Wholespire provides grant opportunities to communities across South Carolina for implementing a policy, system or environmental (PSE) change project. It’s a concept that can be challenging to explain and understand. To prepare you for any upcoming grant opportunities from Wholespire, we want to help you determine if your project is a PSE change or a program. We also want to help you save time before applying for a grant that will not get funded because it is considered to be a program.
What is a Program?
Programs typically occur over a short period of time and only focus on individual behavior change. They are often considered health education rather than community health improvement. Hospitals and health centers often provide programs that teach people living with chronic diseases how to manage their condition through diet and exercise.
What is PSE Change?
Policy, systems and environmental change make healthier choices more practical and readily available to all members of a community and influence community health and well-being. They are often part of an ongoing project or plan. PSE change reaches more people and leads to more impactful, long-term changes in community health.
PSE Change + Programs = Greater Success
Wholespire focuses on whole community health through PSE change, while other organizations focus on individual behavior change through programs. We support the use of programs to reach individuals because programs and PSE change complement each other and can lead to even greater success than a stand-alone program.
Scenario 1: One-time Event
A municipality receives a Wholespire mini-grant to create a paved walking trail in a local park. They host a ribbon-cutting ceremony on opening day that features exhibitors offering health education information and giveaways for community members. The one-time event is a tactic to get community members to the new trail.
Scenario 2: Traditional Program
A community health needs assessment shows eating fruits and vegetables is important to community members, and they don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables because they don’t know how to prepare and cook with them. The local health coalition chooses to host a free Cooking Matters program to teach individuals how to cook with fresh produce. To supplement the classes, the coalition partners with the local community garden. Garden organizers donate produce from the garden for the cooking demonstrations and give free produce boxes to participants.
Funding your organization’s mission isn’t always easy, especially for non-profits. A lack of direct income means you often have to rely on external funding sources to support your work. This is a good opportunity where grants can help.
While working with a grant writer can help boost your chances of an application being funded, it isn’t always possible and organizations must then rely on their own staff. While grant writing is multifaceted, it’s very much a learnable skill. When people ask me to explain what I do as a grant writer, I’ve often replied that it isn’t rocket science, but organization and attention to detail are critical.
When people ask me to explain what I do as a grant writer, I’ve often replied that it isn’t rocket science, but organization and attention to detail are critical.
If you don’t have a lot of experience in developing grant proposals, here are a few tips to help your application stand out to reviewers:
Follow any formatting instructions provided on the application.
Pay attention to formatting specifications: Does the application ask you to use a certain font or to only submit as a PDF or Word document? Is the narrative (or any other section) supposed to be in paragraph style or bullet points? Is there a word count or other size limitation to your answers? Write as briefly and concisely as you can, and only give the information the application is requesting.
Describe your project in detail.
Arguably the most important part of a grant application is the project description. Ensure that you have narrowed your focus and that your project aligns with the mission of the funder. Projects that are too broad in scope will often not be funded because there either isn’t adequate time or money to successfully complete the project. Here are some things to consider when writing your project narrative:
Why is the proposed project needed? What problem or opportunity will you address? Statistics and solid numbers will help enhance your proposal even more.
How will you accomplish the proposed activities and objectives?
Who will the project benefit? Be as specific with numbers and characteristics as you can, particularly if your project will serve disadvantaged groups such as low- to moderate-income, minorities, at-risk youth, or people with special needs.
Is your proposed project part of a larger project? Many grants are used to move along or complete a larger project. Funders like knowing they are playing a part in a greater effort, but be specific in what phase of the project these particular grant funds will go toward.
Offer relevant background information.
Sticking to a 300-word limit project summary while also being specific is not a simple task. Other sections in the application, such as asking for information on your organization’s mission and activities, are where you can fill in the gaps and expand on details from the project summary. Here are some examples of helpful information to include:
Demographics of the community being served.
Project outcomes: how the proposed project will benefit the community or audience of focus and how you will measure your success.
Sustainability: how will the project continue beyond the grant cycle?
If applicable, a description of the larger project and what stage you are in.
Develop an accurate budget.
Most grants will maintain a maximum amount you can request in funding. Always make sure your budget falls at or below this number (unless you intend to fund the rest, which should be noted with a funds-commitment letter from the head of your organization). When putting together a cost estimate, it’s always better to have line items provided by a professional contractor, online pricing, or other verified means rather than figures you have assumed yourself.
Sometimes a funder may want to see your previous fiscal year’s organizational budget or bank statements to ensure you are operating at a profit and will have some available funds to continue your project. Be sure to include this information if requested.
Define community engagement efforts.
Community support of a project reinforces that a need exists within your area. Explain how input from your community led you to focus on this particular issue. This is also an appropriate section to describe key partnerships. What organizations and groups are you collaborating with, both by way of financial support and in-kind or volunteer efforts? How do you leverage other resources in the community?
Most community coalitions conduct community health needs assessments to determine what’s important to community members and what they need most to lead a healthy lifestyle. Specifically for Wholespire’s mini-grants, use this information to prioritize policy, systems, or environmental projects and include it in the grant proposal.
Often times, your local government may also have administered a community needs assessment that you can request. If, however, an applicant does not have a needs assessment to rely on for direction, there are other ways to evaluate the community’s opinions and needs. Online surveys and community meetings are easy and low-cost alternatives.
Make sure to proofread!
Don’t let spelling and grammatical errors take away from an otherwise strong grant proposal. These types of careless oversights can lead to a reduction in scoring. Make sure to take advantage of spelling and grammar check tools before submitting your proposal.
It’s also a good idea to ask someone else to help you proofread your application. You’ve read through the application many times, so you may inadvertently skip over some errors or not have provided enough detail in a certain section. A second set of eyes could catch something you haven’t and can offer feedback to any clarifications needed.
Wholespire’s mini-grants (and non-profit or foundation grants in general) are very competitive, so give yourself enough time to write a quality application.
Wholespire’s mini-grants (and non-profit or foundation grants in general) are very competitive, so give yourself enough time to write a quality application. Reviewers can tell how much effort you put into your application and the proposed project by the information you submit. Allow yourself the time needed to submit your application prior to the due date.
Adrienne Patrick is the Director of Development at MPA Strategies, a statewide marketing and public relations firm. She is a certified Grant Writer and has successfully secured over $3 million in funding for MPA client projects including local infrastructure, non-profit programming, city planning, and community parks. Adrienne has years of experience in event planning and fundraising for both non-profits and political candidates, including serving as Governor David Beasley’s Finance Director for his United States Senate Campaign. She is a journalism graduate of the University of Georgia.
The physical environment is a key tool for living a healthy lifestyle! Learn from Brandie Freeman, Wholespire Marketing and Communications Manager, and Jamaius White, The HYPE Project Program Manager, as they discuss community and school projects that shape the physical environment. This webinar will explore advocacy efforts surrounding schools, the Healthy Young People Empowerment Project (HYPE!), and funding opportunities for PSE change!
Depending on how long you’ve been keeping up with Wholespire, you may be aware that we award mini-grants to community coalitions and organizations periodically. Our application process is competitive, meaning we weigh various health outcomes, population, and demographic data to help determine the most need. However, what you may not know is why we offer mini-grants, rather than large chunks of money. In this post, we’ll explain the history of our mini-grants and the reason we use this model.
What is the Mini-Grant Model?
Mini-grants are grant awards that are relatively small amounts of money and typically have short implementation periods.
Since 2018, Wholespire has been offering mini-grants of up to $5,000 to community coalitions, schools, local government, faith-based groups, and other non-profit organizations. These mini-grants can be used to implement a policy, systems, or environmental change that addresses healthy eating and/or active living. To date, 45 mini-grants have been awarded for projects like:
Add signage to an existing walking loop,
Add fitness stations to parks,
Create community gardens,
Include bilingual signage at farmers’ markets, and
Start new HYPE teams to lead civic action projects similar to the ones just listed.
Why Wholespire Adopted the Mini-Grant Model
Before 2018, Wholespire awarded large grants with a longer implementation period to help a small number of communities work on multiple improvement projects. Our hope was there would be a greater health impact. But that didn’t happen with all of the communities we funded.
Some communities experienced challenges, while others didn’t. Receiving a large amount of money can be overwhelming. It isn’t always easy to choose how to spend the money and what areas to tackle first. Sometimes it’s difficult to reach a consensus, while other times, you get so bogged down in a couple of strategies that the other strategies and the money get lost.
After evaluating these instances, Wholespire noticed that even when coalitions have large amounts of grant funding, they tend to spend their money in smaller increments like $5-$10,000 rather than spending large amounts of money at one time. We concluded that change needed to happen. We needed to look internally and adopt a different approach to grantmaking. So, we began using the mini-grant model to help grantees manage their awards better.
Successes Related to the Mini-Grant Model
We found that the smaller mini-grant investments led to a domino effect of momentum in communities. Oftentimes, the mini-grants led to investments by community partners as well as in-kind donations. Adopting this model meant we would be able to give more coalitions and organizations the opportunity to apply for these small grants.
In addition to being able to reach more coalitions, it gives community coalitions and organizations a chance to implement a project without the burden of managing large amounts of funding or committing to a long period of time. Coalitions can organize and work on community action plans without the time constraints of a grant and then apply for a mini-grant when they are ready to carry out their plan of action.
Our experiences have shown that many community coalitions and organizations are looking for a few hundred dollars to complete a project that fits our mission, while others need seed money to get a project moving. Wholespire provides funding opportunities, when available, for not only these reasons but ultimately to reduce health disparities, improve health equity, and increase access to healthy choices.
Every county has a parks and recreation department that’s responsible for community activity programs and maintaining and ensuring the safety of its parks. But, sometimes, the playground equipment in parks unintentionally gets overlooked and becomes unsafe for children and families.
Hampton County has only one park under its name, and it’s located next door to the parks and recreation gymnasium and offices in the small town of Varnville. Recreation Park has been there for decades and it probably once hosted tons of kids and families over the years. As kids’ play choices changed, so has the foot traffic at Recreation Park. In addition, the decline in local economies has made parks and playgrounds less of a priority for rural areas of the state like Hampton County.
“Some of the equipment is probably more than 30 years old,” said Tania Peeples, Hampton County Parks and Recreation director. “The teeter-totter is wood, so it’s old. The bouncers and merry-go-round, I played on those as a child. The swing set has chains, but no seats.”
New bouncers were installed with the help of the Let’sGo! 3.0 mini-grant.
The department has changed leadership a few times, but each person had visions of bringing the park back to life and making their community healthier. They applied for a Let’sGo! 3.0 mini-grant to bring in some new playground equipment, and Wholespire was happy to give them a boost.
“Our small towns are treasures and truly deserve some help, especially those located in the I-95 corridor,” said Meg Stanley, Wholespire executive director. “Providing children and families a safe place to play is a basic community amenity that helps everyone grow healthy.”
Mini-grant funding was used to:
Replace the tire swing.
Replace missing seats and broken chains on the swing set.
Add new equipment like a double seat bouncer, truck bouncer, pearl twirl, and teeter-totter bouncer.
Peeples said, “The community loves it. The kids love it. We do have quite
A new teeter-totter in Recreation Park
a few people who come out and play. We still have a lot of work to do out there but the new playground equipment really brightened it up.”
The new playground equipment has spurred excitement for Peeples. “I would like to remove the plastic ring around the swing set, clean it out, and plant sod. I would love to add some picnic shelters with tables in an empty area. Of course, I’d like to see a paved walking trail around the park, replace some benches, and add an accessible swing.”
Did we mention Recreation Park has a nature trail? Under Peeples’ leadership, a nature trail, which had become overgrown with bamboo and weeds, was discovered. Completely inaccessible to the community and mostly forgotten about, Peeples and other parks and recreation leaders set out to uncover the lost gem. Located behind Recreation Park, the nature trail winds through woods and wetlands — complete with a wooden bridge. Restoring the trail will add even more value to the only county park and the lives of its residents and visitors.
“I’m a lover of the outdoors, so hearing that they rediscovered a nature trail is exciting and hopeful for Hampton County,” said Stanley. “I hope this small bit of funding from us will inspire them to reach for the stars and apply for other funding opportunities to help complete their vision.”
