In the wake of Hurricane Sandy most folks' attention is drawn to recover and rebuilding.  Whether you are a municipality, institution, business, or family, getting things back up running and returning to some sense of normalcy is top of mind.  That said, grants that support disaster recovery are not a “one size fits all” circumstance and understanding what is available to assist your recovery efforts and where to go to find them is paramount to maximizing those efforts.

Much has been made about the impending doom associated with the automatic spending cuts (sequestration) and expiration of the tax rates established during the George W. Bush Presidency.  All the pundits point to the likelihood of a second recession if politicians in Washington allow the country to go "off the cliff".  Sequestration alone will initiate $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts across the entire budget, which means every sector from education and healthcare to defense spending will be effected.  The measure was put in place because it is not palatable to any politician, Democrat or Republican, to see such blanket cuts in discretionary spending.  The idea was to give Congress and the President time to come to a long-term agreement on deficit reduction.

Grant writers have a lot on their plates: narratives, budgets, documentation, forms, and more.  Amid all the moving parts of a grant application, it can become easy to lose sight of the proposal's overall message and how it all ties together. Sometimes it can help to take a step back and look at the proposal with fresh eyes, asking the most basic of all writing-related questions: Does this proposal tell a story?

We are now a society driven by the proliferation of the Internet and an insatiable appetite for instantaneous information, often times expecting the analysis to already be completed, distilled and presented as the bottom line. It should surprise no one that public safety agencies, schools, hospitals and non-profit organizations adopt this bottom line approach and typically express their needs in terms of the technology and products neccesary to accomplish their organizational objectives.  After all, this is the real world.  Public safety agencies need communications equipment, schools must provide student access to computers, and hospitals are trying to move into the 21^st Century with electronic health records.

In the recent presidential debates, there was a lot of mention of small businesses and how they make America tick. Also, in recent years, there has been a push for people to shop small and shop local and from this push came Small Business Saturday. People have defined owning your own business and working hard to achieve success in entrepreneurship as part of the American Dream.

Formula grants, or title grants as they are sometimes called, are those reliable, easy  funding sources that your agency probably already receives.

Anyone paying attention to the health sector grant funding landscape is certain to see several opportunities each year specifically designed for rural health networks. Under these programs, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) distributes the majority of federal dollars available to formally organized rural health networks, which usually requires a pre-existing relationship (prior to grant announcement), while some is reserved for entities in the planning stages of network development.

In the current political climate, the Chicago teacher strike, finally reaching its conclusion, is a hot button issue. The Chicago Teachers Union represents 26,000 teachers. Chicago has the nation's third-largest school system with some 35,000 students, and its teachers are among the highest paid in the country. With both Democrats and Republicans treading lightly around the issue, and trying to figure out the best strategy, the public was trying to be informed of what issues were behind the strike and how the resolution was reached.

In the current political climate, the Chicago teacher strike, finally reaching its conclusion, is a hot button issue. The Chicago Teachers Union represents 26,000 teachers. Chicago has the nation's third-largest school system with some 35,000 students, and its teachers are among the highest paid in the country. With both Democrats and Republicans treading lightly around the issue, and trying to figure out the best strategy, the public was trying to be informed of what issues were behind the strike and how the resolution was reached.

As temperatures drop and children and parents settle back into the school routine, the presidential campaign engines are blasting ahead at full force, gearing up for what is sure to be a close race in November. Though not quite as prevalent in the news as big-ticket legislature such as Health Care Reform, educational reform has received significant focus during Obama's first term as President.  A look back at some of the highlights provides an overview of the impact this administration's priorities have had on education grant funding during the last four years.

As we approach the end of Fiscal Year 2012 and start a new one on October 1^st, now is the perfect time to start projecting the 2013 grant funding landscape.  Knowing what to expect in 2013 is important to any organization that takes grantseeking seriously.