Prompt 3: What comes next?

While writing a grant can be challenging, the work does not end with the submitted request. After you receive a grant then you of course have to implement the programs (which frequently involves various marketing and communication efforts that involve professional writing). But more importantly if you want to keep your current grant(s) and possibly receive more grant(s) then you must file the necessary reports. Sometimes those reports are financial and/or accounting in nature (ie. we spent this much on this thing and here is the receipt) but frequently granting agencies want to know a lot more about the details of your implementation of the project you promised. They want to see what they are getting for their investment and that you are delivering what you promised.

This week I'm going to share more of my National Writing Project work by sharing our 2012 Site Report, but first a little background. Check out the National Writing Project web site to learn more about NWP. 

In the past, our funding from NWP and the Kentucky Department of Education was rather automatic. NWP had a line item in the federal budget and occasionally that amount went up. Similarly, the amount we would receive from KDE was fairly stable. We created (as a site) three documents that we submitted to NWP each year. These were a site profile (reporting on activities and programs as well as who attended those); budget report accounting for every dollar spent (that means a description/narrative with almost every line item); and a Continued Funding Application that was a sizable document which was part grant request (for the new year) and report on what we accomplished (for the old year). Also, NWP likes to see lots about the challenges you faced and what you attempted to overcome those challenges as well as details about the outcome and what you learned. The CFA would include a proposed budget for the upcoming year and that budget would have to be approved by KDE and MSU as well.

For most of my tenure as site director for the Morehead Writing Project, however, our state funding has gradually diminished, but we were able to adjust to those changes. Then almost a year ago NWP lost its federal funding. Read more here. This has changed our report cycle as well. We still submitted a site profile and budget report but instead of a CFA (as there is no continued funding at this time) we are submitting a much shorter Site Report and something called a Continued Association form. The Continued Association form simply confirms that we want to continue as an NWP site. I would imagine that there are a number of sites who won't be able to do so because they do not receive the state funding that we do here in Kentucky or the institution support that MSU provides. The form also asks about interest in future funds for specific projects. NWP has told us that they will likely not have large unencumbered funds to give us as they have in the past but do expect to have funding for smaller and more specific projects.

Of course, I believe (based on my experience as a site leader) that we need to make the case for why our site should be eligible for those funds in our Site Report. Unlike the Big Read grant, which I primarily wrote myself, the Site Report is a collaborative effort of our Leadership Team. We need to submit a Site Report by next week and my Leadership Team is sending me their contributions this week so I will share (just as I did with the Big Read grant) in the discussion board when I can. In the meantime, you can begin with journal posts about the Site Report and its purposes. Learn more here.

I also hope you will continue to think about possible project ideas and draw inspiration from MWP's work. For example, our main goal is improving the teaching of writing and our main work toward achieving that goal has been professional development but we have extended our work to so much more than that to include writing conferences, writing camps (much more planned for this year), and the Big Read.Think about your passions and interests and goals. What can you do to extend and improve upon existing programs? What do people need to know or how can you improve understanding about important issues? What problems currently have no good solutions? For example, if you want to improve the plight of homeless and abused animals is the need for more shelters and adoption programs or is to raise awareness, promote adoptions, and increase funding? Your projects can propose solutions or simply investigate options or some combination of the two. You can seek out grants and write proposals on behalf of organizations if you want to do that as well. I need to work on your assignment sheet but may not get it done until tomorrow but as long as you keep thinking about it then you'll be fine.