What is Likely to be Funded or Not….

The following are examples of good Venture Grant Applications.

Venture Grant Summary: Wharton Garden
The Venture Grant application for a wildflower garden at Wharton Elementary identified the project’s goals as focused on enrichment, skill building, and enhancing curriculum. The project involved subjects including science, English language arts, and math. More than 100 students would be affected by the project. The work included partnering with multiple educational organizations, working with students to design a to-scale model of a 250 square foot native schoolyard habitat, and a half-dozen neighborhood families would be taking part in ongoing development and maintenance of this garden. Activities of the project would include designing and creating a bug hotel, bat house, and seed library. The grant included residency fees for a gardener from a national foundation and supplies, and was funded for a total of $2,500. The grant application clearly detailed the project’s community partnerships, creativity, innovation, and impact, while supporting curriculum and impacting a large number of students.

Click here to download the full application

Click here to download the project budget requested for grant funding

Venture Grant Summary: Engaging Students with Multiple Disabilities in Adapted Physical Education
A teacher engaged with students in elementary, middle, and high school ages who are disabled submitted a Venture Grant application to support adapted physical education for them. Many students are unable to communicate, with physical disabilities limiting their mobility and movement. This teacher planned to collaborate with the Building Trades and Robotics classes at McCaskey, building tools where assistive technology switches could be created for use with a variety of functions (i.e. could be switched with a finger, by a cheek, etc.) to then enable each student to participate in physical activities such as kicking and throwing, etc. Grant funding was requested to purchase switch devices of different types (wobble, grasp, gumball) to empower students with physical disabilities to participate. Objectives included improvement toward reaching IEP goals, students gaining emotional and physical benefits through active participation, and cross-curricular connections as the programs worked together. This was also a project based on inclusivity. About 35 students would be impacted by this funding. The Lancaster Education Foundation fully funded this grant opportunity for its innovation, inclusivity, and collaboration.

Venture Grant Summary: Book Vending Machine
This grant request was from a school district elementary school for a book vending machine to be funded on site. The grant request outlined the purpose of the project as focused on enrichment, motivational learning, skill building, and enhancing curriculum. The request also highlighted the curriculum areas it would impact, including reading, positive behavior support, and equity. The number of students that would affected by instituting this project was 400, and the timeline of the project was detailed as ongoing. The vending machine was proposed to be a part of the PBIS points reward system, and the proposal clearly outlined the related learning objectives and plan for the project, including identifying tokens needed to ‘purchase’ books through the vending machine and how the physical books would be selected and populated in the machine. Expected outcomes were identified, as well as how sustainable the project was. The budgeted cost of the item was included in the grant application. The Lancaster Education Foundation funded part of the project, but not the full request.

Venture Grant Summary: Everyone Deserves a Voice
This grant request was for $5,000 to bolster a welcoming and inclusive environment, particularly for students who are non-verbal or have limited expressive communication, to encourage engagement with peers during recess. Elementary-aged students in K4 through 5th grade were impacted by the proposal. The funding request was to install an assistive/augmentative communication board at each elementary school’s playground would have a mode to communicate with peers and teachers during social interactions. This project would also serve families using the playgrounds. The primary benefit of the tool is more children would have their voices heard, align with promoting socialization, inclusion, and nurturing social and emotional growth. Objectives include alignment with curriculum standards including effective communications with various audiences and expanded vocabulary.

Funding that is unlikely to be granted per the Foundation’s grant guidelines:

Transportation (busing) costs
Non-academic activities – grants must be aligned and supporting curriculum.
Costs that can or should be covered within the school or district’s budget

o Projects that don’t affect students directly

o Regular curriculum materials

o School building activities

Grants without a clear innovative component
Requests with a high cost per student – there may be exceptions, but in general, we are seeking for efficient and effective impacts re: cost.