Church Receives A $30,000 Grant!

A Presbyterian Church has received a $30,000 grant to help grow into its own! About 60 percent of the congregation members are immigrants, many in the process of trying to become citizens. An average of 40 to 60 worshippers meet for an all-Spanish service at noon each Sunday. The church donates its sanctuary for the services, as well as office space and space for Bible studies and other activities. The grant will help support the ministry, on top of the generous support of a cluster of churches from the area. The congregation hopes to someday build or lease its own space with the goal of becoming self-sufficient - that is, being able to maintain their ministry from their own membership. Whether or not it can be pulled off in the three years of the grant is questionable, but maybe in five years.

The church's minister says he hopes to be able to retire before then, but for now he's too busy supporting a flock whose members include many who are struggling to follow their faith in a strange land and foreign culture. He said he spends "most of my time" helping individuals navigate the legal system - mostly for traffic violations, domestic violence and other misdemeanor crimes - and deal with immigration officials.

Over $800,000 has been given to 19 congregations and church-related projects nationwide!

The grant program funds new church developments and provide aid for the transformation of existing congregations and congregational-based ministries of compassion and justice. Funds for the grants come from endowments, individuals and congregational gifts.

Fire Departments Receive Grants! This organization has been handing out grant checks for rural fire departments since June and will continue to do so until August. In one county, one department received $1,397 for pagers to help firefighters respond to incidents. Another Fire Department received $2,968 for radios, chainsaws, protective clothing, fire hose and strainers, fuel containers and a dump tank liner. These grants are being provided to purchase new equipment, some that will be used to purchase wild fire fighting equipment, as well as everyday equipment. In order to apply for this grant program the fire departments must submit a proposal, an agreement of sorts, that outline exactly how the money will be spent. A group then gets together to decide how much the fire departments should get. The amount of the grant checks are based on the size and needs of the individual fire departments. According to one spokesperson, “We don’t just look for those departments that are in need. We also consider the department size, the area in which they are located and the last time they received a grant.” Additionally, the departments must not only respond to structural fires, but commit to responding to wildfires as well. Fire departments are required to match these funds. For example: If a piece equipment costs $3,000, then $1,500 will come from the grant and the other $1,500 will be paid for by the fire department. So far 177 fire departments will be receiving checks of up to $3,000 which is the maximum amount per grant recipient, to help them with the purchase of personal protective gear, and firefighting equipment. So far over $300,000 has been provided in grant monies to provide better equipment and help increase the safety of fire fighters.

"Open" Grants Program

Announced!

Starting July 2009, this foundation will be accepting grant applications as part of its new “Open Grants Program.” The purpose and aim is to make the grant-making process easier for eligible applicants.

Governmental entities and 501(c)(3) organizations that serve tobacco-dependent, rural, or economically distressed areas of the state may apply for the Open Grants Program. Organizations in affluent areas of the state are not ineligible to apply, though may not be given preference.

The Foundation’s board will examine a wide range of grant proposals throughout the year, but priority will be given to projects that focus on agriculture, offer job creation and sustainability, and workforce preparedness.

“Ask yourself ‘Who benefits, how are they going to benefit, what difference will it make, how will the foundation know,’” says the foundation's spokesperson. “Remember that persistence pays. Just because you’re declined funding, doesn’t mean you’ll never be funded.”

The foundation's president said the advantages of the newly revamped Open Grants Program are three-fold:

• Applicants are given more flexibility in their time line without rushing to meet the annual August deadline
  
  
• the administrative burden is lessened because rather than submitting a full application and project outline, applicants can submit a brief letter of inquiry
  
  
• and because the Foundation removed two primary categories of funding (Aerospace and Biotechnology) from the Open Grants Program and placed them in another category, there is less competition for grant opportunities

The foundation president has said that the Foundation is honing in on opportunities that advance education and economic development in economically disadvantaged locations, specifically ones that partner well with federal and state stimulus program opportunities.

Examples of projects less likely to catch the Foundation’s attention include endowments, capital campaigns, construction, debt service, revolving loan funds, after school or day care programs, general employment training, infrastructure, and community centers. The foundation has funded projects like these in the past, however — the Foundation awarded a $2 million grant earlier this year for infrastructure development along a U.S. highway route — and the president of the foundation encourages applicants to apply if they’re confident in the project.

One interested applicant said she is seeking other grant and in-kind support opportunities to expand her Veterans Services programs which the president of the foundation specifically said the Foundation favors during the application project.



“All I can do is try, and if I get turned down, I’ll keep applying,” she said.

State Grant Program To Help Those In The Military!

It has been announced that a bill has been signed to increase the eligibility for assistance for armed forces members who are not currently on active duty.

This means that there will be increased funding for those in the military who are currently off duty and who are eligible to apply for this grant funding program.

The program provides money to help pay for essential personal or household needs!

Area Grant Money Goes Un-Used! Over $300,000 is provided yearly to help business get both inside and outside building assistance! Property owners can use this money, as can businesses with five-year (or longer) leases. The amount of money available differs from building to building. According to the director of this program, her frustration lies in the fact that she says she offers plenty of help for business owners downtown, but very few of them take advantage of it. For example one business was eligible for over $75,000 in financial assistance but only took $11,000! Another business, a surplus store, used the money for exterior restoration. In 2002, the windows were replaced on the second floor, and half of that was paid with a $9,750 city grant! A furniture store has taken a significant amount of city assistance -- over $93,000, for interior and exterior work. A restaurant has used more than $73,000 in grants for interior and exterior rehab. The restaurant remodeled in 2005, with a nearly $40,000 city grant to help. There is still over $100,000 left 2009! If the applicant can't get their application in before the due date then those applications are rolled over to the following year. Since the local area has a responsibility to keep the buildings up to code, that just gives them more of an incentive to provide money, grants and financial assistance for rehabilitation purposes. As a matter of fact if a business wants more money they are welcomed to submit drafts of development agreements as well! (as did one business developer!)

Homes And Businesses

Receive Grant Money

To Use

Alternative Energy Sources!

To help decrease their energy bills, places are using an alternative source of energy - wind turbines!

• One property owner uses a 5-kilowatt wind turbine which stands about 125 feet from his house. Since Jan. 1, he watched his electric meter go backward. He said the turbine generates more electricity than he uses, meaning he'll get a check from his utility company at the end of the year.
  
  

Higher electric rates, available grant money and a push for alternative energy from the state and federal governments have the winds of change blowing the turbines' direction. It's not just for large-scale wind farms but it is also an opportunity for individual landowners.

According to one state's law, 25% of the electricity sold by that state's investor-owned utilities must come from alternative energy sources by 2025. Of that, 12.5 percent must come from renewable sources, such as solar, biomass fuel and wind.

This is where the grant program comes along!

Both residences and small farms are eligible for a $25,000 grant if one of the state's four largest investor-owned utilities serves them. Businesses could receive incentives up to $150,000 for smaller turbines.

Then the federal government enacted a tax credit, where owners of small wind farms with 100 kilowatts of capacity and less could receive a credit for 30 percent of the total installed cost of a system.

The electric companies in the region allow people with wind turbines to connect their systems into their grids. One, buys back any extra power generated by a turbine and not used by the landowner for between 3½ and 4 cents per kilowatt hour.

About Government Grants - An Excerpt!

Here is an excerpt from an online article:

"
No matter what type of business you are interested in establishing, how big or small, who you are, where it is located,there is a business grant, or several, to support your ventures........

You may be able to acquire a small business grant to finance a modest online business run from your home, to minority grant to open an ethnic heritage center in a culturally rich neighborhood, to several generous grants for real estate to establish your own realty company.....

Thousands of stay at home mothers are acquiring day care grants and single mothers grants to start their own day care centers, and make money on day care, while saving on day care and spending more time with their children.....

The generosity on the government's part towards the small business owner is really quite amazing, and the eligibility requirements to receive free government financial aid are really quite few......................"

Subject: Grant Research - Can You Help Me? I am interested in acquiring a government grant to start a business. Are you available for consultation? Thanks! Very Truly Yours C. T. Thank you for your email. It really all depends on what type of consultation that you are needing. Here are some questions that I require all of my clients to fill out before I start researching grant programs that they may be eligible for. Questions To Be Answered For Grant Basics 101 Please go to the link above, answer the questions and that will give me a better idea as to what grant programs you may be eligible for. Unfortunately you have only mentioned that you want to start a business but you haven't mentioned what type of business it is that you want to start?

$25 Million To Spend!

One organization has $25 Million Dollars to spend to help encourage innovative ideas to help advance journalism using the digital medium!

This year a project to build and maintain a crowd-sourced database of primary source material for use by investigative reporters was awarded a grant of $719,000! The grant recipient(s) included a pairing of a well-known newspaper and a non-profit news organization. The project was an initiative that sought to break the habits of reporters who threw stories and documents away after the story faded - whereas those documents were never going to be used again. The four-member team "aims to provide an online database of documents contributed by a consortium of news organizations, watchdog groups and bloggers, and shared with the public at large. Users will be able to search by topic, agency or location. Reporters will benefit from the wisdom of the crowd, which will be able to collaboratively examine large document sets.”

This grant program is open to the public! This means that individuals and even for-profit businesses can apply!

Other grant recipients include:

• A $300,000 was awarded to a website to post mistakes by journalists! The idea is to have those that comment to engage the journalist and discuss whether a correction or additional reporting is warranted. This will be used to help show errors that news organizations make and show which news organizations are responsible to public questions and comments.
  
  
• Another individual received a $200,000 grant to create a downloadable production tool for various mobile phone platforms. The toolkit will include applications for video and audio recording, a distribution tool for mobile content to social media sites and detailed how-to information that outlines what users can do with the phones they have.
  
  
• Another grant recipient received a grant of $250,000 to expand their state's council coverage by a local newspaper and allow them to create a wiki devoted to local legislators.

Publishing files on the Web that were originally created for print publications has always been a challenge, especially for small community newspapers. News organizations have typically solved the problem by creating proprietary publishing systems for their sole benefit. This grant will create new and easy ways to use tools that will allow news organizations to essentially drag and drop articles onto an online news site. The process will save news organizations, particularly small community newspapers, significant time, money and manpower, allowing them to direct their resources to bring their community the news and information it needs.