Getting Creative

As for my responsibilities as they are set up now, I have spent some time at the Pima County Public Library utilizing their Grant & Nonprofit Information section. As of now, I am set to research documentation after receiving grants and hopefully set up a system for BICAS to track how money is used after receiving grants. I found one book, After the Grant: The Nonprofit's Guide to Good Stewardship, edited by Judith B. Margolin which outlines various grant data collection and documentation.

• use of funds
• records and audits
• coding the grant for financial and data documenting (income sources, appeal/campaign code, department receiving and spending funds, project fund code)
• monitoring the grant
• managing departures from the grant proposal, budget, timeline, and deliverables
• evaluation of results due to grant
• keeping required records
• organizing the official donor and grant files
• and last, but not least, renewal funding

There are also helpful charts to use in organizing all of this information.

It has been a bit of a challenge to meet with BICAS with their busy schedules and art auction planning, so it looks like I will need to be turning directions from looking into grants specifically for BICAS and possibly look into grants to aid the next community, culture, and art education class in their efforts with BICAS (i.e. workshops and programming). Casie and Whitney have started in on the Wells Fargo grant to support BICAS, and another grant should aid us in feeling through the process of grant writing. As a group, we will need to really take a look at our next step to see where we can really be of use and get the most out of this experience! I found information regarding grant writing at the Pima County Public Library as well. Promoting Community Change: Making it Happen in the Real World, by Mark S. Homan has great tips and practically step-by-step guides for grant writing that I think we will be able to utilize. It walks you through all of the basics such as, cover letter, title page, abstract or proposal summary, etc.

We are definitely on the right track; we just need to start getting creative on how this will pan out!

-Heidi