Posts Tagged ‘grants’

Is your project funding ready?

June 17th, 2010

One thing I’ve learned during my time in the rural community development field is that every community is looking for grant money for projects, but few communities actually have projects that are ready for grants. 

Instead of having projects, what communities actually have is an idea or two about something they might like to do in their community.  It’s an idea that often emerged after a community leader reads an article in a regional newspaper about a grant that a neighboring community received.  The leader brings the article to the next meeting and questions; “Why didn’t we know about this grant?  We could have done the same thing in our community if we’d only known about the money.” 

Whenever I hear situations like the one above, I try to tactfully tell community leaders, “You shouldn’t start by thinking about the money.  Instead, develop a project, and then go looking for assistance with it.  If the project is good, the money will come.  It might take some time, and you risk the possibility of spending time working on projects that never receive funding.  But if the project is really good, funding usually emerges.”

That’s a response that many community leaders don’t like to hear, but I think it has a lot of merit.

Case in Point:  The US DOT TIGER II grant

This topic came up in a discussion I had yesterday with Greg Maag from First District Association of Local Governments, the planning district representing Northeastern South Dakota.  Greg is a grant writer for the planning district.  He helps cities, counties, and other entities with grant applications and reporting. 

Greg told me about a tight deadline with the TIGER II grant, and mentioned having difficulty finding communities with projects that met the project’s criteria and could be pulled together in short notice.

For those who might be interested, the TIGER II grant is a competitive grant program designed to assist transportation related projects.  The program, like the ARRA (stimulus) funding of 2009, is looking for projects that can start in a fairly quick time schedule.  Approximately 140 million dollars of the 350 million dollar program is set aside for projects in rural areas.  The minimum grant amount that can be requested on an application is one million dollars.    

If your community has a project ready for the TIGER II grant, I’d encourage you to contact Greg or someone at the planning district serving your region. 

If you are at the idea stage, however, I’d recommend you pull people in your community together and turn the initial idea into a more well defined project.  I’m not calling on you to spend a ton of time on this.  Start small.  Perhaps all you do is put your idea into a “concept paper.”  Over time add flesh to the concept and share the project with people like Greg whose jobs are to help communities fund projects. 

In the long run, I think you will discover that more of your projects receive funding.   

Photo Credit:  hannah.rosen – Flickr

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Posted in Community Development, Economic Development, Rural | Comments (1)