You’ve received the call (letter) that congratulates you for your successful application for a grant. You are elated, and you should be very proud of this accomplishment. Remember you were in competition for the award, other applications were vetoed. Grantors are very careful about awarding grants. They know the project they have chosen will reflect on them. Their political or social agenda will be furthered or hampered by the project you will launch.

The first thing you must do is handle the check properly. When it comes in, it will probably be sent to your attention unless other arrangements have been made (large awards may have bank transfer arrangements so you will never actually see the check). Your school district business manager will help you develop procedures for this step; the check must be deposited in an account that can be accessed as you work through your project.

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There are several different kinds of government grants; federal entitlement grants, federal competitive grants, state grants, and federal pass-through grants administered at the state level. The most difficult of these is the competitive federal grant and a separate blog will be devoted to this thorny issue, they are so tempting to go for, but you need to know exactly what you’re doing before spending time on them.

Federal entitlement grants, like Title I and Teacher Quality (IIA) always come to your district in a package, compiled with a unified application and a set of specific allocations. This is money your district will receive, it has already been earmarked based on complex formulas that are reached by looking at demographic information at the highest levels of government. To apply for these, be sure you are working with your district leaders and your principal knows what you are doing – it may be the deed is already well in hand and that your input will be more of a problem than an asset. This unified application will have a set due date, usually sometime in the spring or summer for distribution of funds in the fall. In large districts these allocations can be quite large and consist of funds your schools rely on for assisting students in poverty and in special education.

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