Successful Grant Writing A Learned Process

By Nancy K. Crevier

Newtown resident Dr Anne Rothstein, a professor in the Department of Early Childhood and Elementary Education at Lehman College in the Bronx, N.Y., and faculty member there for 47 years, has spent the last 26 years submitting and being awarded federal, state, and local grants, as well as implementing programs funded by the grants. Her grant applications have resulted in more than $250 million in awards benefiting students in the Bronx, from kindergarten through college.

On Tuesday, March 30, the United States Department of Education awarded a grant of more than $7.8 million to Lehman College through the Teacher Quality Partnership Program. One of only 12 such grants awarded nationwide, Dr Rothstein was the primary writer of the proposal and will serve as the research director of the MATH UP program that will prepare elementary and early childhood school teachers in the Bronx to become more specialized in math. Many early education teachers have a “math phobia,” and that is passed on to the students, who are then not prepared as they enter higher levels of education. Dr Rothstein is hopeful that this grant, which will drive private funding for student stipends bringing total funding to nearly $10 million over five years, will provide a stronger math base for younger students. The result will be less failure as students move through the educational channels.

“One of the missions of Lehman is to improve education in the Bronx community to make sure that they succeed later in life,” said Dr Rothstein. “If you don’t start with some of these urban, at-risk students as young as elementary school, they may fail,” she said.

This month’s success is one of only many examples of how Dr Rothstein has fine-tuned her skills for recognizing available grants, seeing how a program can fit into the criteria of a grant, and putting together a proposal that puts her request high on the list of those being considered. They are skills that she has honed since she first “fell into the job” of grant writing in 1984.

Left high and dry that year when a colleague did not follow through on a grant proposal for the Science Talent Expansion Program to assist underprivileged students, at the dean’s urging, then Dr Thomas Minter, Dr Rothstein spent a rigorous week writing the first grant she had encountered in order to meet the deadline, submitted it, and Lehman College received the $100,000 grant. “I became a grant writer in that instant and we’ve had that grant every year since then,” said Dr Rothstein.

That grant also opened up the connection to the Bronx schools, ten of which are currently linked to Lehman College through some kind of grant-funded program. Prior to 1984, Lehman College, formerly Hunter College, was far more insular, said Dr Rothstein. “That first grant opened my eyes to what we could do. You write a proposal, you get $100,000. That’s pretty cool,” she recalled.

She has since worked on many long-term and short-term grants to support elementary, middle school, high school, and college students from the Bronx, as well as to support teachers. “I’m successful, I think, because I take it as a challenge to improve the outcome for kids in the Bronx, where I am,” said Dr Rothstein. “They’re the future doctors, lawyers, teachers, and business people. They’re the future,” she said. She shudders to think where education for the underprivileged would be without the benefit of grants and the support of schools like Lehman College.

Dependent On Grants

“So much is dependent on grant money in one form or another. It’s horrible to conceive what would happen without grants,” she said.

It is not just the area of education that can benefit from a well-written grant, though, said Dr Rothstein. She has recently received a book contract from Guilford Publishing in Connecticut to share her insights on writing winning proposals. “Grant Writing: A Process Approach is for anyone who needs to write grants. Libraries, medical centers like Kevin’s Community Center, all kinds of organizations are eligible for grants, if they know where to look and the process of putting one together,” Dr Rothstein said.

The first rule that she learned in her early days of grant writing, said Dr Rothstein, is to pay attention to when the grant is due. Then it is a matter of following the outline provided by the funding agency. “You look at the request. It tells you the eligibility and the purpose of the grant. It gives you a list of selective criteria, and you have to follow those criteria,” she said. The proposal and project must clearly relate to the purpose of the funder.

Grant readers then determine a score based on points given to each criteria and how well the grant writer answers those criteria. Several readers will see a grant and score it, and after conferring with each other, a final score is reached. The grant is awarded to the highest scoring proposals until the last dollar is awarded.

She has taken the opportunity over the years to learn from colleagues, grant readers, project directors, teachers, and school administrators to write better proposals, and she credits Michael Stevens, who was with the New York State Education Department when she began grant writing, with teaching her how to improve her grant writing skills. Securing grants is vital to improving schools and preparing students for college and post-college careers, she believes. “Grants tie together the whole educational system, from elementary through college, a K to 16, not K to 12 span,” she said.

A Jigsaw Puzzle

She views each grant as a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that must come together to make one picture that is clear to those reading the grant. “I use the outline of whatever I’m writing for, and computers are marvelous for that. I can look at a new grant and pull in from grants I’ve previously written. Fifty percent of most grants need the same information,” Dr Rothstein explained. She has learned to use tables and charts to demonstrate ideas of how a grant will “hang together.” Tables, she said, can show the relationships within a grant, to clarify the process.

 Her book will guide grant writers in determining suitable grants and not overlooking available grants. An educational grant writer, she said, ought to look at all facets of a school to see where the grant can fit in. “I can look at a grant and see how a program will fit into it. A global view helps,” she said. She also finds it helpful to have people in the organization write down what they see as needs, and categorize and prioritize those needs, so that she can look for specific grant funding.

 “For years I’ve been doing workshops on being more effective in grant writing and have been very successful with the workshops. I created a 150-page ‘notebook’ over the years that I would give out at the workshops, and I finally decided it was time to publish,” Dr Rothstein said. She will continue to seek out grants to benefit the Bronx educational system and Lehman College while she works on the book, as well as running the programs in place. She will assist faculty at Lehman, as well, to collect quantitative data as the MATH UP program is put into place.

“I’ve been at Lehman College for 47 years. Grant writing is very creative in a way. It keeps me challenged. There are new grants, and there is the challenge of keeping old grants going. This is a five-year grant,” said Dr Rothman, “so I won’t be going anywhere before that’s up.”

Grant Writing: A Process Approach is expected to be released early in 2011.