It’s grant writing time, and for many public libraries, grants are the main driver of funding for new and existing programs. It’s a stressful time, both for those writing the grants, and those awarding them.
The best advice I can give is to be selective! Research what grants are available to you, and make sure what you’re asking for fits the selection criteria of the grant being awarded. Once you’ve identified a grant that matches your needs, review previous grant winners to see if you can identify what made that winning program stand out from the rest of the applicants. Also, work with your program staff to be sure your information is up to date and relevant. Avoid rhetoric and hyperbole. Try to provide anecdotes and testimonies that demonstrate need or previous success. Be specific about outputs and outcomes. The proposal should explicitly state expected practical, tangible outputs. Don’t be afraid to be realistic about your expectations! Make sure to adhere to the formatting and content requirements laid out in the grant application instructions. Proposals not meeting these requirements will often not be considered.
We are looking forward to reading your submissions! The ALSC Library Service to Special Population Children and Their Caregivers Committee will select the winner of our “Light the Way” award based on the application process. Special population children may include but isn’t limited to: those who have learning or physical differences, those who speak English as a second language, those who are in a non-traditional school environment, those who live in foster care settings, those who are in the juvenile justice system, those who live in non-traditional families, and those who need accommodation services. The winner of this award will be announced at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting. The award consists of a $3,000 grant to assist in conducting exemplary outreach to under-served populations through a new program or an expansion of work already being done.
Not sure if this is the right grant for you? Review these other amazing opportunities!
The “Autism Welcome Here: Library Programs, Services and More” grant.
Looking to expand your collection? The Libri Foundation can help, so can The Lisa Libraries.
Do you need a wide variety of books for your collection? Ask the Library of Congress.
Are you working on a program that needs audio books or videos?
Best of luck to you during the grant writing season!
Lesley Mason is the Youth Services Manager at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, the DC Public Library’s central branch. She is currently the chair of the ALCS’s Library Service to Special Population Children and Their Caregivers Committee. She earned her Master’s Degree in Library Science from Clarion University. She specializes in Early Literacy and can be reached at [email protected].
The post The ALSC/Candlewick Press “Light the Way: Outreach to the Underserved” Grant is now live! appeared first on ALSC Blog.
ALSC is excited to announce the availability of a new grant to help fund creativity programming in public libraries. The grant application is officially open!
Your library could be one of 77 lucky recipients of a $7,500 grant to encourage creativity for children ages 6-14. The grants may be used to expand existing programming and/or create new opportunities for children to explore their creativity.
- Applicants must be public libraries; individual branches within a library system are welcome to apply separately.
- Grantees may be invited to participate in the development of a best practices publication for creativity programing in libraries. Selected grantees will be expected to participate in interviews and/or site visits by a consultant who will be developing this publication.
- Projects should be for the development and implementation of a program or series of programs to serve children ages 6 to 14.
- Projects should focus on one or more of the following seven critical components of creativity:
1) Imagination & Originality
2) Flexibility
3) Decision- Making
4) Communication & Self-Expression
5) Collaboration
6) Motivation
7) Action & Movement
Selection Criteria Includes:
- Creativity components addressed
- Program reach (including diversity, inclusion and community partnerships)
- Project design and replicability
Apply now for the Curiosity Creates grant program
The post Curiosity Creates Grants Now Open appeared first on ALSC Blog.
It is WAY too late in the day for me to be only starting a Fusenews post now. All right, guys. Looks like we’re gonna have to do today double quick time. Sorry, but I’ve a ticking time bomb in the other room (sometimes also known as “my daughter”) and I gotsta gets to bed before midnight. Here we go!
- February means only one thing. The Brown Bookshelf has resumed their 28 Days Later campaign. So stop complaining about the fact that black writers and illustrators aren’t better acknowledged and actually read all about them! This is your required reading of the month. And no, I’m not joking.
- Some sad Obit news. Diane Wolkstein, storyteller and picture book/folktale author passed away after heart surgery in Taiwan.
- Happier news. My mom, the published poet, gets interviewed by Foreword Magazine. Note the copious Little Women references.
- The happiest news of all. This will, if you are anything like me, make your day. Delightful doesn’t even begin to describe it. Thanks to Robin Springberg Parry for the link.
- Were you aware that there was an offensive Flat Stanley book out there? Nor I. And yet . . .
- Hat tip to the ShelfTalker folks for actually putting together the top starred books of 2012. Mind you, only YA titles can get seven stars because (I think) they include VOYA. Ah well.
- My new favorite thing? Jon Klassen fan art. Like this one from Nancy Vo. Cute.
- Meet Eerdmans, my new best friend. Look what they put on their books for the last ALA Midwinter.
Thanks to Travis Jonker for the heads up!
- Hey! Public school librarians and public library librarians! Want money? The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation is giving away grants. Free money! Take it, people, take it!
- The Battle of the (Kids’) Book Contenders are announced and nigh. I’m a little bit late with that info. Ah well.
- One of my children’s librarians has been getting twenty different kinds of attention because she circulated an American Girl doll. Now try and picture how many donations she now has to deal with. Yup.
- An interesting use of the term “whittle”. As in, “I think I’m going to whittle off all the toes on my feet”. Except more drastic, less cosmetic.
- Travis Jonker and the very fun idea to create a Children’s Literature casting call. I’d counter that Josh Radnor is more Jarrett Krosoczka (though I may be just a bit confused since Jarrett was actually in the background of an episode of How I Met Your Mother in the past), Lisa Loeb is more Erin E. Stead, Neal Patrick Harris as either Mac Barnett or Adam Gidwitz, Stanley Tucci as Arthur A. Levine, and maybe Jeffrey Wright as Kadir Nelson, except that Kadir is better looking. Hm. This will bear additional thought.
Fair play to The College of Creative Design. I do like this new ad campaign of theirs.
Thanks to The Infomancer for the link.
Lightning quiz Fusenews today, folks! 
It is one thing to play Nellie Oleson, the much loathed villain of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, in a television show. It is another thing entirely to write a book about the experience. And certainly I would not have know that such an event had taken place were it not for Peter’s post on Collecting Children’s Books. And that’s not even including the news about the children’s author that’s showing up in a soap opera! Alas, you’ll have to read Peter’s post to see who it is for yourself.
- Quiz question, beauties. Do you work in a county library that serves a population under 16,000 or a town library that serves a population under 10,000? Is your library in a rural area, with a limited operating budget, and an active children’s department? And is your budget for books a bit diminished these days? Want some free children’s books? Then now would be the time to apply for this grant from The Libri Foundation. I kid not. Read through the rules, see if you fit, and apply before August 15th for a grant that will help you and your kids out. And I am much obliged to Dawn Mundy for the link.
- You know what author I like? I like Peter Dickinson. He’s one of those blokes I’ve resigned myself to never ever meeting due to the fact that he is, y’know… British. But if you had told me that he was still up for doing online interviews I would have scoffed and huffed and generally made a fool of myself. That said, Scribble City Central has a simply lovely talk with the man up and running right now. And if you don’t know your Dickinson, I advise you to go out and read Eva or The Seventh Raven right now. Particularly The Seventh Raven. Best school play meets hostage situation book for kids I’ve ever read.
- It’s not every day that children’s literature is so heavily featured on NPR, but Monica Edinger, Esme Raji Codell, and Peter Cowden have offered up their picks for summer reading on the show On Point with Richard Ashbrook. Good choices to be found there.
- To be frank, when I heard that Louis Sachar had written a book for kids about the game of bridge, my first instinct was to think, “What next? Golf?” I still pretty much feel that way, even after having read Leila’s review of his book The Cardturner over at bookshelves of doom. But at least I feel a little less weird about the fact that it even exists at all.
- Woah! Woah-we-woah-woah-hold-on-there-woah! Have you read the Oz and Ends piece on the new Indian edition of Mitali Perkins’ First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover? Definitely the strangest bit of news in the course of all our whitewashing controversies. Heavens above!
What do you get the Percy Jackson fan who
Taye Diggs isn’t quite good looking enough, either, but he’s another possibliity.
Betsy,
I am very sad that Dr. Zetta Elliott feels the need to move away from the world of children’s literature but understand her reasons all too well. Perhaps what we need more than a “read these books” campaign is a “buy these books” push. I want to adapt the Room of One’s Own bookstore (Madison, WI) campaign to challenge readers of your blog and elsewhere to pledge to buy two more books this year that are written by people of color than were purchased last year.
On a completely different note, I hear that there may be a mother daughter signing in Kalamazoo in April! Don’t completely fill up your schedule until we have a chance to chat! Cheers!
You should do more posts late in the day and in a hurry as this one is pretty darned good. Lots of good links and the “If someone offers you art school, just say ‘No’ ” ads are hillarious.
Me, too, Ed. Maybe we can add a twist to the challenge of buying two more books by people of color… what if we also asked for our money back on one with racist images?
Flat Stanley at Mount Rushmore (Betsy linked to my critique) is one option. So are the LITTLE HOUSE books. Yesterday, Ebony Thomas pointing me to an illustration of Pa in blackface in LITTLE TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE. I added that illustration to my post about Pa remembering how, as a kid, he’d imagine himself hunting Indians (http://goo.gl/oXb3f). Every time I think about that idea being in a children’s book, I’m blown away.
Some years ago, I asked people on child_lit and elsewhere to tell me of another children’s book in which a character expressed that idea (hunting Indians or any people) and the only title anyone could remember was a short story sometimes read in high school English classes.
So—what if we bought two books and returned two others at the same time? Or bought two books and deselected two and wrote to the publisher letting them know we were deselecting the two books and why… Or bought two books and blogged about two we were pledging not to use anymore with children (saving them, perhaps, for use in a high school Social Justice class or the like)…
One thing I learned in my Collection Development class is that by deselecting (weeding) books from a library shelf, there is room for new books. We need room for new books—not just on the shelf—but in our hearts and minds, too. We’ll need to be willing to admit that some books gotta go!
[...] 8′s Elizabeth Bird declared Eerdmans her “new best friend” after the ALA Midwinter [...]