One of the few good things to come out of my COVID experience is that we started providing grant writing training online via ZOOM. We require at least one primary grant applicant from a group to attend a training prior to applying. Once trained, your certificate is good until our Board decides enough has changed to require a refresher course (10 years so far). I've always struggled to offer these at a time when employees could attend but found it a challenge to find a time that all coaches and parents could make a training. I didn't want to just make a training video, because I know how I pay attention to those. 🙂
Since COVID, I've offered two workshops on ZOOM. Participants must register in Eduphoria and leave their camera on while in the 50-minute training. Feedback has been very positive.
Have you made any changes this year in implementing your programs in our "new normal" that have worked well?
We have mini-grants that are available to teachers every month with a 5-7 minute presentation to a panel of judges. Once teachers were no longer at school, we moved the monthly mini-grant presentations to Zoom and applicants presented to the judges virtually. It went very well and we are able to continue delivering mini-grants throughout the end of the school year.
I like that idea! Our applicants apply for Grant Express (mini grants) by completing a brief online form but it would be neat to add a quick virtual interview to the process to allow them to advocate for their proposal.