I have used the information obtained to write grants and assist others in writing their grant proposals. To date, We have probably received about $1,000,000 in grants and your program was very helpful in this accomplishment.

Sponsor and Attendee

Bob,
Just wanted to let you know that the grant I was working on when I took your workshop in February was awarded to us. We are very excited about our project and look foreword to meeting the goals we set. Your class and personal help was definately a key element in helping me to understanding the RFP and to know what information was being requested.

Thanks again!

Seminar Attendee
Program Coordinator
Montana

Bob,

I enjoyed your grant-writing class in March 2002 in Juneau, Alaska. I was the one from an Econ. Dev. agency that hadn't (and still to this day haven't) negotiated an indirect rate.

I was successful in obtaining a $55,000 grant about a year ago to start the Alaska IDA Network, to advocate and educate Alaskans about Individual Development Accounts (IDAs). It didn't seem worth "writing home about".

Today I received notification of a $418,500 award from the Federal DHHS-Office of Community Service for a Business Incubator Project, one of five such awards in the nation.

Thanks for the focus that your class provided.

Brian
Juneau, Alaska

Hi [I wanted] to drop you a line and let you know about the fruit of the 2-day course in grant writing you sponsored. I would never have dared to undertake the assignment but for that course. Thank you so much for bringing the speaker, and inviting us to attend!!

The grants in question were administered by the US Maritime Administration and were for the purpose of helping companies, port authorities, etc. located at critical US ports to comply with heightened security requirements in the process of being promulgated by the new Dept. of Homeland Security. (Honolulu was designated critical, we had to justify the criticality of Kalaeloa, Kahului, Hilo, and Nawiliwili.) The Gas Company was made aware of the grants via the Coast Guard, who had inspected some of our LPG storage and barge loading and unloading facilities located within 2 fence lines of Honolulu Harbor and several neighbor island ports.

Three things in the grant application process the course did NOT prepare me for arose. First, the Coast Guard had the wrong website address for accessing the grant information, and I spent a full week trying to log on and getting an error message and being told to try again later. Only after numerous emails to MARAD, the Coast Guard, the Dept. of Customs, the Dept. of the Treasury, etc. did I actually get the right website address, and so lost a lot of time that could have been spent gathering information and perfecting the applications. Second, the Transportation Security Administration was transferred midstream from Customs/Treasury to Homeland Security, and a whole new chain of communications was set up, and awards were delayed. Third, the new regulations for heightened security that we were being asked to comply with were not yet final, and went through several iterations in the 2 months after notice of the availability of the funds went out. We were given two different and partially conflicting sets of "guidelines" that our applications had to comply with, and trying to get clarification on such things as how high our new fences had to be, what exactly were the applicable lighting standards, etc. again wasted valuable time. The application process was much more like sausage making than we were led to expect.

Ultimately we submitted 6 applications for grants for various projects at 6 facilities, totalling $691K. We won all but about $60K. The award letter said 1136 project applications had been received, totalling $996,255,305. The TSA recommended 198 of the applications for funding of 388 projects, in the amount of $169,055,136. Thank you again for identifying the need and bringing resources to fill it!

Gail
Honolulu, HI