Speaker 1: Welcome to the Grant Management and Funding Sources webinar. This is Mickey Shields with the Iowa League of Cities, and we thank you for joining us for another edition in our 2017 webinar series. We hope you find this webinar helpful, along with the other options of this year's series. You can also access archived webinars from previous webinar series on the League website at www.iowaleague.org. Before we begin, I want to first thank the League's endorsed programs for their continued support of city governments and the League. I also want to thank our sponsors of this webinar, Fox Engineering and the State Revolving Fund. We appreciate their involvement with the League and for helping cities across the state find successful solutions. To get started, I would like to go over a couple things about the webinar. The League's webinar series are free to access and view on our website at any time. Any handouts are available on the website as well. Finally, please send any questions to the League, and we will be happy to answer them. This webinar will provide a look at grant opportunities and management, which is an important issue for all cities since accessing grant funding can be vital for certain city projects and programs. We will also provide details on GrantFinder, a new League partnership that provides our members a very affordable grant tracking service. Later on, we will hear from Kara Friedman at GrantFinder, as she will provide a tutorial on using the online tool. Starting with grant management, one issue we see with many cities is they do not adequately plan for managing grants and seeking grant opportunities. An important first step for any city is to figure out what kind of plan they have, if any, for managing their grant activity. In order to really manage grants well, it is helpful to include grant seeking and grant opportunities in regular city planning efforts. This can include a city's capital improvements plan, goal setting and strategic planning, priorities, development plans, and more. While discussing these plans, there is often discussion regarding how particular city projects or programs will be funded, including the potential for grant funding. This points to the need for the council and city staff to have a plan for its use of grants. Along with that, it is a good idea to frequently discuss the city's grant activity throughout the year as different opportunities arise or to review how previous grants were used. Another important facet to successful grant management is having a clear understanding of the budgetary impact. Obtaining grant funding is great, but cities must understand how it will affect their budget. This is especially true for any grants that require a local match, of some sort. More and more grant opportunities require some kind of matching amount these days, and cities must be ready to meet their obligations under such a scenario. This likely means the city will need to budget for matching grants prior to receiving any grants so the city match is immediately available. Keep in mind that some projects and programs are supported by two or more areas of the city budget, which again speaks to the need of having a thoughtful plan for how any city match will be handled. Given that most cities have limited budget resources, there will be a need to prioritize which city projects and programs the city will attempt to bolster with grant funding. In light of the potential need to provide matching funds, it makes sense for cities to rank which items receive priority as the city seeks grant assistance. Likewise, the city should prioritize the potential grant opportunities that they may be interested in. There are numerous funding opportunities that cities may access, whether it be state and federal programs or local foundations, local businesses, and more. However, cities should find the right blend of projects and programs that they want to do and those that need grant assistance. All of this budget work needs to be done well in advance of setting the city budget, which must be certified by March 15 of each year. Some cities have lost out on grant opportunities because they had not properly budgeted for their potential grant activity. Make sure your city is ready by including grant opportunities in your budget plans. As the city plans for future grant activities, it will need to identify a grant coordinator. Whether it is the city clerk, city manager, mayor, council member, or another individual with the city, the city should have someone tasked with coordinating everything. Now, note that a city could simply work with a private grant consultant or contractor or an outside agency. Somebody that does grant seeking and grant management in conjunction with cities. That's fine, as long as everyone understands who is coordinating the grant work and how they will serve the city. Along those lines, cities should also understand how they may partner with other entities, whether for grant management assistance or as potential partners for grants. Some grants these days allow multiple entities to participate and apply for funding, which is often a great way to impact more citizens, but also requires identifying who will serve as the coordinator and also who will serve as the lead agency for particular types of grants. Grant calendars are also important to successful grant management. Developing a calendar will help the city track the different opportunities it may be interested in throughout the year, as well as note the deadlines for grant applications and when grant awards are announced. Also, if working with partners on a grant opportunity, it's helpful to develop a calendar or timeframe as different items may be needed from the respective partners. Nearly all grant opportunities will require the city to complete and submit some type of application. Again, it's important for every city to understand who will be tasked with completing the application and submitting it on time. As you begin an application, one piece of advice is to first go over the application to see what kind of information will be required and who is eligible to actually receive the grant. I've talked to cities over the years that submitted a grant application for a grant that they were not eligible for. In some cases, a grant may be designed for only certain types of cities, such as those less than 5,000 in population, and therefore some cities are simply not eligible for that grant. Before doing all the work for completing a grant application, be sure your city is actually eligible and that you can supply all of the information requested. Another bit of guidance for grant applications is to have your city's demographic data handy. A lot of grants ask for basic city info, such as population, income levels, education levels, age breakdown of the community, ethnicity breakdown of the city, and much more. A lot of this info can be obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau, but in some cases you'll need to do a little extra digging. It's also common for applications to request a city history or narrative, which provides you the opportunity to share a little about your city, as well as why the city needs the grant funding. It's important to tell a good story in these types of sections, but to also stay on point and connect the narrative to the grant opportunity. Continuing on with grant applications, most now will require some kind of budget to be included. Often, this section wants the applicant to show how the grant funding will be used and how important it is to the overall funding of the project or program. This is where a city will show its matching amount or other contributions, as well as any funding or work it may be receiving from other partners, which can help show broad-based support and elevate the city's application. Another common component is a project or program timeline or completion schedule, which is really getting at the applicant demonstrating the ability to use the grant funding effectively and bring services to citizens. Double-check each grant opportunity on whether there are any stipulations for using the grant money by a certain date or any deadlines for completing a project. In some cases, the grant funding must be used by the end of a fiscal year, or the applicant must guarantee the project to be completed by a certain date. These are important to know prior to submitting your application. Many applications will also require a demonstration of support, which for cities typically means having community partners offer their support through letters and explaining how the project or program will provide a positive impact to residents and citizens in the community. Lastly, it is absolutely necessary to have grant applications reviewed by at least two or three other people. I can't stress how important this is to get some kind of help in reviewing the application itself and to provide edits and feedback along the way. And after those folks are done, review it again. Turning in a grant application with errors and typos will almost surely end any chances of it being successful. Applying for and receiving grants is a big part of the process, of course, but that's typically not the end of it. It's become pretty standard these days to include some type of assessment and evaluation of the grant, so cities will need to provide follow-up as required. This may include evaluation of the project or program itself, such as whether deadlines were met on completing a project or whether a program is achieving its intended results. Cities may also be asked to provide a follow-up budget to see how the grant funding was used and whether the funding was used appropriately. In some cases, a project or program may go on for several years, and there may be a stipulation for ongoing evaluation and feedback. Along with any required evaluation, cities should also review its work internally. This will help provide details on whether a grant was successful and worth pursuing again in future years, whether additional funding is necessary, if other partners may be needed, if the city needs to change its grant management or application processes, and more. We'll now move on to grant sources, and one thing I would underscore is that finding different grant opportunities and funding sources takes a lot of time and commitment. Whether a city has one person leading the charge or utilizes several folks, keeping track of the different grants can be a lot of work. Whether it's state and federal government programs and resources, local foundations, or private businesses, grant opportunities change from year to year. Sometimes one program will dissolve and another is created, sometimes the funding levels are changed, sometimes the eligibility standards are changed, and sometimes the application deadlines change. It really takes some effort to stay on top of all the different sources and all the different activities that are required when you're completing your grant applications and being involved in grant searches. For most cities, the primary source of grant funding comes through the various state and federal agencies that have programs established to provide funding to cities. While there are too many to detail here, these opportunities typically come up each year with similar eligibility standards and application deadlines. The other common funding sources include local foundations, such as the community foundations spread across the state. Also, many local organizations and private businesses offer grant opportunities that cities are eligible to apply for. To help cities search for grant opportunities and better manage their grants, the League has formed a new partnership for the GrantFinder program. The partnership with EfficientGov will provide interested cities access to GrantFinder, which is an online program with the largest searchable database of private, state, and federal grants available to cities. In addition to providing a robust search and tracking system of grant opportunities, users can also create a grant calendar, set individual grant alerts, and save their grant materials. Under our partnership, League members can purchase yearly access for just $50 per year, payable to the League. The program will be available first come, first served to the first 100 cities. Any interested cities are encouraged to contact us. And now I'll turn things over to Kara Friedman with GrantFinder, and she will give a tutorial on setting up a GrantFinder account, how to create a grants calendar, and how to conduct different searches for grant opportunities.

Speaker 2: When you log into GrantFinder, it's best not to use a web browser like Internet Explorer. If you have access to Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, you'll have a better overall experience. The first thing you'll want to do is sign up for your grant alerts. Click right here to your grant alerts. The first step that you're going to want to do is change your email status, which will say it off, to on. Click on Update Status. Scroll down to the series of drop-down menus. Select the grant categories which apply to your search. Deselect anything that doesn't apply. Select the funder types from the list. You can select all four. Select your state and geographic coverage so that you know any of the opportunities you receive in your grant alert you're actually eligible to apply. Match requirement. If you keep this as NA, you'll get opportunities that both have a match and don't have a match. Finally, a two can apply. Select whatever closely resembles your organization or your town, city, or county government. Keep in mind if you ever partner with another organization, you may want to include that here. Second step, update your preferences. You'll get another message that says your preferences have been changed. Once a week, your grant alert will look like this. The first section will be your saved grants that have been updated recently. Updates can be date updates, can be program personnel updates, it can be application requirement updates. The second section will be the new and updated grants, and those will match the criteria that you set up in the second section. All the opportunities listed in your grant alert are hyperlinked, so you can get right to the description of the grant in GrantFinder when you click on that. The next thing I want to show you is our grant calendar. This is a comprehensive way of looking at funding opportunities available to you in your state by deadline. You can always toggle on it since it's very comprehensive. It is color-coded. Nonetheless, I think it's easier to select corporate opportunities, filter the rest out, and see what's remaining. If you find an opportunity that way, you can click on it and get right to the grant details page in GrantFinder. Next, we're going to look at a grant search. We have over 7,600 opportunities in GrantFinder now. We're constantly updating the database, and we update the actual opportunities about 150 each week. We have a team of about 30 grant professionals working on that. Any of the opportunities in bold and in red with the red clock pointing out that the deadline is coming up soon. Any of the deadlines in italics is simply indicating that this opportunity is an estimated deadline. We're not sure of the concrete deadline yet. It would behoove you to save an opportunity like this into your Save Grants section so that you get that update in your grant alert. Any of the opportunities that have a green calendar like this in the deadline column is simply indicating that this has a rolling deadline. So there's more flexibility. These are your filters. The more filters you use, the fewer results you'll get here. Keyword and grant category you'll want to experiment with every time you go into GrantFinder. Grant category is a predetermined drop-down menu. You can select more than one of these. You can use that alone, or you can add a keyword. Keyword often pulls that word from the grant summary, which we'll see in a moment. Funder type, if you leave it blank, you'll get all four results. Funder name, we've added this in case you know of a funder and you want to see the short description. Application deadline, if you keep this as is any, this is the best bet for you to start saving grants to your Save Grants section so that you get updates in your grant alert. Ultimately, if you want to establish a concrete deadline, select is and then pick the date in the drop-down menu. Rolling deadline, if you only want to see the green calendar flexible opportunities, select that here. Match requirement, if you keep it blank, you'll see both opportunities with the match and without a match. Administering state, that may not be as important to you. In Massachusetts, if we administer a grant, we may open it up to California, Colorado, Connecticut, so that's up to you. Geographic coverage, you definitely want to select your state so that you know you're eligible to apply to the opportunities that you see. Finally, it's who can apply. Select whatever closely resembles you and your search, and keep in mind if you're ever partnering with an organization. Click search, and you'll get results. When you click on a funding opportunity, you'll see the summary, the description. This is typically where, if you had used a keyword, it would pull the word from. If you scroll down, we include a program link, if available, an announcement link, and application link. When you click on them, it typically opens in another webpage. Sometimes you'll see a PDF or a Word document. When available, we try to include program contact information. If you reach out and find some additional information that you think is relevant to the database, we enjoy interacting with our users. We've created this button here. You can fill it out, send it to us, and we update the database. We also have a division that does grant writing assistance. You can click on this, fill it out. We forward it to the appropriate individual who will contact you about our services and about our fees. If you scroll down more, we try to include opportunities that are available from the same funder. If you save this opportunity, you'll get a pop-up that says it's been saved to your saved grants folder. Now you know you'll get those updates in your grant alerts. If you want to share this opportunity with an individual who does not have a license to GrantFinder, you can download this. It creates a PDF of the grant summary, and you can share it with that person. On the right bottom corner here is a little smiley face. When you're using GrantFinder and you have any questions, you can start a new conversation with me. I try to reply within about 15 minutes. I am monitoring this Eastern Time, 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. Your saved grants are right here. First thing that you'll notice is that we have our second calendar. This calendar populates according to the deadlines of the funding opportunities that you've saved. And all of those saved grants are right below there. If you decide that you don't want to monitor one of these grants, you can click on Remove, and it'll take it away. And that's GrantFinder. Thank you.

Speaker 1: Thank you, Kara. We are excited about the new partnership and the services it offers cities in Iowa. We also thank the viewers of the webinar. And as always, please contact Aleve with any questions. Thanks.