Key Topics

 
 

Key Topics 

This page aims to provide information on key grant writing topics that may be of interest to grant writers working in Alaska. Resources include: 

  • Sample Proposals
  • Data Tools
  • Resources for Alaska Native Grant Seekers
  • Suggestions for Incorporating Equity and Inclusion into Proposals 
  • Disaster Resilience Resources
  • Challenges Facing Grant Writers in Alaska  

If you'd like to provide feedback on any of these resources or share additional information that should be included on this page, please contact site administrator Andrew Harnish at ajharnish@alaska.edu.

 

Sample Proposals

One of the great challenges in grant writing is finding successful examples of the type of proposal you're trying to compose. The websites in this list provide sample proposals. 

Candid Learning -- a list of sample nonprofit grant writing documents, including full proposals, budgets, cover letters, and letters of inquiry (LOIs). 

Grant Station's Winning Grant Proposal Competition page -- a list of award winning grant proposals. The most recent proposals are open access. 

Open Grants -- a searchable repository of submitted grant proposals, including federal, state, nonprofit, and international proposals. 

UAF's Sample Funded Proposals page -- a list of links to sample federal research proposals.

Data Tools

Most government and foundation funders ask grant seekers to document the problem or need a given project aims to adresss.  Some federal awards are only available to those from federally designated disadvanteged communities. The sites below provide data that can help grant seekers provide evidence about their communities, Tribes, and municipalities. 

  • Data.census.gov 
    • "The new platform to access data and digital content from the U.S. Census Bureau. The vision for data dissemination through data.census.gov is to improve the customer experience by making data available from one centralized place so that data users spend less time searching for data content and more time using it.  For guidance on using data.census.gov, please see our Resources page."
  • The State of Alaska DCRA Open Data
    • The site aims to "'unlock' [Division of Community and Regional Affairs] data and provide an engaging open data portal where citizens can explore authoritative content and create new geospatial solutions and insights."

Resources for Alaska Native Grant Seekers

The process of colonization in Alaska was violent and devastated Alaska Native communities and people. As Evon Peter explains, “the goal of the colonizer was to claim ownership of the land and exploit the resources and Indigenous peoples wherever they went. In Alaska, the resource the colonizers were initially after was fur, later it would become wood, salmon, gold, and oil. The goal would not change but the method to exploit would adapt to be appropriate with the times.” Through the colonial depredations of Russian, French, and American settlers, Alaska Native communities were enslaved, displaced, and subject to coercive forms of assimilation. This violence imposed lasting harms, which resound to the present day.

Yet Alaska Native communities are resilient. Alaska is the only place in the United States where the reservation system was not widely imposed. Instead, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, an agreement between the Alaska Federation of Natives and the U.S. Congress, “divided the state into twelve distinct regions and mandated the creation of twelve private, for-profit Alaska Native regional corporations and over 200 private, for-profit Alaska Native village corporations,” with their proceeds benefiting “enrolled Alaska Native shareholders.” Because of the colonial harms endured by Alaska Native communities, and Indigenous communities across the U.S., Alaska Natives have access to a number of federal opportunities.

One important resource is the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Access to Capital Clearinghouse. Per NOAA, the Clearinghouse “is a website that provides a searchable database of all federal funding opportunities, including grants and loans, available to Tribal Nations and Native businesses.” It is the result of “a multi-agency strategy to improve awareness of, access to, and utilization of federal funding resources for Tribal governments, Tribal enterprises, Native entrepreneurs, and Native Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs).” Benefits.gov also offers a valuable overview of grant and loan programs available to Alaska Native individuals and communities. Additional opportunities can be found in the Rural Community Toolbox. The “Alaska Tribal Funder” section of the AK Grant Writing Network, available under Explore Funders, provides links to many of the tribal funders within the state. These funders often focus their awards on the needs of tribal members.

In recent years, federal agencies have been instructed to “increase the accessibility, equity, flexibility, and utility of federal funding and support programs for tribal nations.” This has created a number of new opportunities for Alaska Native grant seekers, including set asides for Alaska Native applicants in many federal grant awards. These dedicated opportunities make resources like the Access to Capital Clearinghouse and Alaska Federal Funding all the more valuable. More information about the federal government’s support for Tribal nations can be found in the December, 2023 Federal Register article entitled “Reforming Federal Funding and Support for Tribal Nations To Better Embrace Our Trust Responsibilities and Promote the Next Era of Tribal Self-Determination.” 

Along with the increased allocation of resources, federal agencies have been instructed to make the federal funding process more accessible and transparent, for the benefit of grantseekers from historically marginalized communities. Despite these efforts, the process remains complex. The resources on this site are designed to help users better navigate that complexity. 

Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) Tribal Capacity & Training Program

  • "Communities in rural Alaska are faced with many unique and complex environmental issues. ANTHC’s Tribal Capacity and Training program provides technical assistance and training to Tribal governments to build capacity and enhance local environmental program management."

Alaska Tribal Leaders Directory 

  • "The Tribal Leaders Directory provides contact information for each federally recognized Tribe. The electronic, map-based, interactive directory also provides information about each BIA region and agency that provides services to a specific Tribe. Additionally, the directory provides contact information for Indian Affairs leadership."

EPA Indian Environmental General Assistance Program (IGAP or GAP)

  • "The Indian Environmental General Assistance Program Act was passed by Congress in 1992. This act authorizes the EPA to provide General Assistance Program (GAP) grants to federally recognized tribes and intertribal consortia for the planning, development, and establishment of environmental protection programs, as well as the development and implementation of solid and hazardous waste programs on Tribal lands." 
  • Here is information on IGAP programs from several Tribes across Alaska:

Grantwriting 101 Training Modules, Alaska Native Modern Business Practices, UAA

 

Suggestions for Incorporating Inclusion and Equity into Proposals 

Traditionally, grant seekers have been taught to identify objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timebound (SMART). Increasingly, applicants need to incorporate inclusion and equity into their proposals. This is true of applications for federal funds and of applications to many, but not all, foundations – and, indeed, some foundations are explicitly opposed to these criteria. Here are some resources to help you address inclusion and equity in your proposals.

An essential "rhetorical move" where inclusion and equity are concerned is to explain which disadvantaged or historically marginalized communities will benefit from your project, and how they will benefit, in detail. The Data Tools section on this page includes a number of resources that help users document the needs of a given community. When an area falls within one or more of these equity categories, it gives you evidence to cite in your narrative (e.g., "this area is designated as an area of persistant poverty per the U.S. Census Bureau") and can allow a project to qualify for special funding status or set asides.

The federal government’s Justice40 initiative provides an overview of the current administration's committment to supporting disadvantaged communitites. The goal of the Justice40 initiative is that “40 percent of the overall benefits of certain Federal climate, clean energy, affordable and sustainable housing, and other investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.”

Foundation funders are often quite focused on inclusion and equity. This report from Philanthropy News Digest notes that 80% percent of foundations are focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, up from 50% in 2019. This article from FLUXX, a prominent grants management software, entitled The Importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Grantmaking, outlines strategies grantmakers should employ when evaluating proposals. Their suggestions offer a helpful overview for applicants. This article from the Stanford Social Innovation Review provides additional information on how funders should promote inclusion and equity: suggestions include: re-defining risk, emphasizing trust, and reflecting the communities they serve in their staff. Despite these efforts, many worthy nonprofits struggle to obtain funding, in part because they lack funding for the dedicated staff to help them pursue grant awards – a perennial “chicken/egg” problem in this space. 

 

Disaster Resilience Resources

Alaska is vulnerable to a number of natural disasters, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the many effects of climate change, which include melting permafrost, loss of sea ice, and coastal flooding. 

Here is a list of resources to assist Alaska communities respond to disasters: 

Writing Resources:

Alaska-Specific Grant Opportunities

Federal Disaster Grant Opportunities:

Challenges Facing Grant Writers in Alaska

  • Reporting and Compliance. Despite federal and state efforts to improve accessibility and reduce application burdens for small organizations and communities, many federal awards include demanding reporting and compliance requirements. Sometimes, these requirements are so onerous that small organizations decide not to apply for awards because they lack the capacity to properly administer the award. True, indirect costs can cover some administrative expenses, but at small organizations, administrators are often already overworked and it is not feasible to claim, say, fifteen percent of their time for a new project.
    • How can small organizations and communities address reporting and compliance challenges in a cost effective way?
  • When planning a project that seeks federal funding, federal procurement guidelines can be difficult to comply with. Many small Alaska communities lack multiple contractors, making it difficult to obtain multiple bids for proposed work. 
    • How can small Alaska communities work together to address this challenge? Are there exceptions to these rules for small communities?
  • The most successful applicants for federal funding are often large, integrated grant writing / project management shops. These consultancies include grant writers, engineers, and data scientists who are skilled at all phases of the proposal development process. Many small organizations and communities lack the resources to pay for such services.
    • How can small organizations and communities, working together or separately, build the capacity needed to obtain federal awards? Or, how can they obtain the resources needed to contract effective grant writing professionals? 

If you have ideas for how to address these problems, share them on the Discussion Board. Feel free to post additional challenges or questions there.

Bibliography

Adams, N. F., & P. W. Thomas. (2020). When students write for money: Reflections on teaching grant writing through experiential learning. Diverse Pedagogical to Experiential Learning, Palgrave McMillan, 13–26.

Connor, U. (2000). Variation in rhetorical moves in grant proposals of US humanists and scientists. Text & Talk, 29(1), 1–28.

Ding, H. (2008) The use of cognitive and social apprenticeship to teach a disciplinary genre of graduate students into NIH grant writing. Written Communication, 25(1), 3–52.

Etheridge, C. (2022). Guardians at the gate: Grant writing, access, long term partnerships, and social justice. Open Words,  14(1) 32–53.

Griffith,  J.D., Hart, C.L., & Goodling, M.M. (2006). Teaching grant writing with service learning. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 18(3), 222-229. 

Lawrence, H.L., Lussos, R.G., & Clark J.A. (2019) Rhetorics of proposal writing: Lessons for pedagogy in research and real-world practice. Journal of Technical Writing And Communication, 49(1), 33–50.

Roundtree, A.K. (2017) Teaching grant writing. Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication, 1–7

Stuckey, Z, & Grant, C. (2022). Localize, prioritize, decolonize: A guide for consciously supporting POC-led organizations. Open  Words,  14(1), 7–31. 

Walsh, B. A., Bonner, D., Springer, V., Lalasz, C. B., Ives, B. (2013). Grant writing courses in the United States: A descriptive review of syllabi and factors that influence instructor choice of course texts. College Teaching, 61(2). 74–81.