The New Jersey School Boards Association has partnered with the Grants Office, a national grants development services firm with a 15-year track record of helping schools find and secure funding, to provide grant information, consultation and support to school districts, charter schools, and affiliated local educational foundations through its new Grants Support Program.

Federal, state, and foundation grants are part of the budget picture for nearly every school district in the country, but many districts don’t have extra staff available to search and apply for grants –or they may lack staff with the expertise to do so.

As part of your membership in NJSBA, the Grants Support Program provides real-time access to an online, searchable database that contains more than 3,200 active grant opportunities. The program has the capability to create a project research report and set up a grant watchlist that will email you when the grant opportunities you are looking for become available. The Grant Support Program also conducts informational webinars that NJSBA members are eligible to participate in.

Additional Services

In addition, the NJSBA Grants Support Program offers three premier services to members at a discounted rate: Tier 1 Custom Funder Identification, Tier 2 Unlimited annual support, and Proposal Development.

The Tier 1 Custom Funder Identification service allows members to request a report of funders for a specific project by clicking on “Request Research” in the grants search tool within the Grants Office online database site. In about a week, a Grants Office consultant will deliver the report, with details on funding opportunities from federal, state, and foundation sources based on the project information provided. The consultant will also review the report with a follow-up call of approximately one hour, to answer any questions there may be and to help target the best prospects. This service is provided for a flat fee on a per project basis.

Tier 2 Unlimited Annual Support provides any employee of participating districts or charter schools, and their affiliated local educational foundations, with unlimited access to Grants Office consultants through the Grants Office Helpdesk for an annual fee that is determined by total number of students. Some of the typical services provided by the consultants include: conducting basic funder research for identified projects, similar to Tier 1; providing insightful analyses of grant programs; providing rationale for grant recommendations; participating in conference calls to discuss grantseeking strategy; reviewing and supplying useful feedback on grants written internally by school or foundation personnel; and procuring Requests for Proposals (RFPs), grant contact information, funding histories, web addresses, and additional information, upon request.

The Proposal Development service offers NJSBA members the ability request that the Grants Office develop a grant proposal for them. Fees for proposal development are based on the complexity of the grant application and the anticipated level of effort required to develop a compliant proposal.

Regardless of the program, NJSBA members are eligible receive a 25 percent discount off the Grants Office’s standard proposal development pricing.

For more information on these services please visit the “Grants Support” page in the Services area of our website.

Access the NJSBA Grants Support Program, contact the Grants Office Helpdesk or call (800) 473-5608.