Grant Proposal (55 points)
INSTRUCTIONS:
Read Chapter 22 (Proposals) before completing this project.
Length: 850 to 1000 words
Part I: Background
Part II: Instructions
PART I: BACKGROUND
Purpose: You have been hired as the grant writer for Workshop Houston, a local after-school program in Houston, that is seeking funding to expand the organization and support its young student members. Using the background information provided below, write a persuasive grant proposal requesting the Weaver Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
Your Employer: Workshop Houston
Background: Workshop Houston was built on the belief that learning is more than just what happens in a classroom. Founded by four Oberlin College graduates in 2005, Workshop Houston has grown into a well-established youth development agency and important neighborhood resource. Using a hands-on, arts-based educational philosophy to respond to the needs of the community, your program has served thousands of youth Houstonians through after school and summer programs that help students to build technical skills, develop a meaningful creative practice, while building academic confidence.
Workshop Houston website:https://www.workshophouston.org/
▪ Who You Are | The Mission
Workshop Houston’s goal is to provide youth with creative, technical and educational resources. Our vision is to lay the groundwork for a just society by creating a community that provides youth with support, expanded opportunities and alternative definitions of success.
▪ What You Do | The 4 Workshops
Workshop Houston offers innovative youth development programs through four studio/classrooms: 1. Beat Shop(music production) 2. Media Shop (graphic design) Dance Shop (dance and hip hop), and the Style Shop (fashion and graphic design.)
Review the detailed description of the 4 workshops:
National Endowment of the Arts
The US federal government offers grant awards (funding) for many fields related to business, technology, science, the environment, art, and education. The National Endowment of the Arts is one government agency that focuses on art and education—for this grant proposal assignment, you will be writing to the NEA to request a Weaver grant award.
Request For Proposal (RFP) for Weaver Grant Award: The Weaver Grant is the National Endowment for the Arts’education and community-based grant award. The NEA is requesting proposals from after-school programs that make an impact on underserved communities in the United States. Programs that meet the Weaver grant criteria will seek to close the opportunity gaps for children from lower-income neighborhoods. Chosen programs awarded the Weaver grant offer activities that involve art, education, culture, and design, while seeking to enhance the creativity, critical thinking, and independence of its student members.
Part II: ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS
The Workshop Houston campus (located on 3039 Holman Street) has served at-risk youth from underserved communities for nearly two decades. The tutors, teachers, and volunteers at Workshop Houston are dedicated to offering students an artistic, educational, and skills-based outlet in the form of its 4 Workshop Programs. But now the organization wants to expand and make an even greater impact on the community’s youth.
Purpose: You are the grant writer for Workshop Houston. You have been hired to draft a grant proposal applying for theWeaver Grant Award—a financial grant award that ranges between $30,000 to $200,000 dollars.
Background:
Workshop Houston currently offers four workshops (Beat Shop, Dance Shop, Media Shop, and Style Shop). The popularity of these workshops, however, has encouraged the nonprofit to expand and develop a fifth workshop.
What am I doing? Grant Proposal:
1) You will be proposing the development of a fifth workshop based on any artistic or educational subject that interests you. Your shop will be taught at the Workshop Houston campus.: Talk/Social Shop
2) Whatever new shop you envision, it must be aligned with the values and mission of Workshop Houston (review their website). I expect you to propose a Workshop that provides a curriculum focused on engaging, hands-on, and impactful lessons that encourages learning and the development of specific skills.:work together to influence speech among peers and increase social comfortability, and more skills
3) You will need to explain how your after-school program operates. What skills and lessons are you hoping to teach? What materials will you need for your workshop to function?
Optional: If Workshop Houston already offers a program similar to a subject that interests you, you can still use it as the focus of your own. For example, the Media Shop is focused on graphic design, but you might still develop a film and editing shop or some other discipline related to graphic design.
▪ Try to be original and add your own ideas to make it distinct from the existing shop.
Funding Amount
Your budget will request a targeted funding amount that will range between $30,000 to $200,000 dollars. Your budget will tell me how money you need to develop your workshop for one year.
Length: Write a single-spaced grant proposal. The word count is 900 to 1000 words, but your grant might be several pages long if you choose to include any images, pictures, charts, or tables.
Audience: You have flexibility with the audience for your new workshop. You can choose to target either high-school teenagers OR middle-school aged children.
Forbidden Topics:
Please no “childhood obesity” or “sports” or “fitness” or “exercise-based” programs.
Note: I have received several plagiarized proposals in recent semesters. A few of these proposals were projects from past students. * I have a library of old proposals to cross check—do your own work.
Note: Do not use ChatGPT to write any of this proposal.
Textbook Proposal
You may use the funding proposal for the SMU Torch on p. 561 (Chapter 22: Proposals) as a basic model for your own project. However, you have creative flexibility with the writing, style, and design of your proposal—write in your own voice, be persuasive and passionate.
Organization: Create specific headers to organize each sectionof your proposal. Headers will preview the material and engage the reader. Don’t write “Statement of Problem.” That’s too general, but a header such as, “Low Telekinesis Scores in Public Schools” will educate the reader on the content of that section.
▪ EX: Use headers, subheadings, bold-face, bullets, and “tables” if relevant.
Required Parts:
Your proposal should only have these 11 parts—this is all you are responsible for:
1) Title Page
2) Table of Contents
3) Overview
4) Background
5) Statement of Problem
6) Plan
7) Method
8) Schedule
9) Budget
10) Conclusion
11) References.
PARTS OF YOUR GRANT PROPOSAL: Write your proposal to match the description and values of the WeaverGrant—the NEA is the organization who will be offering you the funding, and your proposal will likely reference the criteria stated in the Weaver Grant description.
1) Title Page
a. See SMU Torch example OR Student Sample
2) Table of Contents
a. See SMU Torch example OR Student Sample
3) Overview
An effective overview is a relatively brief introduction. (5-8 sentences). It offers a concise and persuasive statement of the key elements of the proposal—it should be engaging and persuasive and hook your audience.
In this section, you will identify the following:
a. Start your overview by identifying the problem
b. Introduce Workshop Houston and the purpose or mission of the organization.
c. Introduce your Workshop idea—include the name of the workshop and your purpose for requesting the WeaverGrant Award.
d. Suggest the benefits or outcomes that students will take away if they attend your workshop.
4) BACKGROUND
The Background section is a summary of your organization—just copy and paste the paragraph below into your grant proposal.
BACKGROUND
Workshop Houston was built on the belief that learning is more than just what happens in the classroom. Our program has grown into a well-established youth development agency and valuable neighborhood resource. We use a hands-on, arts-based educational philosophy to respond to the needs of our community. Workshop Houston has served Houston’s youth through our after school and summer programs that help students to build technical skills, develop a meaningful creative practice, and achieve academic confidence. Our goal is to provide youth with creative, technical and educational resources and lay the groundwork for a just society. After school programs have the potential to inspire and encourage students to pursue a new creative and academic path in life. We hope to foster a community that provides youth with support, expanded opportunities, while building alternative definitions of success.
5) Statement of Problem (350 to 400 words approximately)
Questions to help you develop your statement of problem:Remember, you are trying to create an after-school program for students who come from lower-income communities in the Houston area.
a. To be persuasive, your will need to provide data, research, or reference the testimony of experts on your chosen problem.
1. What is the problem the community faces and that your workshop is attempting to address? Find research that supports your claims.
2. What are the benefits to students who attend your program? Find research that supports your claims.
Note: Your Statement of Problem and Workshop Plan are closely related. Your workshop is an attempt to help students develop or gain experience in some important skillset related to either art or education.
Example: If you propose an Astronomy Workshop as your Plan, then your argument about the Problem would focus on theimportance of science education.
▪ Problem: You might then research the problem of low-science literacy among underserved students in the United States. You could also find data about low math test scores and weak performance in the sciences.
▪ Benefits: You could also find data about the benefits of aSTEM education and the skills your students will be developing if they attend your Astronomy Workshop.
▪ For example, you could research the cognitive value of studying astronomy, emphasizing the math, physics, and science skills involved in studying the field.
Optional: In your Statement of Problem, you might include some data arguing for the positive impact of after-school programs and the difference they make in the lives of engaged participants.
Audience: In your statement of problem be sure to address your community—teens, adolescents, or young adults growing up in underserved communities. The students who enroll in Workshop Houston disproportionately attend underfunded public schools that either lack after school programs, or offer limited extracurricular activities.
6) Plan: Your Plan is one paragraph that establishes the concept and goal of your workshop.
a. Discuss the subject and purpose of your program and identify the results you are hoping for the students who attend your workshop.
b. How will your students benefit? What are the skills, talents, abilities, mindset, or character traits that you hope to inspire in them?
7) Methods
a. Now get specific.
b. What’s the curriculum? What kind of lessons will you offer? What materials will you work with? What subject matter will you study?
c. What will students do during a class session or meeting?For example, what software will they learn or work with?
d. Be creative and remember your audience—how do you make it fun and engaging? Perhaps you will combine a mix of traditional teaching methods with practical, hands-on lessons?
e. Events or Contests: You might include a description of an end of the semester contest, competition, science fair, event, or showcase designed to share with the community what the students have learned or created in your workshop.
8) Schedule:
a. What’s the schedule for your workshop? Are the classes held after school? Perhaps
offered on the weekends? How many days a week? How long is a class or session?
b. Or perhaps you are proposing the development of an intensive summer 6-week
program?
Note: I would recommend using a table or chart for the schedule.
9) Budget:
a. Make up the numbers.
b. You’ll have to decide how specific to be. Is this the kind of project that needs line-by-line budgetary information, tables, pie charts, or can you group tasks into categories and discuss how much each category will cost?
c. You might also suggest paying for staffing—hiring a part-time teacher, teaching assistant, volunteer, guest speaker.
d. Review the SMU Torch Example the Student Example or any other budget design examples from the textbook.
9) Conclusion:
a. This is the last opportunity to compel your audience to act—to award you the funds, and help you achieve your objectives.
b. Remind the audience of the key benefits of your plan and try to motivate them to offer you the Weaver Grant Award. Suggest that your program will make a difference.
c. Optional: If you want to insert the specific dollar amount you are requesting, then this would be the appropriate place.
d. The conclusion is typically short (one paragraph), concise, and persuasive.
10) References:
a. Your proposal will have a research componentthat will include a minimum of 3-4 outside sources to support your argument. Online or web sources are allowed, but should come from credible places such as government websites, agencies, studies, newspapers, magazines.
b. Sources should be documented using correct APA format for in-text citations and work cited page.
c. Your textbook includes information APA format, but below I have also included links to the North Carolina Writing Center:
d. Most of your data will be used to build your “statement of problem.” However, some students will insert a data point or important fact into their Overview, Plan, or Conclusion—this is an optional strategy.
GRADING CRITERIA:
Your proposal will be graded according to the criteria by which proposals are typically accepted or rejected. A successful grant proposal will:
• Demonstrate an understanding of Workshop Houston’s values and mission statement.
• Be organized into clear sections with proper headings.
• Illustrate the soundness/practicality of the plan being offered.
• Identify a relevant problem in the community and a feasible approach to its solution.
• Illustrate the quality of the project’s organization and management.
• Demonstrate an ability to control costs.
• Include a research component with correct citations.
• Demonstrate the qualifications of the staff to be assigned to the project.
• Use persuasive techniques (including a clear focus on audience needs and benefits, honest and supportable claims, appropriate detail, readability, convincing language, accessible and attractive page design, proper citations of any sources or contributors, etc.).
• Display correct grammar and mechanics. Demonstrate concision, clarity, and fluency.
