I have a love-hate relationship with grant writing. It takes a long time with no guarantee of success. As a faith based organization, we have to find grants we can apply for, but we don’t want to create programs just to chase the money, so we want grants that are in line with where we see ourselves going. We’ve written a few over the years, we’ve had them turned down. The problem with the turn down is that it’s usually so vague that you don’t know what you did wrong. My favorite is “there are so many good causes and not enough money to go around.” While obviously true, we assume there is some reason others were picked over ours. We’d love to know why.
That said, we want you to be praying for us. As we move forward into community development, I know that safety and an improved quality of life are at the top of our lists. I want my neighbors to want to live here, not just see this as a place to live until they can find something better. We have applied for two grants in the areas of safety and creating community.
1. Money to install a few security cameras near the ministry house that will monitor public spaces. These would serve only to assist the police in case of crimes in the area.
2. Money for community events, including expanding the Columbus Children’s Parade and for hosting several block parties in our community.
These grants are due in mid-December, so we are finishing them up (I’m not doing the writing, and I’m thankful to my friends Priscilla and Courtney who are doing most of it). Will you pray with us for wisdom, budgeting, vision, clarity? Will you also pray for the hearts of those making the decisions that they would see clearly what we are hoping to develop here?
Thanks for joining us in this. We’ll let you know whenever we know – sometime in the spring.