Find Funding: Grant Writing Resources
Writing Your Own Grant Applications
The resources below are designed to help local governments and community partners write their own grant proposals to fund resilience projects. Many of the videos and guides also include information on finding funding opportunities, managing grants, developing a budget and compiling a grant writing team.
Videos
Grant Writing Best Practices
This recorded training, offered by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management (DCM), reviews how to write a strong grant proposal. The presenter discusses how to write about the problems you want to solve, design the project, integrate existing plans into your submission and more. See the slides presented in the recording (PDF) and the grant project planning worksheet (PDF) for more information.
The North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency and DCM co-hosted this training in February 2023 as part of the North Carolina Resilient Communities Funding Forum. Visit the Funding Forum webpage to see event resources, including slides and recordings from presentations on funding opportunities only available in North Carolina, information on how to leverage multiple funding sources, presentations on national opportunities and more.
*Algunos recursos en esta página tambien están disponibles en español.
Grant Writing Best Practices (33 min)
Live Training and Recorded Videos
If you would like more training on topics like fundraising, foundations and budgets, the nonprofit Candid Learning offers live and on-demand training videos. They help viewers find grant opportunities; find foundation, corporate and individual donors; write proposals; prepare a budget and more. Most offerings are free. Multi-session courses and on-demand videos are available for beginners and for more experienced grant writers.
Prepare for an EPA Grant Application
If you are working specifically on an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grant application, this page offers resources to help you prepare your proposal before EPA releases the Notice of Funding Opportunity. Training videos and course modules cover grants management, how to develop a budget and more detailed subjects like calculating indirect cost rates, Fair Share objectives, and procurement and subawards among other subjects.
Tribal Grant Writing 101: Access More Funding for Your Climate Change Program
For tribal staff, organizations and citizens, this recorded workshop covers the fundamentals of writing a competitive funding proposal with an emphasis on climate change programming (vulnerability assessments, adaptation planning and risk assessments). The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Branch of Tribal Climate Resilience hosted the workshop in July 2023 in partnership with the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians and the Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center. See the slides used in the webinar (PDF) and the BIA’s grant writing 101 worksheet (PDF) for more information.
Tribal Grant Writing 101: Access More Funding for Your Climate Change Program (1 hr 27 min)
Guides and Other Helpful Resources
Bureau of Indian Affairs Tribal Climate Resilience Program Webinar
This recorded webinar reviews awards available in fiscal year 2023 to support tribal adaptation planning and preparedness, capacity building and implementation activities. The Bureau of Indian Affairs Annual Awards Program seeks to help tribes address climate change impacts and manage ocean and coastal resources. The program also supports relocation, managed retreat and protect-in-place issues and decision-making processes.
Bureau of Indian Affairs Tribal Climate Resilience Program Webinar (1 hr 24 min)
Grant Proposal Development Resources
Use these quick references to help find, prepare and submit federal grant applications. Resources include a grant proposal checklist, proposal development worksheet and links to current funding opportunities. View the Federal Grant Proposal – Guidance Resources (PDF) for a list of guides on proposal planning, writing and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) submission requirements. These resources are hosted by the NOAA Office for Coastal Management.
Ready-to-Fund Resilience Toolkit
This toolkit, offered by the American Society of Adaptation Professionals, covers 10 characteristics of ready-to-fund resilience projects. It describes how local governments, and their partners, can design successful projects. Suggested strategies include pulling specific policy levers, seeking key partnerships, using innovative accounting practices, inverting power structures and rethinking and redesigning internal processes. The toolkit aims to help applicants operate within current finance and policy systems to better prepare themselves and their communities for climate resilience funding and finance.
Tips for a Successful Grant Application
This webpage displays grant application recommendations from the Environmental Protection Agency. The resource contains general tips, what to cover in the project introduction, a list of questions to answer within the project justification, how to assemble a grant writing team and more.