And that all of our learning at WebJunction is made available free to all who work or volunteer in libraries thanks to the state library agencies across the country and to OCLC.

If you're not familiar with WebJunction, subscribing to the "Crossroads" newsletter, it comes to your in box twice a month, it's an excellent way to stay up to date and on all things happening at WebJunction, and it comes to your email in box twice t a month.

There's a learner guide, we've created this as a tool for you to extend your learning on the topic.

After the webinar, if you want to share the learning you're doing with colleagues, it's a great tool to bring discussion and action around the topic, so definitely check out the learner guide as well.

All right.

I'm going to go ahead and pass it on over to our presenters and I'm so excited to introduce my colleagues, Steph Morgan and Kendra Morgan, who are here to talk about grantseeking.

Welcome, Kendra and Steph.

>> KENDRA MORGAN: Welcome, thank you for joining us today.

My name is Kendra Morgan, and I am a senior program manager here at WebJunction, and I work on several of our grant funded projects as part of my daily work.

Grantseeking and Griffin management is a big part of what we do at WebJunction, and I'm joined today by my colleague Steph.

Hi, Steph.

>> STEPH HARMON: Hi, Kendra.

Hi, everyone, I'm Steph Morgan, the program design and development manager for WebJunction here in Seattle.

I work on institutional fund-raising, program design, and partnerships for our grant-supported projects.

>> KENDRA MORGAN: Our focus today is on strategies for success when it comes to grantseeking.

And grant projects can be a great way to expand the programs and services in your library, but it also requires some planning and execution so that you can make the most of the opportunities that are available with funders.

So we're looking forward to sharing some of the strategies and tips that we use in our work that can be applied to your process as well.

So these are the key points we're looking to cover today.

We're going to talk about how you seek and evaluate grant opportunities that are available to your library, as well as how you can set yourself up for success.

By making sure that the library's mission and interests align with the funders that you might be working with.

We're also going to look at how to build organizational support for a proposal, and how to submit a strong application.

And throughout the session we're going to be sharing resources that are available from WebJunction and it would be great for any of you participating today to share your ideas and suggestions as well.

We encourage you to put your questions into chat to share any resources that you have, and we'll be happy to stop at a few points throughout the session and address some of the questions that you have and talk about the resources that you're sharing.

So Steph and I thought it would be helpful to share some details about what we do and why grantseeking is porking to us and our work -- is important to us and our work.

We're both part of the WebJunction team, and since 2003, WebJunction has offered a free and open online learning and work that connects library staff to the skills and ideas that help libraries to adapt and lead and thrive.

You're all here today participating in a WebJunction webinar, so you're familiar with our work, which is great.

The core of what we do is to offer a professional development and continuing education opportunities for library staff at any stage of their career, and in all library positions.

We want the smallest to the largest libraries to be able to use our resources and we look to design and lead both regional, national, even some multinational initiatives that help to spread innovative practices across libraries.

And we're able to do this through partnerships with funders, library associations, state libraries,ie schools, and we work with other nonprofit organizations.

The work that we're able to do comes from three main sources of funding.

So the first is our organization, which is OCLC.

OCLC makes an investment into making these resources freely available.

And that includes the staffing, the infrastructure that allows us to provide all of these services.

The second source is state library agencies.

And we currently have 30 state libraries who provide cooperative support to WebJunction, which is hugely important, and it demonstrates the value and importance of making what we offer freely available to everyone.

And the third component, which is connected to our work today particularly, is that we seek out grants and funders that align with our mission and that can strengthen the roles of libraries and communities.

So we also support other organizations on their grant-funded projects and we receive funding from them to help to support their work.

I wanted to share a few examples of some of the projects that we've worked on in recent years that were grant funded.

We have received funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to do quite a few projects.

They're the main funder of libraries across the country, from the federal side.

We've also received funding in the past from the WKimedia Foundation, the Legal Servicing Corporation, the Knight Foundation, all designed to deliver training to library staff.

All of the projects that I've referenced here, all of the materials are freely available on WebJunction, and you can find them using the link in chat to our projects on the website.

Those programs and grants that we've run result in a wide range of resources that are available through WebJunction.

So that includes free webinars every month, articles on library-related topics, sometimes connected to those grant topics that we're working on.

It also includes self-paced library-related online courses, which is really a very big part of our work, is developing that training content and between recorded webinars and courses, you'll find over 300 of these resources in our online course catalog, which again is free.

The broad scope of what we're able to do is really fueled by grant funding, and it's important for us to obtain these grants in order to meet our mission of serving the library community.

So this process of grant seeking is hugely important to us.

And we get to dedicate a lot of our time to doing that, to cultivating relationships, and we're looking forward to being able to share some of that with you today.

Now that you know a little bit about us and the perspective that Steph and I are bringing to this, we wanted to talk a little bit, learn more about what you all know about grants and how familiar you are.

So the first thing we'd like you to do is to use a poll to tell us about your experience with grant proposals.

So we've had this proposal up and run can, and you should be able to access it using the link in chat.

We're current -- the two -- the question we've asked is about your experience with grant proposals.

And the first option was that you've never worked on a grant proposal, which is great, we're glad you're here.

And for those of you who may have worked on a proposal in the past, and this could be very broad, could you have been a reviewer for someone who was submitting a grant, you could have helped contribute by maybe designing the budget, or talking about the resources that might be needed.

Or you could have led the process.

It seems like a lot of you have some familiarity with working on grants.

70% have done at least one proposal in the past, so we'll be looking forward to seeing your tips shared in the chat as well.

So thank you for sharing those details.

It helps us to get a better sense of who all is in the room today.

All right.

Steph, do you want to take over?

>> STEPH HARMON: Yeah.

Happy to.

It's good to see where everyone's at with their grantseeking and proposal process.

The second thing we'd like to know is, if you think back over the past five years, as your organization received -- has your organization received a grant?

We're going to use the poll feature again, and another thing you could share in chat is that if you have received a grant or multiple grants, how much funding has your organization received?

Wow.

That is looking really good.

Most of you have received a grant.

Terrific.

Thank you for contributing there.

Great.

Thank you.

We appreciate you sharing a little bit about your experience with grants.

It helps as we go through this session to know a little bit more about you and your work.

So now Kendra, I'm going to pass it back to you, and can you can talk about how to find opportunities and figure out if they're a good fit for our libraries.

>> KENDRA MORGAN: Thank, Steph.

So all funders have something in common.

And that is that these are organizations that want to and often need to distribute money.

They may very well exist just so that they can distribute money.

And if they are a foundation, they have specific requirements around needing to distribute those funds.

Funders really want strong applications for their grants.

And because they want to know that their investment is making a difference into communities and organizations that they care about.

A huge part of getting a grant means being prepared.

Which is exactly why you're here today, so that's great.

And we want you to feel empowered to be one of the applicants that helps funders to see the value of their investment in their communities.

And we often think about grant opportunities as coming in one of two ways.

And the first is here it is.

These are the times when you get an email from a funder or a colleague who says, look at this opportunity.

Applications are open now.

This could pique your interest and seem like a good idea, and it definitely might be.

There's nothing wrong with this approach, and it's great when people become aware of an opportunity and think of you and your library.

The second approach is more where is it.

And this is more of the grantseeking style.

When you need to find the funders, you need to find the opportunities and one of the biggest things you need to be able to do is understand why you are looking.

So in our experience, this tends to be for larger projects, where we really need to seek out alignment with what we're trying to accomplish, and a funder who supports that work.

And this is the core of Steph's work.

Right Steph?

>> STEPH HARMON: Yep, it sure is.

Thanks, Kendra.

So as Kendra mentioned, as soon as you know when you're looking for grants and why, it's time to start doing your homework.

Or as we call it in the field, prospect research.

To find who might fund your proposal.

A really excellent resource for this is the visualizing funding for libraries data tool, made by Candid.

Some of you may already know about this tool.

It can help you learn about different foundations' interests and their priorities, and even the size of the grants that they have awarded.

This tool can help you figure out which foundations provide funding in your specific geographic area, and who's funding the kinds of programs that you might be interested supporting.

Like maybe you're doing a summer learning program, or maybe you're doing something for job seekers, or small business start-ups, or even creative aging programs.

This tool can help you see who funds those things, and are they -- how much are they giving?

You can also learn who funds the populations that you serve.

Could be rural job seekers, could be small business owners.

And who, which foundations or agencies offers the kind of support you're looking for.

Maybe you're looking for seed money to start a new program.

Or maybe you're looking for capital support for new construction or library equipment.

This tool is a really good way to start to find who your basket of prospects might be, and how they like to be approached.

So the next thing is to look for the alignment of your mission with the funders' mission.

Every funder, as Kendra mentioned, is in the business of investing, and they're investing in improving the world in some way.

They've got a mission, and they fund organizations and projects that helpful fill that mission.

So what you're asking is for them to invest in a project that's going to help them do their work.

So it should align with their mission.

And let's talk about how to start with that.

It might be a little surprising that you're not going to really be wanting to start with your needs.

To make your case really strong, it's good to know it's not really about your library from the funders' perspective.

When you're asking for funding, don't lead with the needs of your library.

A funder's interested in how the investment is going to have a meaningful and lasting impact on the issues or the communities that they care about.

So think about all the different ways you can show how your library makes a difference in and for your community.

I think one of the best ways to show what you know is storytelling.

That's basically what good grant writing is.

Capturing and telling stories that reflect your community's needs, and how your library helps meet them.

Kendra, you have a really good example of this from Kalamazoo, I think.

>> KENDRA MORGAN: I do.

I was fortunate to work on a grant funded project a few years ago, looking at how libraries were responding to the opioid crisis.

And one of the libraries that we profiled in that research was the Kalamazoo public library in Michigan, and they had started off with a really small partnership with a local organization, and it was really small, that local organization was able to provide peer navigators in the library for several hours a week.

And that was based on needs that they saw in the community.

And they were participating in a community coalition that was looking to approach problems in a similar way, and capitalize on their collective strength.

And they were able to get enough money to do a small, almost a pilot project.

The success of that, the response of that project and the impact that it was having on the community and individuals who were using the library who found the library to be a safe space, and were comfortable there as a trusted institution, they were able to use that information to show how they were able to reach and serve a segment of the population and were able to take that information and get even more funding.

They were able to appeal to a greater need, and it was just such a powerful story, because they were willing to start small and demonstrate how they were able to meet that local need, and then ask for and receive more money.

>> STEPH HARMON: I think that's really inspiring, a great way to see how one project can seed a whole sustainable set of offerings in your library for your community.

And it's really important to consider those priorities and those needs.

That's the most important thing you're thinking about when you're looking to align with the funder.

 you want to find a funder whose priorities match yours, and it can be helpful to make sure that when you do fine alignment, you emphasize that in your proposal.

In a funder uses specific frameworks or jargon to talk about their vision and their mission, then consider how you might tailor your proposal to use language that feels authentic to you, and resonates with their staff and their decision-makers.

Funders can usually tell when they've been sent a generic letter.

They can tell if a grant writer hasn't done their homework and doesn't know anything about them.

So by tailoring your proposal to them, it's a relationship respectful way of communicating with them, and it might keep your proposal from getting tossed out.

Speaking about being respectful and having respectful ways, let's just note that funders aren't ATM machines.

Foundations are made up of people who care deeply about positively impacting our communities and their communities.

It's about relationships.

So let's dive into that.

Relationships are everything.

Try to find meaningful ways to connect with potential funders.

A lot of them will tell you exactly how they like to be approached on their websites.

Maybe there's an email address.

If there's an email address, you can email them.

They want you to contact them.

If there's a phone number, you can call them.

You can ask them about meeting with their staff, to talk about your proposal idea before you submit it.

This can be a really good way to find out if your proposal is going to be a good fit, and whether or not they're leaning in, whether or not they're showing signs of interest about funding your proposal.

Some funders offer webinars about their funding opportunities, and that's also a good chance to show up, ask questions, you can put them in chat during the presentation.

Other funders and agencies might invite these things called letters of inquiry, or intent.

And still others might provide a way to reach out to their program officers with question or for asking advice.

There is an old adage in fund-raising -- if you want advice, ask for money.

If you want money, ask for advice.

So take the opportunities that an agency or a foundation extends so that you can start to build a relationship with staff there.

And don't be afraid to ask your network for help.

If you know folks who are able to make a connection to either a foundation's board member, or staff person, maybe you can encourage them to help set up a meeting with you.

Grant seeking is an ongoing process.

They give in cycles and it's good to understand what their key dates and deadlines are.

I always put that information into my calendar, and that helps me plan ahead for and get ready for deadlines.

Important deadlines can include when the funders are accepting letters of inquiry, when a full proposal submission is due, and when we might learn about being awarded a grant.

Once a grant has been awarded, the project work can start, and then the relationship building can also continue.

After you send your thank you note, acknowledging the funder's award, you can keep nurturing your connection with the funder in meaningful ways.

You can use your newsletter, you can use your website, you can use social media to profile the difference their investment has made in your community.

You can find channels to highlight their good work in ways that they either require or that they would appreciate when appropriate.

>> KENDRA MORGAN: One of the things I want to talk about, this is Steph's full-time job.

Nurturing relationships with funders.

That's what she does.

And that can be really overwhelming if you're doing this work in combination with your regular activities.

So it is important to think about how to balance that, right?

How many relationships can you nurture, what can you do successfully over time.

And think about that so that you know that you're spending your time in a way that really makes the most sense, because we know that many of you are juggling full-time library responsibilities, as well, so for most libraries, it is really going to have to be a balance where we try to figure out what fits into the capacity that you have.

So we want to transition to talk a little bit about the importance of organizational support and what it looks like to build it for a proposal.

This is going to look and feel different depending on a few different things.

So the first is the size of yourly bring, which I was just talking about, right?

You really have to scale things to what you can do successfully.

So if it's just you or are you working with a staff of 200 people where you might be able to rely on other folks for additional support?

Where you sit in the organization and your role can really impact grant proposal development.

If you're the library director, you already come to this with a lot of decision making power.

But you still have to have stakeholders who need communication about the idea and the project.

The next is preexisting relationships.

Past experiences.

Negative experiences, they just weigh on us.

They weigh on us in our willingness to try again sometimes, or sometimes to try something new.

Positive experiences can also impact our work.

And because they often come with the development of trust, and that trust helps us to be able to navigate through other situations, it's really important to be respectful of that and not take for granted the time and effort that this new proposal will need, and just because it might have gone well in the past.

And I think that is something that Steph really excels at.

She always comes at it with a fresh outlook, and here's a new funder who might be able to really contribute something to the library community, and how do we approach them with as much enthusiasm as we have with folks in the past.

So really think about that investment of time and energy to nurturing these relationships.

Broadly speaking, so much of building support is about communication.

If this is your first experience with a grant proposal, there's going to be a lot to learn.

Now, from the question we asked earlier, we know that most of you have done this at least once in some capacity.

And ideally, your colleagues are going to be there to support you, and the process, or maybe you'll be there to support them.

How we approach the conversations, the communication, and the experience that people have is really going to impact how people will respond to the idea.

So we're going to talk about the importance of stakeholders.

And because when it comes to a successful proposal, they're a huge part of the process.

And this list of potential stakeholders will change depending on your situation.

Your library size is a huge difference.

The level of effort of the grant.

The difference between something that might be $500 versus a massive capital project that's going to be $500,000.

You want to take the time to think about this, because it adds time and steps to the process of -- the proposal review process, the buy-in process that you have to help people through, I think in our experience people really want to feel involved, and to feel that they're being heard, that their ideas, their suggestions, their thinking is reflected in the work that we do.

And you want people to feel excited, and at the very least, interested in the grant opportunity.

But when we engage our stakeholders for example, the staff who are going to do the work on the project, ask them what they think about what they're going to need to be successful.

How much that is going to cost.

And that might be the cost of staff time, the cost of materials, they're going to want to see that their contribution, their expertise are reflected in what we're planning to do.

When you start to -- a proposal idea, just jot down your stakeholders.

Anyone who you might need to review, to approve, to contribute, and those stakeholders can be both internal and external, and those conversations can look really different depending on who they are.

So some of the stakeholders might be people who will read the proposal.

That could be your board, your trustees, it could be staff, it could be a city or county official.

They may all have things to contribute, and make -- and have feedback that can make the proposal stronger.

And there is a twist about the feedback you will receive from these stakeholders, and that is that we're all human, and we come with a huge set of emotions, and the twist is that the feedback you receive can feel negative, but still be supportive.

So it can absolutely feel like people are opposed to a proposal idea, because our tone and approach to providing feedback really matters.

So as an advocate for a project idea, you're likely to be a little biased because of the time you've spent developing the project, and let's face it, we can all become a little attached.

But these stakeholders may challenge some of your thinking and ideas, but you have to believe the goal is always to strengthen the final submission.

So be open to their contributions.

Another aspect is that engaging your stakeholders is a process that can really start small with one to two individuals helping you to brainstorm a plan.

And sometimes this is a tightrope to walk, because you want to get your ducks in a row, but you also don't want to wait too long and have people talking about the possibility of a project, particularly if it's a big one before they've heard it from you directly.

So really think about the priority of who you need to talk to and why.

So we want to do a quick activity in the chat.

And think about some of the concerns that might be raised by your stakeholdering.

And you can go ahead and it can be on any topic.

This could be something that you've heard from a stakeholder, something that you have raised when you've read a grant proposal, you can keep it really generic.

So remember to post your comments to everyone in chat, and we'll go through this.

So one of the things someone asked is, is it a controversial topic?

It's very possible, right?

There are a lot of things that libraries address that have information needs, and that benefit the community that can also be a bit polarizing.

Is it too small in scale?

Is it not worth the time that we're going to be needing to put into it?

How much staff time is needed?

This is one that I think most likely gets under estimated.

That it really does take a long time to bring people up to speed on projects, especially if it's something new.

And do you have enough time to make it happen successfully.

And enough people.

What are the metrics we want to measure and gauge success?

That's great.

That's something that funders are hugely interested in.

And that you'll want to be able to raise.

This is a great one that we think about a lot.

What's the sustainability of a project?

That is huge.

And one of the things at WebJunction, we are able to provide a platform where things can live and they can thrive, and continue to be accessed by the library community.

If you're going to do all this work and all this effort, is it something that you'll be able to sustain beyond the life of the grant?

That's something that your funders are also going to be interested in.

They want to know that you are thinking beyond the end date.

What's the lasting impact it's going to bring to your community?

Your stakeholders may ask about how we're going to advertise the project.
 so that people know it's here.

That's a great one to consider, because very often we know how to get in touch with the people who are using our services, what about the people who we aren't reaching?

If this project is intended to reach a segment of the community who maybe aren't library users, how are you going to achieve that?

Another potential concern that might be raised by your stakeholders is whether it's too difficult to meet the requirements of the grant.

And that's a great point.

There are -- that is a really good thing to look into, and we're going to talk about that as part of our process as well.

Reading those requirements, understanding what your budget tracking needs to look like, what types of certifications do you make, what types of processes do you have to have in place?

If it's too much for the value of the grant, it may not be worth it.

You'll have to choose to make that decision.

What's the time frame for coming at something?

That's really big.

Can you do it in the time that the funder wants you to, or that you have available?

That's a great one.

Let's see, what else do we have here?

You guys have some great concerns.

I love that torture going at this with the idea that you need people to really be prepared for these concerns.

The more that you can be prepared for some of these things that might come up, the better off you'll be.

You'll be more able to respond to those, because you'll give it a little bit of thought.

Someone asked a question in chat if we're available to provide support, WebJunction for such projects.

And the answer is yes, it's something that we do.

We partner with a lot of organizations, particularly folks who are interested in doing training and reaching libraries.

So that's always something that we're open to and willing to pursue.

It's something that we talk about and we are always happy to get on the phone with folks and have a quick conversation about how we might be able to reach our shared goals and objectives.

All right.

Those are some great concerns.

I love it.

So an important reality that underlies a lot of our questions in our individual decision making is, what's in it for me?

So if you have a dog, I had to get a picture of a dog in here, y'all.

But the answer is pretty easy if you have a dog.

What's in it for me?

More snacks, walks, naps.

It's easy.

But our stakeholders are usually maybe unfortunately a little more complicated.

And I don't want this or mean for it to sound selfish, because we really think the me can apply not just to an individual, but the organization.

The team.

It can have broad-reaching implications.

But when you're building organizational support, it's important to think through this question before you approach your stakeholders.

So that you can can be prepared for some of the questions.

The things that you Allied in chat were fantastic.

That -- the things you all listed in chat were fantastic.

Go through all of those, Steph mentioned this is what funders are asking.

What's in it for me is for them really about the community.

They want to see the -- that the community is benefiting from their investments.

And some examples of benefits people may get from a project are things like skill development, right, and I think this can be different than just training or professional development that might be part of a grant.

So rather it could be an opportunity to develop skills in your role as a result of being engaged or managing the project, if it's new to you, you're going to gain new skills.

There's good vibes in being acknowledged for your contributions, right?

If that's something that is important to an individual that they appreciate being recognized, that's something that they can put on their resume, that they can be able to share, that they can use to help with their career.

The what's in it for me could be new resources for your department.

So being able to spell out what it is that people are going to get from participating or being involved, or the library pursuing this project.

So I mentioned that one of the key stakeholders can be partners, and we work with a lot of them.

And I want to expand on this a little bit.

Because one of the stakeholders' components that we want is the aspect that we're often stronger together, and partners can help to strengthen the work that we do.

It's really important, though, to evaluate the partners that you're considering working with, the level of effort that it will take to work with that partner, and confirming that their roles and responsibilities.

One of the partnerships that we see a lot with grant funding and libraries is with the Friends of the Library.

And that's a partnership that's usually well tested, there's a lot of experience there, it's a good symbiotic relationship.

The Friends of the Library Exists to bolster and enhance the value of the library and the community.

Friends often have a 501(c)(3) designation, which may be necessary for the library to receive project funds.

It depends on the funder, it's an important to thing to look into those types of requirements.

But that might be a really necessary partnership in order to be able to apply for and receive a grant.

So making sure that you're on the same page, are their financial tracking systems in place to be able to monitor and manage the grant, there's a lot of things there that you'd want to dig into.

So this is something that we would encourage you to think about, and I would be curious to hear from all of you about some of the benefits of partnerships that you all have experienced, and this is something that you can enter in chat.

And it's going to give others a glimpse into some of the partnerships that have been successful for you, if you've had any unexpected partnerships with a local organization, you can go ahead and pop those into chat.

The opportunity to reach a broader audience with a partner.

That's a huge reason why people partner with WebJunction for service, right?

We have a broad national audience, and we're able to reach out to that audience and share the results of project findings, of a grant, and that's a huge reason why people partner with us.

Being able to share resources and staff I think is huge for us, we think of that a lot as subject matter expertise, like people being able to bring that to our projects from their organization that we may not have.

The importance of building trusts in relationship, I think that's a great skill for us to have.

That accountability that willingness to work on something collaboratively is really valuable and important, it's a great professional skill as well as something that I think we can all use more of in our personal lives as well.

Another benefit could be training that you receive from those subject matter experts and other organizations.

Meeting space as an in-kind donation, I think a lot of organizations appreciate that libraries can bring that to a lot of projects, that they're set up to host community events.

Someone is noting that they've partnered with a local refugee and resettlement center in order to help their population and use their translation services, which is fantastic.

Finding that unexpected partner.

I will say that one of the things that we have learned in some of the work that we have done is that libraries aren't often thought of by external partners.

They have positive thinking and positive thoughts about the library, but they don't often think of them as implementation partners.

So I would encourage you that you might have to make the first step with some of these folks, so that you can show them all the library has to offer.

It's a really great opportunity to help them see the power of benefiting with the library.

Thanks for sharing some of those tips.

It's great to hear what you all have been working on.

And I'm going to pass it over to Steph, who is going to talk about the importance of submitting a strong application.

>> STEPH HARMON: Thanks, Kendra.

A strong application means you need to have a solid plan.

And this looks like a solid plan, doesn't it?

This is a really detailed and very, very robust version of what this process can look like.

Hopefully this is not too intimidating.

We find submitting a strong application is truly helped by having this process to follow.

This process can be months long, or it can just last a few weeks.

Maybe some of the steps in this overview aren't as necessary based on their -- the requirements your submission has, your opportunity has.

But every priority and every opportunity needs to be evaluated separately.

It's important to give yourself the time to do this well.

And to set your library up for a successful experience.

This overview you can see too, it has that there may be a cycle of iteration in it.

We often will go around in circles in a couple of places here, while we're refining a proposal.

Which can be one of the reasons why it can take a little longer.

But it might also just not be that complicated.

So let's have a look at some tips.

We've got a couple of tips for submitting successful proposals.

The very first one is something Kendra mentioned before -- read the requirements.

And then Kendra always says, and then read them again.

Because inevitably you think you've understood it all, and then it's often so much information, it's good to review and review.

Before you start the process, make sure that you can provide everything that the funder needs for your application.

They might need tax statements.

Do you have them?

Do they need the organization's budget?

Who do you need to coordinate with to get all the pieces together?

It can be a really frustrating experience to be scrambling at the very last minute at the end and asking colleagues for last-minute paperwork.

So create a schedule for yourself, with all of the things that you're going to need and a checklist.

This ties really in to checking the requirements.

We'll often use the requirements themselves and turn it into a checklist.

And then convert it into a timeline.

Kendra is nodding.

This is an opportunity to determine who is going to do the work, and then it's really good to get clear who's expected to do what and when?

Get those roles and responsibilities nailed down at the beginning.

So you're not looking at each other saying, "I thought you were going to do that, Kendra?

I thought you were going to do that, Steph?"

We don't ever do that.

We talk about the curse of knowledge sometimes on my team and how by knowing so much about something you almost end up having an educated incapacity.

It's really important to get outside perspective.

Kendra talked a little bit about how you can involve your stakeholders in this process.

Asking someone else to read your proposal is a really powerful opportunity.

It's ideally someone who is not familiar with the proposal concept, so that they don't bring prior knowledge to the review.

That can really help in clarifying whether or not you're making sense, and if it's a compelling argument.

You might be from a really small library with really few possibilities for other staff to help you with this.

But the chances are good that you have a network who can help you.

You can reach out to a trusted colleague in the field, and ask them to review your proposal.

Just be sure you give them enough time.

You can ask in advance, you can let them know your schedule.

And the timing for when you'd provide a draft.

It's also a really good way to keep yourself on track.

And maybe one of the best tips is, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good here.

Get the draft out, have it reviewed, and then give yourself some time to take the advice that your reviewers give you and improve and strengthen your proposal.

As we mentioned before, there are also funders who also give you the opportunity to float a proposal by them.

If they say they'll review a presubmission, it's a terrific opportunity to get feedback from them.

We have found that the people who work at these agencies are really incredibly generous with their time.

And if their rules allow, they'll look at a proposal for us before the final submission.

They provide preliminary feedback and we can go back and make, especially if we give ourselves enough time, make revisions so the proposal is as strong as it can be.

Just be sure to check if it's possible to do that with them, and the deadline and the timeline for their review.

So once you've done all that, then it's time to start polishing.

Proofread your proposal and put your best foot forward.

Dot your Is, cross your Ts, show them your very best.

Go beyond a spell check and look for misuse of words, and make things tidy.

Are all the font styles and sizes the same?

Some funders require that you use a particular font.

A particular size.

A particular margin.

Just check to make sure all those things are in order.

And then if you can find someone who loves formatting, and I'm looking at you, Kendra, this is her favorite part of the process, just about.

She really enjoys pulling it all together and making sure it looks really good.

She can also find ways to bid extra lines in.

I don't even know how she does it.

It's magic.

And then you'll need to authorize the submission.

Someone is going to need sign-off on the submission.

Make sure you know who that is, and make sure they are not on vacation when the deadline comes.

Are they going to be around, are they going to be traveling for work, have you built in wiggle room to allow for schedule changes?

Don't let those very last steps thwart all the good work you've done until now.

And then submit everything that's required.

Take the package that you have, go back through that list of requirements you made, and check, check, check.

Everything there?

Awesome.

Get it in by the deadline.

Then, this is an important part, it's committing to submitting is a big process.

And it's worth celebrating once you hit that submit button.

It can also be a long wait between submission and notification, so it's worth just noting that your good work resulted in that.

And then after the wait, there's the award notification.

Woo!

So it could be weeks, but it could be months.

You will eventually hear from the funder about the status of your request.

And it is always great when the answer is yes.

And that's exciting.

And new.

And it's going to bring something of great value to your library.

And your community.

So acknowledge the fund can and send your thanks.

You could also consider the -- consider asking the contact if there's any feedback they have that will consider the -- any feedback that they have that you can consider to strengthen the project once you start implementation.

And you're going to have plenty to keep yourself busy.

As you plan to launch that new project.

And on the other hand, while it can be disappointing to hear no, it isn't necessarily bad if the answer is not this time.

Or, plain old no.

You can learn a lot from a no.

Don't take it personally.

With grant proposals, a no really doesn't always mean that your idea is bad.

Or even that it's unfundable.

It can mean a number of things.

It might mean that it's a good proposal, but the funder just had so many great other applications that they really had to make a tough choice.

And yours just didn't make it this time.

Often there's really only a small percentage of proposals that were submitted that receive funding.

Some foundations and agencies will provide feedback about why you were not accepted for funding at this time.

If there's a chance to ask for that feedback, one of the best things you can do after receiving a no is to reach out to your contact and get their input on what could make your proposal stronger.

They might have suggestions for other funders that could be interested in the proposal as well.

They are all colleagues, and they know each others' work, so it's possible that they say not for us now, but you might Kwan to check out this community foundation.

You might also learn that maybe the project you're proposing would have been strengthened by collaborating with community partners.

Or maybe you didn't ask for enough funding to support the work.

Maybe you need to reword some sections of the proposal so that the funder can more easily recognize be how this project aligns with their mission, and objectives.

Or maybe it was just a question of timing.

Submitting a proposal can put your library on a funder's radar for the very first time.

And if you're allowed to resubmit the next year or the next round, in that case you'll be familiar to them and they might better understand how your work aligns with theirs.

Sometimes a good idea just needs to take hold, and by resubmit can the same proposal, you give the funder a chance to warm up to your organization and your ideas.

>> KENDRA MORGAN: We have found ourselves resubmitting proposals, and tweaking them, and making some adjustments.

Sometimes I think Steph even to a different funder, right?

We've found out that this isn't the best place for it, and taking it somewhere else, because the idea is so good, and we know it's going to be helpful.

So be --

>> STEPH HARMON: We've had a proposal we submitted three times to the same funder.

Before it was finally funded.

It took some perseverance and persistence, but it was worth it.

>> KENDRA MORGAN: Absolutely.

Thank you.

All right.

We would love to see your questions coming through in chat.

We have a couple that we'll answer when we get to the end.

But I wanted to walk through some of the resources.

One of the whole reasons WebJunction exists is to make sure that library staff has skills and the resources they need to be able to do their jobs.

And so no surprise, we've collected a bunch of resources on our site that you'll be able to take advantage of.

So the first is something that we talked about, the Candid tool for visualizing library funding be.

There's a course in the WebJunction course catalog, freely available to everyone, that you can take on grantseeking for libraries.

It dives a little bit more deeply into some of the things that we didn't talk about today, it's absolutely worth checking out.

It will take you roughly an hour to go through, and it's a great way to spend a little bit more time exploring some tools and resources, and thinking about your process, so we encourage you to check that out.

We also have a webinar, and -- on beyond book sales, practical ideas for raising funds for your librarys.

The thing to think about here is that there is a multiple ways of finding funding for your library.

And you might very well have a book sale with your Friends of the Library, but this is an approach that you might be able to use to diversify the funding that's coming and made available to you.

The next topic is budget and funding, true story, I love budgeting, I love spreadsheet, it's my geeky little super power.

So on WebJunction we do have a collection of resources on finding grant funds and budgeting.

And one thing that we would really encourage you to think about is making sure you ask for what you need.

And quite a few of you entered that into the challenges that might be raised by your stakeholders.

Do we have enough resources to do this?

Do we have enough money?

Will it cover the budget?

You really need to dig into that question about what you're going to need to be successful.

If it's a small little grant, let's say $500, which could be a huge support to your library or to a program that you might not have been able to offer, might not need to spend as much time.

But if you are looking at requesting five, 10, $15,000, you really want to think about, are you asking for enough to do what you need to accomplish?

So we -- that grantseeking for libraries course that I mentioned, in interviews they did while making the course, the folks at Candid heard from funders that they actually have to encourage people to ask for more funding.

Than they initially asked for.

They didn't think big enough.

Don't be afraid to go for the big ask.

Write down all the things that you think you need, I think one of the areas where people often underestimate is in the time that's going to be required.

You could put in staff time to do that work.

Thous something that could absolutely be covered by a grant, and it's worth asking for.

But you need to figure out what it's going to look like, how you would track that.

Can you do that successfully?

Your library may not be set up to monitor or track hourly contributions from staff, maybe you don't have anything that could help with that.

Could you implement something that would meet the funder's requirements?

But think about that staff time, and don't just assume it's already covered by the library budget, because if you can get the funding to cover it, that's a great use of additional funds to support other projects.

Don't be afraid to go big.

The next topic is one of the things we've kind of emphasized throughout the session today, is the importance of knowing what your community needs in order to be able to tell that story to your funder.

And going through a community discovery process is a great way to learn more about what those needs are.

One of the tools that we have available that was created through a grant is the toolkit for creating smart spaces, which provides models and resources for doing this work.

Now, while the examples were specific to smart space development, you could apply it to all kinds of things in your library.

So the two examples that are shown here, one is with the Poy Sippi library in Wisconsin, they mocked up what the changes to their library might look like, and that was to encourage discussion and ideation among the community.

The second is the Yaimea pu in Hawaii, which used a dot board at a community event to ask patrons to think about the question, what would make this library even better?

And approaches like these can be part of the case that you make to funders that show you are working with and for the communities to understand how to meet local needs.

All of the information about how to do these with your community can be found on WebJunction, JP has posted the link into chat.

So that you can take advantage of that.

All right.

So we're almost to the end of the session.

And we do want to leave time for questions.

But I wanted to reiterate the top five things that we want you to be able to take away today.

The first is that finding these grants is going to take time and planning.

The second is, understanding how to align your proposal with what a funder offers, requires some research, you're going to have to sharpen those pencils and do the homework.

Making the case is not about your library, it's about the people and community you serve.

You are the conduit for making those improvements, and service enhancements.

The fourth is that funders and organizations are made up of people.

And they're building good relationships with them is key.

So are the relationships that you have with the grant team, with the partners who support the project.

So really focus on those relationships.

And finally, as Steph noted in that cycle, this is often ongoing.

And it very often isn't a one and done thing.

And it can be an ongoing cycle, and it's important to take your time and realize that sometimes no comes along as part of the process.

We can take that information and keep learning, and finding the right project at the right time with the right funder.

All right.

Jennifer, do we have any specific questions that we'd like to hit on?

>> JENNIFER PETERSON: Thank you so much, both of you.

There were some great conversations that popped up in chat.

Feel free to still post additional questions.

But I wonder if you can speak, it kind of came up in the -- one of the early exercises in terms of stakeholder concerns.

And I think it's sort of at a macro level, the issue of either the board, or the community, other stakeholders in the community thick that the library doesn't need additional fund can, the library -- the perception that the lay bring is overfunded if it's getting additional grants, or that sort of general idea that, wait, why are we getting more funding?

We're providing that funding.

So can you talk about how to maybe have that conversation spernally with your staff to kind of help shift that assumption that folks have, that stakeholders have?

>> STEPH HARMON: I've got a couple of ideas about that.

One, it needs to be part of a bigger conversation about your revenue streams.

Grant funding is only one possible stream of revenue.

And it's soft, as we call it in the field.

It's not necessarily going to be sustainable.

So grant funding is a great thing to start or spark new initiatives.

But library funding is really regular, someone called it regular library funding, it's really needed to sustain any new initiatives that get started by grants.

Grant funding is also great for one-off equipment, maybe new shelving, getting a new desk for the reference area.

It doesn't mean that's going to be there next year.

We can't rely on grants.

Especially in the last few years, over the pandemic, when so much funding was made available on a sort of very short notice, very emergency basis, that gives a completely inflated perspective on what's possible and what's out there.

That was really unusual.

Those are my first thoughts.

Kendra?

>> KENDRA MORGAN: I think that's really helpful.

And kind of sets the stage that we can have a multi-pronged approach to doing this work, and that it doesn't mean that there isn't sufficient funding, but sometimes we have unique projects that are better suited for grants, or that can really open up a different opportunity that's not available.

And I think sometimes just explaining that to folks can help, and it's about that communication and the relationship building for sure.

So that people feel like, yes, I hear what you're saying, and here's some the reasons we still think this is important.

>> JENNIFER PETERSON: Excellent.

I just want to acknowledge, I know somebody chimed in to chat, talking about their situation, their public school librarian, and their annual budget is $900 a year for 425-450 students.

So this librarian relies on grants.

And does get many of them, but certainly is to have to rely on the grants and not a budget is definitely stressful.

So, yeah.

I want to acknowledge that, that many of you are relying on grants in order to do your work.

So absolutely.

Thank you so much to everyone who joined us today.

It's been an honor to work with Kendra and Steph, and I will send you all an email later today once the recording is posted.

I'll also automatically send you a certificate for attending today.

And I'm actually going to send you to a short survey as you leave the session, if you don't have time to complete it now, the email will also have that link.

We really appreciate your feedback.

It helps us guide our ongoing programming and I'll share that for sure with our presenters as well.

Thank you to our captioner, and thank you again to Steph and Kendra.

Everyone, have a great rest of your week, and we'll see you at our next session.

Bye bye.