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How to Find, Write, and Win Grants
U.S.
Department of Education Grant Programs
The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA)
The Foundation Center
SchoolGrants.org
Additional Sources of Grants & Contests
Web Sites to Help You Write and Win Grants
Deconstructing a Grant
Before & After Pointers for Grants
How to Describe IntelliTools in a Grant Application
Section 508 Compliance Reports
U.S. Department of Education
To support improvements in teaching and learning and to help meet special
needs of schools and students in elementary and secondary education,
the U.S. Department of Education will deliver $36 billion in 2005 to
states and school districts, primarily through formula-based grant programs.
The Department of Education Web
site provides grant descriptions, application
forms, and deadlines for Grant Application Packages for grant competitions
that are currently open. Examples of available grant programs include:
- Reading First Program
- Early Reading First Program
- Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants Program
- Smaller Learning Communities Program
- Public Charter School Program
- Improving Literacy Through School Libraries Program
- and
many more
The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance
(CFDA)
The online Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, www.cfda.gov,
gives you access to a database of all federal programs available to
state and local governments (including the District of Columbia); federally
recognized Indian tribal governments; Territories (and possessions)
of the United States; domestic public, quasi-public, and private profit
and nonprofit organizations and institutions; specialized groups; and
individuals. The CFDA Web site is updated biweekly as new or updated
program information is received from federal agencies.
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The Foundation Center
Founded in 1956, The Foundation Center, www.fdncenter.org,
is the nation's leading authority on philanthropy and is dedicated to
serving grantseekers, grantmakers, researchers, policymakers, the media,
and the general public. The Foundation Center's mission is to support
and improve philanthropy by promoting public understanding of the field
and helping grantseekers succeed. It collects, organizes, and communicates
information on U.S. philanthropy; conducts and facilitates research
on trends in the field; provides education and training on the grantseeking
process; and ensures public access to information and services through
its Web site, print and electronic publications, five library/learning
centers, and a national network of Cooperating Collections.
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SchoolGrants.org
SchoolGrants, www.schoolgrants.org,
was created in 1999 as a way to share grant information with preK-12
educators. Grant writing can be intimidating
to those who are new at it. SchoolGrants helps ease those
fears by providing online tips to those who need them. Finding
suitable grant opportunities requires a great deal of time and research
- SchoolGrants reduces
the effort by listing a variety of opportunities available
to elementary and secondary schools and districts across the United
States.
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Education Grants & Contests
Database
Technology & Learning magazine's Web site, www.techlearning.com,
provides an extensive
database of over 225 grants and contests available to educators,
including grants for educators, students, schools, and professional
development needs. The sources of the grants include government agencies,
nonprofit sector, private sector, and corporate entities.
Web Sites to Help You Write and Win
Grants
Technology & Learning has compiled an excellent source
list at its Web site, linking to authoritative sources for locating
grants, starting with its own database but also including The Foundation
Center and SchoolGrants databases. It includes descriptions of and
links to ten Web sites that provide advice on how to write grant proposals,
including sites such as the Foundation Center, which provides a free,
online short course for proposal writing.
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Deconstructing a Grant
Whether it's a few thousand dollars for a classroom program or several
hundred thousand to design and implement a district-wide plan, grants
are a wonderful source of money to fund your technology dreams. But
competition can be tough. What are the keys to writing a winning proposal?
Author Gwen Solomon, Director of Technology & Learning's
Web site, techlearning.com,
walks you through the Basics of Grant Writing, including presentation,
executive summary, needs/goals/objectives, narrative, and budget planning.
Before & After Pointers for
Grants
To help you through the work-intensive, time-consuming process of
grant writing and implementing, Gwen Solomon, Director of Technology
& Learning's Web site, techlearning.com,
provides Great Tips for getting the most out of your effort, from
the fundamentals to consider before you write it, to what to do after
you win the grant.
How to Describe IntelliTools in a Grant
Application
If you are submitting a grant application for funding to purchase
IntelliTools products, here are handy definitions of our company and
individual products to use in your application.
The Company
IntelliTools®, Inc., a pioneer in learning solutions
for the diverse classroom, has been producing award-winning classroom
tools for preK-8 education for over 20 years. Early on, IntelliTools
designed products for students who face challenges ranging from learning
disabilities to significant physical disabilities. Its flagship product,
IntelliKeys, is a programmable alternative keyboard that
enables users with physical, visual or cognitive disabilities to easily
type, enter numbers, navigate on-screen displays, and execute menu
commands.
In recent years, IntelliTools has broadened its product offering,
developing curriculum software to help all preK-8 students meet national
and state standards in math and language arts, including its award-winning
IntelliTools Reading: Balanced Literacy program for emerging
readers and IntelliTools Math products. Its Classroom Suite
of three integrated tools, IntelliTalk 3, IntelliMathics
3, and IntelliPics Studio 3, offers a complete set of
resources for both general education and special needs students, truly
meeting the needs of the diverse classroom. ReadyMade Curriculum Activities
complement Classroom Suiteís tools, providing educators with
ready-to-use activities for literacy, math, science, and social studies.
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IntelliTools' Products
IntelliTools Classroom Suite brings together into
a cross-platform, network-ready integrated suite three award-winning
preK-8 classroom tools: IntelliPics Studio 3, IntelliMathics
3, and IntelliTalk 3. Classroom Suite provides teachers
the tools to achieve classroom goals, with standards-aligned curriculum-based
activities, answer tracking and assessment, and creativity and self-expression
authoring capabilities.
IntelliTools® Reading: Balanced Literacy
is an award-winning nine-unit program that provides a full year of
supplementary literacy instruction at a first-grade skill level. It
includes 142 lessons; 117 letter, pattern, and decodable mini books;
212 phonics activities; and 27 structured writing exercises. Research
with students has shown dramatic improvement in phonemic awareness
and recognition of onsets and rimes.
Number Concepts 1 with Oshi the Otter is
a K-2 level math program for learning counting from 1-20, beginning
addition and subtraction, and greater than/less than concepts. Features
include build-in assessment, teacher options, online help, continuous
auditory support, and engaging graphics.
Number Concepts 2 with Penn and Gwen is
a Grade 3-5 level math program for learning skip counting, place value
and base ten, and factoring and multiples. Features include build-in
assessment, teacher options, online help, continuous auditory support,
and engaging graphics.
MathPad is an electronic worksheet that
enables K-2 level students to do addition, subtraction, multiplication,
and division directly on the computer. It is ideal for students who
need help organizing or navigating through math problems or who have
difficulty doing math worksheets with pencil and paper.
MathPad Plus: Fractions and Decimals is
an electronic worksheet that enables grade 3-8 level students to do
onscreen addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division using
fractions and decimals. MathPad Plus is especially useful for adapting
problems from worksheets or textbooks so students with learning disabilities
can work on the same problems as their classmates.
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ReadyMade® Fractions 1 is a set
of ready-to-use grade 3-5 level curriculum-based activities, designed to
meet NCTM and state curriculum standards, and built
to open within IntelliMathics® or a free Player. Topics covered include
parts of a set, sorting fractions, comparing fractions, equivalent fractions,
and number line fractions.
ReadyMade® Fractions 2 is a set
of ready-to-use grade 3-5 level curriculum-based activities, designed to
meet NCTM and state curriculum standards, and built
to open within IntelliMathics® or a free Player. Topics covered include
adding fractions, subtracting fractions, rounding fractions, fractions
and decimals, and data analysis.
ReadyMade® Primary Writing is
a set of ready-to-use grade K-2 level curriculum activities, designed to
meet national and state curriculum standards,
and built to open within IntelliTalk® 3 or a free Player. It provides
instruction and interactive practice activities in important literary concepts
to help students build writing skills.
ReadyMade® Primary Literacy is a set of ready-to-use grade K-2 level
curriculum activities, designed to meet national and state curriculum standards,
and built to open within IntelliPics® Studio or a free Player. It
provides instruction and interactive practice activities in important literary
concepts to help students build literacy skills.
ReadyMade® Lewis and Clark is a set of ready-to-use grade 3-5 level
curriculum activities, designed to meet national and state curriculum standards,
and built to open within IntelliTalk II®, IntelliPics® Studio,
or a free Player. It provides instruction and interactive practice activities
tied to elementary social studies units on the westward expansion.
IntelliKeys® USB is a programmable alternative keyboard that plugs
into the keyboard port of any Macintosh or Windows computer. It enables
users with physical, visual, or cognitive disabilities to easily type,
enter numbers, navigate on-screen displays, and execute menu commands.
Users may choose among six standard printed overlays that accompany the
product, featuring large, well-spaced keys in high-contrast colors to make
it easy to locate letters and numbers.
Overlay Maker® is a companion program for the IntelliKeys alternative
keyboard, enabling the user to create paper overlays to personalize their
IntelliKeys keyboard for individual preferences, such as size, color, and
layout of keys. It also can be used to program keys for specific functions,
such as shortcuts to applications or the Internet.
Section 508 Compliance
Reports Available
Many school districts now require Section 508 compliance statements in
order to process software requests and orders. Should you need Section
508 compliance statements for Grant applications, IntelliTools can help
you speed the process with Compliance Reports here at our Web site.
Some background information: The Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998,
which cover access to federally funded programs and services, strengthen
Section 508 of the Act, requiring federal agencies to purchase electronic
and information technology that is accessible except where it would cause
an "undue burden." An upshot has been that the Information Technology
Industry Council partnered with the U.S. General Services Administration
(GSA) to create a simple, Internet-based tool to assist federal contracting
and procurement officials in fulfilling the new market research requirements
contained in the Section 508 implementing regulations.
The result: the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template, or VPAT. Vendors
who want to support Section 508 standards have the option of voluntarily
posting VPATs on GSA's Buy Accessible Web site (www.section508.gov) as
well as their own Web sites.
IntelliTools supports Section 508 standards and has posted VPAT reports
for each of our products. See Our
Reports.
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