Grant Writing Courses

testimonials frequent questions schedule and registration host a workshop contact alumni

Grants for Law Enforcement

Strategic Grantseeking

In these days of shrinking budgets and increased responsibilities, local law enforcement agencies are looking for new and creative strategies to fill funding gaps. Grants are one way to fill some of those gaps.

.:: Get Trained ::.

If you're serious about getting grants, then you're well advised to get serious grants training. That's what we do here at Grant Writing USA. View our nationwide event schedule here. From the California Adjutant General to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, our workshops are hosted by America's finest homeland security professionals.

But you’ll only succeed in raising money through grants if you know the #1 rule of the game: Grant money is designed to solve problems and, the problem you seek to solve better be bigger than a lack of money.

Sound like pretzel logic? At first blush is does but if we dig a little deeper, it makes perfect sense.

Case Study in Problem Solving

Thanks in part to aggressive counter-drug enforcement actions in big cities, one of the greatest challenges faced by outlying law enforcement agencies today is illegal drug trafficking. What’s more, savvy, start-up drug dealers have learned to skip the big cities all together and head straight for rural communities.

What was once a big city problem is now a small city and rural county nightmare.

It’s for that reason that many agencies now want to start counter-drug units anchored by a K9 team – a team that must be built from the ground up in an environment where there’s no money to do it.

Now keeping in mind that grant money is designed to solve problems, where most grant seekers go wrong is they argue in their grant application that the problem is the lack of money to launch the K9 unit or, the problem is the lack of the unit all together.

Those are not the kinds of problems that grant makers help solve – those are solutions to a problem.

In this case, the problem the money will help solve is the increase in drug trafficking. So, in a grant application, the grant writer must first prove the increased trafficking exists and much like building any other case, the more solid evidence you provide, the more competitive your application will be.

How do you know trafficking is up? Arrests? Confidential informants? Abandoned clan labs? Gang activity or drug-related violence? There must be some evidence that causes you to say the problem exists.

Discuss that evidence in your grant application first and you will definitely stand out in the grants competition because most applicants are stuck in the “lack of” syndrome: lack of money, lack of a K9 team, lack of personnel, lack of equipment, etc.

After you’ve presented your statement of problem and backed it up with evidence, now is the time to detail your plan of action for addressing that problem. In this case, your plan of action – or as it’s often called in grants, your methods – are discussed to include the acquisition of a K9 officer and the related activities that must take place to launch your counter-drug enforcement team.

The bottom line is, grant makers are more inclined to help you get what you need when the outcome is you solve a problem that exists outside of your agency.

Now that you’ve focused your grant application on a problem that’s bigger than your needs, it’s time to strategically choose which grant programs you’re going to pursue.

Strategic Grants Targeting

All the well-crafted proposals in the world will still get you no money if you don’t do strategic grants targeting. Not all programs fund all things.

One web site you’ll definitely want to explore is http://cfda.gov, where CFDA stands for Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance. Access to the web site is free.

The CFDA is where the federal government lists and details all available grant programs. From that web site you can download and print the CFDA but be advised, it’s 1,767 pages long. It’s much more efficient and practical to search the online database.

Many of the grant programs you’ll find there specify that the only allowable applicants are states, not local jurisdictions. That doesn't mean you can’t compete for the money – in most instances it means it’s a “pass-through” grant where the states receive the money and then pass it through to local agencies.

Each state has a State Administering Agency – or SAA – that is charged with receiving those pass-through funds. To find your SAA, visit http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/state.htm. There you’ll find a map. Click on your state and you’ll have a list of contacts for the various pass-through programs including ones from the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. Call your SAA contacts and discuss the problems you seek to solve. They will welcome your call and offer advice on what program best fits your request.

They will also appreciate and respect the fact that you’re looking to solve problems that are bigger than your agency’s needs.

Remember: The resulting increase in agency capacity – be it equipment, personnel or training - that grant money brings is a natural consequence of an evidence-based, strategically focused, grant application.

About the Author

Rod Helm is the Managing Partner at Grant Writing USA and is a recognized expert and frequent speaker at national conferences on law enforcement and homeland security grants. Through Grant Writing USA, Helm and other expert trainers teach grant writing workshops across America. For more information about the firm – including how you can receive free grants training by hosting a workshop – click here to read about Grant Writing USA's workshop hosting program.