LTSC (and quite a few other CA orgs) lost out on a big time federal grant. We're facing a pretty big budget shortfall, and a bunch of projects and plans are going to have to be slimmed down or eliminated in order to keep core programs afloat.

The Youth Channel is online! Or rather, evidence of the Youth Channel’s existence is online. But that’s pretty exciting. It's one of the small but encouraging pieces that seem to be coming together with the Youth Channel.

Hey, it's been a while since I last wrote so I thought now would be as good of a time as ever. So the biggest thing we're working on right now is getting funding. CTI (Community Technology Initiative) at the Collins Center is completly broke. As in we have zilch to our name, and the website (which may or may not be up) is coming out of my supervisor's pocket.

Comment from Renae Smack on August 12, 2007 - 11:32pm

Hey Victoria,
I know just what your talking about, It is a very stressful time and you have to think how much of your proposal actually gets read since there are literally hundreds of other agencies applying for the exact same grant.
Though I try to get prepared in a timely fashion, It always seems like it's something you don't have or it could be said a different way to get the right interpretation of your program.
Keep the faith though it's a great feeling when you get it, and all your hard work and effort has paid off.

Comment from Ross Musselman on August 14, 2007 - 10:14am

I'm a believer in the last-minuteness of grant writing. That's not to say that everything should be done at the last minute, but that good grant writers are always thinking of ways to improve the grant up to the last minute.

Ross Musselman
ross@zanlus.com

So we've been working on a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a digitization project in cooperation with the Spokane library's Northwest Room (which houses local history). Its enough to make your head spin. Our deadline is tuesday so its crunch time.

Comment from Ben Sheldon on July 17, 2007 - 4:11pm

Grant writing is always fun :-) My favorite book on grant writing is "The Only Grantwriting Book You'll Ever Need" by Ellen Karsh and Arlen Sue Fox.

Of course, the easiest grant writing is when you already have a clearly articulated program or project with all the needs, goals, objectives, metrics, and outcomes already defined. Then all you really have to do is slap a "gimme" to it and send it out the door. Very rarely though does one seem to have all that :-)

Best of luck with the fundraising!

We have received a small grant from Humanities Washington to go out to all the small town museums in our area. We are going to show them how to digitize their collections and place them on the INMP website. Also if they do not have a website of their own we will help them to create a basic website to help promote their museum. Finally we are going to create a 3 to 5 minute film of the project.