Just about everywhere you go, you’ll find community grants being offered. Community grants are offered to neighborhood groups, businesses, organizations, and sometimes to individuals for the purpose of improving a community. The community grants are seen as having a twofold purpose; they not only improve some aspect of a neighborhood, they also help bring together you and your neighbors, who might otherwise never really

This article is about avoiding scholarship scams, but what makes it special is that it was researched and compiled by high school students, who are themselves in the target demographic for scholarship scamsters. It originally appeared in The Mash, a weekly publication distributed to Chicagoland high schools.

Jackpot! You received notice that you have already qualified for a grant, one that you didn’t even apply for. A company that you’re not familiar with is selflessly notifying people that the government wants to give them grants they didn’t even ask for. The reasons given that you qualify for this grant may vary from “because you’re a taxpayer” to “as a citizen, you’re entitled to….”

Quite often, if you want to receive grants and funding, you will be asked to submit a grant proposal. How you structure it will depend upon what the grant funder requires and your own decisions on what’s best. Each request for proposals is unique, with varying degrees of how creative you can be. As usual, though, we’re going to follow our rule of doing exactly what the grant provider asks of you, to maximize your chances for grants and funding. To the extent you can, you should make your grant proposal tell a story.

I get a lot of questions about government grant proposals, and I’ve reviewed a fair number of them. I’ve seen some instances where people want to make a grand political statement as part of their government grant request or making the basis of their funding request kind of a pushback against some public policy that they don’t agree with.

Many people have a preconceived notion that grant writing is difficult and get intimidated at the thought of completing a grant application. With your busy life, who has time to figure it out? To save you time, here are the top ten tips for writing successful grant applications.

Did you know that many local governments have grants that are not publicized? Some communities have funding set aside, but they don’t publicize it. Often, the only way to find out about available funding is to call or visit your government offices, find the resident grant expert, and inquire about available programs. The best example of this is someone from my own office who wanted a grant to help her with a down payment on a new house.

Canada and Alberta student loans require a paper application for the first year, but online in subsequent years. Photo: University of Alberta. $748 million in Canada and Alberta student loans and grants were given out in 2012, and even more is expected to be allocated this year.

In a past article, you learned about Google Grants. Now that there’s been time for the program to unfold and be utilized, data has been collected on how to best use it and become knowledgeable about its features.

One of your resources for grant funding is foundation grants, so knowing a little about how they work and what gets funded can unlock a vast resource of grant money. We’re going to look at a representative sample of foundation funding. These figures are for what was given out in the United States in a recent year, but many of the categories are similar to the types of foundation grants that

How do you think a grant reviewer will see your proposal? Try putting yourself mentally in the place of the reviewer, keeping in mind that he or she has no emotional attachment to your idea, nor any prior background knowledge of why your project would be a good one.Here, we get some hints and insights from professional grant reviewers about what their preferences and pet peeves are (adapted from research by Purdue University).

Everyone wants to get the really big grants. However, if you focus exclusively on these, you may miss out on funding your project. A different approach is to seek several smaller grants, which are more commonly found and may have less competition. An effective way to do this is to divide your project into parts that function independently.

One thing that many entrepreneurs have in common is a dread and distaste for the thought of writing a business plan. I want to change your mind about that and tell you why a good business plan can be one of the best friends your current or future business could possibly have. One of the most important things that you can know about a business plan is that you most likely will not get any funding for your business without one,