Federal Programs & Grants

Requirements for Federal Funds

The Cleveland Heights-University Heights school district receives $6-12 million dollars annually from federal, state and other foundation grants. Federal funds are highly regulated by the state and federal governments.

Federal Funds forms MUST be used and fully filled out for teachers and other staff who are approved for stipends or require a substitute to attend a program that is paid through federal funds.

Programs that require Federal Forms

Title I	21st Century - CHAMPS and SHINE
Title I - Neglected	ABLE and EL/Civics
Title I - School Improvement	Career-Tech
Title II - A Improving Teacher Quality	FLAP (Foreign Language Assistance)
Title III - LEP and Immigrant	GAMTTEP (STEM)
IDEA - Special Education	Race to the Top (RttT) and New Tech
ECSE - Early Childhood Special Ed.	SIG - Bellefaire

Guidance and Forms

Compliance Guidance

Attestation, Semi-Annual Certification, and Time-and-Effort Forms

Approved Use of Funds

Grants

The Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District actively supports teachers, administrators, and staff as they seek external funding for innovative projects for the classroom, school and district. Individual projects illustrate the strategic vision and goals established by the board of education.

The Federal Programs and Grants Office supports staff and district partners in the areas of idea and project development and grant submission. Starting with assistance developing the project or program idea, support is provided in finding matching funders, writing and/or editing the submission to align with grant and district guidelines, submitting the grant successfully on deadline, following up with funders and providing the superintendent, treasurer and board of education with full information about the program idea and grant submission.

Upon receipt of a grant award, the awardee is assisted in understanding and successfully navigating the district process for accessing grant funds: budgeting in the proper state-aligned fund codes; creating individual vendor designations for reimbursements; writing requisitions for POs; and filing final financial reports with funders.

Pursuing Grant Funding

10 Questions for Authors of New Grants

Thank you for having the energy and creativity to take a new idea and consider writing it up for grant funding. Funders typically look for several factors in assessing grants, such as: whether the idea is new, unusual or has a unique twist; how many students, parents or staff the funds will serve; and what happens after the grant money is used. The following questions are a guide to help you think critically about certain key areas of your developing idea.

How many students or classes will be served by the proposed program?
What is the main need this program will fill? What is being addressed?
What impact do you expect this program to have?
Are the outcomes measurable?
Is another teacher or team operating this type of program already? If so could you collaborate? If no one is providing this service or program, are there possible teachers, classes or community members with whom you could collaborate?
How will this program achieve the results you anticipate? How will you measure the results and evaluate the program?
What does a rough timeline of implementation look like? Does the program justify your time and resources?
Are you reasonably sure this program will provide the change or benefit you’re looking for or fill the need you’ve identified?
Are you prepared to measure the results effectively if the program is implemented?
What will this proposed program entail as far as staff time, equipment, and other resources? What happens to the program after the initial period of funding? Can it be funded internally after start-up? If so, how will you go about it?

Writing the Grant

There are many excellent and free websites providing grant writing information that are accessible online. The most frequently recommended is the Foundation Center, which also offers links to private foundations, corporate-giving programs and other sources of nonprofit funding.

The Foundation Center national site offers a Proposal Writing Short Course online. The Short Course describes the elements of the typical grant proposal with suggested lengths for each section. However, be aware that all funders have specific guidelines which you must follow for submission.

Cleveland is fortunate to have one of five Foundation Center library sites, located in the Hanna building at 1422 Euclid Ave., Suite 1600 (216-861-1934). The Foundation Center provides a wealth of free resources for the grant seeker.

Grant Development Suggestions

After considering the 10 Questions and reviewing the general guidelines in Writing the Grant, consider the following additional suggestions.

Carefully evaluate the need your project seeks to impact, and how many students, staff or parents your plan will affect. The district’s Development office will provide support at any point. Contact Laura Bates at la_bates@chuh.org or 216-397-3869.

Contact the funder you have targeted, describe your project and make sure it is in line with their guidelines. Funders’ guidelines change – you don’t want to waste time pursuing an opportunity that no longer exists! Funders can also guide you in how and what to write to create the most successful proposal for their foundation.

Use research to support your assertions: quantitative evidence (numbers such as proficiency scores, diagnostic test data or number of behavior referrals); leavened with some anecdotal evidence (individual stories that illustrate).

Plan a reasonable timeline for the project – something you can accomplish in addition to your myriad other duties during the school year. Give a great deal of thought to the evaluation – how you will determine whether you have reached your goal and impacted the need you expressed. Finally, detail how this project can be continued without foundation funding in the future.

Reasonable Expectations
After all the thought, discussion and writing, what is it reasonable to expect?

Searching for grant funding is work!
This is not “easy” money. The grant process is competitive – you are competing for scarce resources, limited funds that many are seeking. Many successful grants are submitted more than once after being rejected initially. However, there is reason for optimism:

The process of thinking through the project or program idea and writing it for submission focuses the project.

Once the original grant submission has been written, it can be amended and submitted elsewhere, perhaps where there is a better “fit” for the project.

If full funding is not found, the project can sometimes be divided into smaller units and parts of the program can be implemented through other means.

Types of Grant Support

The majority of our District requests are for program development. Funding is a “boost” to help seed a project that has potential for significant impact. CH-UH cannot fund all the good ideas that come forward. Foundations may fund a promising idea that is carefully evaluated for impact. If the project achieves the desired results, or shows promise in some other way, it is hoped that the District will determine a means to continue the funding after the initial foundation funding period (typically between one and three years).

The Development Office does not undertake proposals for field trips or artist-in-residency requests unless they are part of a larger program idea.

Program development support can be requested for planning funds, to pilot an idea, or for project implementation. Grants are also provided for a number of other types of support, such as capital projects, scholarships, seed money and operating needs. For a list and definitions of the types of support, see the Foundation Center’s Grants Classification listing.

As you review information on funders, take care to note what they prefer to fund, whom they fund and their average donation. Some foundations will not fund government entities (knocking out the public schools) while others will not fund outside specific geographic areas. We are a non-profit 509(a), commensurate with the 501©3 designation required.

Grant Funders

There are a number of types of funders.
The Cleveland Heights-University Heights District competitive grants are primarily funded by:

The State of Ohio

Community Foundations
The Cleveland Foundation

Independent Foundations
The George Gund Foundation
The Martha Holden Jennings Foundation
The McGinty Foundation
Reaching Heights

Company-Sponsored Corporate Foundations
WalMart
TOYOTA Time

Private Trusts
The Robert L. Soltz Special Projects Fund
The Ronald and Isabelle Brown Special Fund for the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District

The State of Ohio provides a portion of funds through competitive grant processes. The best known recent state RFPs (request for funding) have been for the OhioReads literacy programs. Ohio’s competitive grants have largely moved to on-line submission through the district CCIP (Comprehensive Continuous Improvement Plan).

Community Foundations, such as the Cleveland Foundation, are publicly-sponsored organizations that raise funds from many donors. The Cleveland Foundation (TCF) focuses support in the greater Cleveland area. The Cleveland Foundation prefers to support large, substantive projects with district-wide impact.

Independent Foundations, such as the George Gund Foundation, typically originate with a large gift from an individual or family. Family members may sit on the board and direct the dispersal of funds. The Gund Foundation, like the Cleveland Foundation, seeks substantive projects that affect more than a classroom or even school.

The Martha Holden Jennings and McGinty Foundations are ardent supporters of smaller projects. Many individual teachers and/or teams have successfully received funding through these foundations.

Reaching Heights is a public school foundation created specifically to support Heights staff. Their grant deadlines occur throughout the school year for a variety of projects – from academic programs to community connection grants.

Company-Sponsored Foundations are set up as private foundations but derive funds from a profit-making corporation. These foundations are independent of their corporations although guidelines may restrict support to locations where the company has a presence. Locally, we seek funding from local corporate funders such as WalMart and Target.

Special Trusts are funds set up by school supporters and managed by the school district’s finance office. These funds can be significant in supporting new project ideas for individual teachers or small teams of staff.