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Just two week after The Los Angeles Fund for Public Education (LA Fund) launched a new program, Grants HQ, that puts hundreds of millions of dollars in grant money at the fingertips of more than 30,000 LAUSD educators, the response has been “amazing.”
Now, teachers who want to enrich the education of their students, anything from obtaining new equipment to offering specialized courses, can search for grants through a centralized hub, and attend grant-writing workshops.
“The response has been amazing!” said Adena Tessler, Vice president of Mercury Public Affairs, in an interview with LA School Report, “Since we launched the program on March 17th, our classes are 97 percent full, and a few of them even have wait lists. Clearly, we’re going to have to look into creating more opportunities because there are so many teachers that want to learn how to write grants.”
As of last Thursday, more than 450 people had signed up and created profiles on the Grants HQ web site.
Before the program, teachers in LA Unified school had to sleuth around for private support to pick up where public funds left off. Even though these grants were available, finding one that fits a teacher’s grade level, project and eligibility, required a scavenger hunt to disparate corners of the Internet.
“Grants HQ put all of these grants into one place,” said Tessler, “and arranges them by category and grade level so that teachers can find the grants that they need.”
In addition to the program staples, teachers also have access to a full-time grant specialist who is available by phone or email.
Upon completing a grant application through Grants HQ, LA Fund will send an accompanying endorsement letter to the grant organization to signal both the quality of the application and that is was developed through the new program.
“We’re going to continue to look for more grants to add to our database,” said Tessler, “There are so many out there, so we’re trying to make this as comprehensive as possible.”