Education consultant Jo Seidel recalls "sitting on pins and needles" awaiting the decision from Indianapolis. She circulated e-mail messages to colleagues throughout Delaware County: "Have you heard anything yet?" she asked. A month and a half passed before the news-all of it good-reached her. Seidel's grant-writing efforts on behalf of nine area elementary schools had yielded $416,746 in support of literacy programs for students in kindergarten through second grade.
The Early Intervention Grant Program, made available through the Indiana Department of Education, was highly competitive. In fact, every public elementary school in the state was eligible to submit a proposal. "I was thrilled," says Seidel about the outcome. "This is a way that small schools with tight budgets can get additional money for important programs."
The Foundation's role in the success story was twofold. Many of the literacy programs in place at the elementary schools had their roots in CAPE,* a statewide Lilly Endowment Inc. initiative that was coordinated locally by The Community Foundation. From 2001 to 2006, the Foundation invested $7.2 million in CAPE-related programs, enabling schools to establish community learning centers that offered students the opportunity to strengthen reading and math skills. When Lilly Endowment concluded its CAPE initiative, school corporations faced a tough decision. They could either discontinue the programs that CAPE dollars had supported, scale back the programs to fit their budgets, or look for ways to keep the programs fully operational.
"We've kept them going," says Steve Hall, superintendent of Delaware Community School Corporation, which used CAPE funds to open learning centers at Albany and Eaton elementary schools. "Our staff feels that the programs are good intervention tools that help us identify struggling readers and then provide remediation exercises." He concedes that although the centers have continued to function, any expansion was inconceivable without outside funding. Applying for state grants was an attractive option but "we're not large enough to support a full-time grant writer," explains Hall.
Foundation board members, aware that other school districts faced similar constraints, took a risk and made an offer. They hired a seasoned grant writer for $10,000 and announced that her services were available to any Delaware County school corporation interested in applying for state funds. Although the Foundation had no assurance that its investment would yield a positive return, all indicators pointed to success. Jo Seidel, former director of curriculum and instruction for Muncie Community School Corporation, had been instrumental in creating the proposal that brought CAPE to Delaware County eight years earlier, and she had successfully written proposals for 21st Century Grants and a previous round of Early Intervention Grants.
"This is a different type of technical writing," says Seidel. "Each grant proposal is about 21 pages long plus additional pages for the budget explanation. The challenge is to convey a lot of information in a small amount of space." Even when applying for grants to support similar programs at similar schools in the same district, one size doesn't fit all. "You have to make a case for each school," she says. "Every school has its own 'flavor' and has different needs when it comes to materials and training."
The staffs at the various schools joined in the grant-writing effort by supplying Seidel with data, participating in discussions and setting priorities. They looked for creative ways to build on the accomplishments of CAPE. As an example, CAPE had enabled the various learning centers to purchase new hardware; now state grant money could potentially cover the cost of the latest Waterford Early Reading educational software. In the case of the Delaware County School Corporation, the Early Intervention Grant money would mean that Hall and his colleagues could expand the district's literacy program, in place at Albany and Eaton elementary schools, to DeSoto and Royerton schools.
A typical Early Intervention Grant award ranges between $30,000 and $35,000, but "we went for a little more in funding because we figured we wouldn't get everything we asked for," says Seidel. She needn't have worried. When the state announced its grant recipients, the nine Delaware County schools were on the list, their proposals were fully funded, with an average award of $46,000. No one was more pleased than Seidel. "This has been a wonderful way to leverage all the early work done by the CAPE initiative, the Community Foundation and the schools," she says. "The partners have been visionary in finding ways to provide students with the assistance that they need."
*Community Alliances to Promote Education
