If you are investigating a grant from a source outside the education community, contact the executive in charge of contributions, the assistant to the president, or the director of public relations. My Experience I believe that my success in winning the Christa McAuliffe Fellowship in 1994 can be attributed to the planning that took place as our district split a high school collection with a new middle school. While we were building a new high school, a committee of parents, teachers, administrators and librarians identified library needs and set priorities for a five-year plan. Each of the libraries has received Chapter II funds, with annual committee discussion of how the funds would be spent for the target library. Counting the time spent in planning the new school library, my proposal was the result of more than two years of gathering information, setting goals, and watching the progress of similar projects.
Many grant proposals are the result of only a few months of planning.
I had asked for the McAuliffe Fellowship guidelines each year, knowing that I was not ready to submit a proposal. However, from studying the guidelines I knew exactly what was required to apply. With the new high school building, it would be possible to network. The McAuliffe Fellowship provided the funds for a network update, a CD-ROM drive tower, some networked programs, and five classroom computers. The district technician has now linked 20 other computers to the library network.