SandeeCan Blog: Debunking the Scary World of Grant Writing . Introduction
I want to express first that I am not an expert Grant Writer. Grant Writing is very hard if you try to do it your way. How do I know what I know? I had a wonderful idea about 7 years ago to start teaching photography to children ages 5-18 and taught for 2 years free to my clients. Then in a continuing education photography class, I met a wise man that gave me the idea to start a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. I came home to my boyfriend at the time, now my husband, telling him of my brilliant idea. Poor man, I do love him. Long story short, about $5,000 later in classes, application fees, paying for summer camps to have an active program to even apply to nonprofit, holding classes in on my property, we had to upkeep memberships to different places to attend classes and all the little stuff. We created Children's Visual Art Academy, Inc. Ran it for 3 successful seasons on donations, mostly from my photography company and Shawn. No one wanted to donate to children learning photography. I received the worst emails from my photography peers. It was hard. So, God stepped in and I was awarded a 2 year membership to Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits for $50! They have many classes that taught me everything I know. I have met some of the best people doing such wonderful things. Being green as heck, I spoke about some of my photography ideas and had a program stolen...BUT, it helps so many people. Who am I to say it wasn't the 10%? Anyways, I am ranting.....funny I mention the OCFNP first because they had the best grant class last. It is just that they opened the doors for everything else. I became so close with all of them. They are the real deal, the ladies did not see me as a "dumb girl they had to help" they saw me as a clean slate starting a nonprofit by the book. That is exactly what I did, we were awarded the 'Standards of Excellence'. I am proud of it, but have to admit in this day of political standing. No one cared when it came to writing a check. It is harder than ever to run a nonprofit without the proper 3 to 4 years of financial statements from IRS. You can be a nonprofit and not be a 501(c)(3). We paid $990 to become a 501(c)(3) to apply for grants. Struggling. I searched the book stores for grant books...nothing. I ordered a few online ( I will post ) Bottom line: I took a bunch of classes, I won 2 grant writing awards and then they didn't grant me the grant. funny. Everyone promises everything and wants to change the program or whatever, so we are turning it back FOR PROFIT and running it totally sponsored at The City of Edmond Mac Center. They are meeting all my dreams for the program and paying me to run it.....how funny life is. So, as you read the words of my madness...know, I spent a lot of money on this stuff. I hope it helps. This is all nonprofit talk, but two of my classes were grants in general. I have applied everything I have learned to FOR PROFIT grants and have received 2 small grants. I am focusing on FOR PROFIT GRANTS myself in the future as I go after my dream building. It is closer than it has ever been. God is good.
Classes I attended are going to be written in PARTS. Part One: Metro Tech Part Two: Francis Tuttle 3 week class Part Three: Oklahoma Center of Nonprofits Funders Forum
You will have to follow my blogs to keep up. God Bless. Thanks for listening. I hope you learn something. What else am I to do with all I learned? This is good for me as well.
Keywords:
Blog,
CrookedGlassStudios,
Edmond,
Grant,
Guthrie,
OKC,
Oklahoma,
Photographer,
SandeeCan,
Writing
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