Students from a high school in Decatur, Ga. got the surprise of a lifetime last week. Southwest DeKalb High School gathered 14 scholarship applicants on April 18 to learn which one of them had been chosen as the recipient of the scholarship — they all believed there would be only one winner. See what happens next.

Post-secondary education can be one of the largest expenses we will face in our lives, second only to buying a house. Fortunately, we do not necessarily need to pay the entire amount out of pocket. You may be able to get free money for tuition, and sometimes also books, supplies, and living expenses. Governments, both federal and state/provincial, are potential sources of funding.

Another article, A Good Grant Proposal Tells a Story, describes the benefits of creating an interesting narrative in your grant proposal. Briefly, you get a grant more easily if your proposal tells a story. Most of us are not born storytellers, so we need to learn the elements of a good story, the order to present them, the purpose of each, and how to convey them all in the most effective way.

If you’re an American who lives in a rural county, you may be eligible to get a government grant to help your housing situation. The Rural Housing Stability Assistance Program (RHSP) is designed to provide assistance for rural counties to re-house or improve the housing situations of individuals and families who are homeless, at risk of homelessness, or in the worst housing situations, stabilize the housing of individuals and families who are at risk of becoming homeless, and improve the ability of the lowest-income residents to afford stable housing.

Government grants are often used as a tool of social engineering for governments to encourage or accelerate some desired outcome. In the case of neighborhoods that are geared to undergo a renewal and renaissance, government grants are a way to encourage growth and rebuilding. The trick, though, can be to get the process started.

It might seem as though grant proposals are pretty cut-and-dried, without much latitude for how you express your ideas. This may seem especially true in the case of government grants, which have pretty definite and no-nonsense guidelines. I’ve written in more than one previous article that it’s important and necessary to adhere to the guidelines, or else risk disqualification.

This website provides you with plenty of information about how you can receive government grants for yourself or your organization. But here, we’re going to take a quick look at how you can provide for others and benefit yourself. You can donate cash, services, or useful items to charities that benefit communities, men, women, children, or animals.

A TEACH grant is a federal grant that can be worth up to $4,000. ​At a basic level, students must agree to teach for four years at an elementary school, secondary school, or educational service agency that serves students from low-income families to receive this grant. There are other requirements for this grant as well, outlined in this article.

The Needs Assessment is a crucial part of your grant proposal because that’s where you make the case that there’s a legitimate reason that you’re asking for grant money. As I often point out, grant money exists to bridge the gap between a need and a solution (or at least to lessen the need that exists). The job of the person writing the grant proposal is to explain that a need really does exist and provide evidence of it.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez announced grants totaling $36,710,368 awarded to 156 organizations nationwide to provide more than 12,000 veterans with training to help them succeed in civilian careers. The grants are being awarded under the department’s Homeless Veterans’ Reintegration Program, administered by the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service.

The Fall 2014 Vidal Sassoon Professional Beauty Education Scholarship opened on Monday, August 4, with some new and interactive features for aspiring hairstylists and their fans. For the first time in its four years, both the “Basic” and “Advanced” scholarship competitions will allow the public to cast votes on applicants’ entries. Public votes will represent 25% of each applicant’s total score, with the remaining 75% of applicants’ scores determined by a judging panel comprised of esteemed professionals.

Learning a second language can be beneficial to you in a number of ways. There can be government grants to help you become bilingual or better, and knowing multiple languages can help you be better qualified for government grants or scholarships. There are plenty of advantages to knowing more than one language too. You may have the opportunity to study a new language at a college, in adult education classes, in community outreach programs, or other venues.

Amid the great music, movies, and parties that will light up Austin, Texas during the upcoming South by Southwest festival, a small nonprofit called SponsorChange.org will receive a community service award for finding a way to help college graduates battle student loan debt by volunteering.

This guide provides detailed insights and resources on the following topics and more:

• Cyberattacks
• Business continuity
• Making a disaster recovery plan
• Determining your greatest risk potential
• Additional steps to take to protect your business

There are many great reasons to volunteer. If you’re in the United States, there’s a central resource where you can check for opportunities to serve others. It’s www.serve.gov, which is the United We Serve website. The idea is that Americans can individually help the economic recovery and do their part to restore unity in the country.

Whether you’re unemployed, underemployed, or just ready for a change, there may be programs that can help you improve your job situation in a variety of ways. First, you can typically access government grants for education to either begin your college career or go back to school, whether it’s academic learning or a trade school.

In part 1 of this article, we looked at the special considerations homeschoolers need to take to find funding for college. We saw that some research and preparation are necessary, but that the funding is there.

Now, here is a sample of 10 high quality grants and scholarships that homeschoolers are eligible to apply for. There are many more, but this gives you a good idea of what is available.

There’s been some severe weather in the United States in the past couple of months, and billions of dollars of damage has been one result. Even if you’re not in one of the hard-hit areas, it’s worthwhile for you to be prepared with the resources that you’ll need if a natural disaster happens close to home.