Building Community Capacity through Leadership Development

Success Story

Community needs are dynamic and constantly changing, challenging community leaders to continually seek funds and resources to support community efforts. Now, perhaps more than ever before, communities look to local, state, federal, and private donors for support in the form of grants. For many government and community leaders, grant writing is a new area of professional development, laced with apprehension and confusion about where to start, what to do, and how to be successful. Many fail to recognize the benefits of collaboration between city/county government and local community organizations - both as a means for strengthening community efforts and raising community dollars to grow and sustain efforts.

This workshop will highlight the highly successful, Beginner's Guide to Grant Writing program. The program pairs Cooperative Extension specialists and educators in delivering a 16-hour county-based grant writing training via IP-Video programming and ongoing technical assistance through proposal review and weekly funding reports. This program has resulted in community leaders bringing in more than $2 million dollars in funded proposals over the past three years, supporting the building of parks, literacy programs in schools, library expansion, digitization of Indiana history, the arts, workforce and career development programs, and federal programs such as Even Start and Healthy Families.

The workshop will provide participants with information about how they can start this program in their own state, using the proven effective delivery method and Beginner's Guide to Grant Writing program manual to raise community capacity through leadership development.