. Be sure to keep track of the project dates and any changes to project dates on the “Master Email List” so that your board members can visit the projects as they are being completed, taking pictures, showing support for the youth project volunteers, and even lending a hand with the project if the grantees and board member desire. If at all possible, one or more board members should be present at each project while it is being completed, and if the project’s mentor can be present for that particular project, that would be preferable.
In the months following the award ceremony, your grant awardees will be hard at work carrying out their funded projects. Be sure to keep track of the project dates and any changes to project dates on the “Master Email List” so that your board members can visit the projects as they are being completed, taking pictures, showing support for the youth project volunteers, and even lending a hand with the project if the grantees and board member desire. If at all possible, one or more board members should be present at each project while it is being completed, and if the project’s mentor can be present for that particular project, that would be preferable.
Master Email List | |
File Size: | 40 kb |
File Type: | xlsx |
Follow-Up
Gathering information about the project after it has been completed helps to document its impact. The “Project Report Form” is the main mode of communication of project impact between your funded projects and your program. This form will be handed to each grant recipient during the grant award ceremony so that they can keep track of project progress as it occurs. Unfortunately, despite its importance, many project leaders have a tendency to forget about the project report form because it is a part of the grant process that occurs after funding has already been awarded. Send email updates as needed to acquire the completed project report, editing and sending “To Grant Recipients – Project Update Requested” to remind your grantees that you would love for them to send you the requested information so that you can put together their project webpage.
Once the project report form and a sufficient number of photographs are in, the project webpage can be completed. See Website and Website and Documents Committee for more details.
Gathering information about the project after it has been completed helps to document its impact. The “Project Report Form” is the main mode of communication of project impact between your funded projects and your program. This form will be handed to each grant recipient during the grant award ceremony so that they can keep track of project progress as it occurs. Unfortunately, despite its importance, many project leaders have a tendency to forget about the project report form because it is a part of the grant process that occurs after funding has already been awarded. Send email updates as needed to acquire the completed project report, editing and sending “To Grant Recipients – Project Update Requested” to remind your grantees that you would love for them to send you the requested information so that you can put together their project webpage.
Once the project report form and a sufficient number of photographs are in, the project webpage can be completed. See Website and Website and Documents Committee for more details.
To Grant Recipients - Project Update Requested | |
File Size: | 10 kb |
File Type: | docx |