Muskegon 2012 grant strategy

[Mike R.]

Grant committee members,

The Fremont Area Community Foundation and the Gerber Foundation both have deadlines of Sept. 15, 2011 and Feb. 15, 2012 for grant applications. Should we apply to both by Sept. 15 for our 2012 Muskegon trips, or should we apply to FACF by Sept. for the May trip, and Gerber by Feb 15 for the October trip?

Also, should we start asking schools to contribute something instead of being wholly funded by the grant? We could stretch the grant money further if the schools paid a portion.

We had talked about creating some sort of fund that grantors would pay into and schools would draw from. The problem is that community foundations want their funds targeted to their communities. But we might be able to do something like this for Newaygo County, since both FACF and Gerber are located there, and there are 5 school systems (Fremont, Newaygo, White Cloud, Hesperia, and Grant).

[sandy]

Mike:

Thanks for putting your candid Muskegon Visit report on the new MMM Forum and for continuing to take responsibility for applying for new grants from Fremont and Gerber for the 2012 sailing season. On the assumption that the schedule can be worked out to put FGW in Muskegon in May and October of 2012, I would make these comments regarding your strategy for next year:

1. Have you had the opportunity to talk with your grant contacts at Fremont and Gerber to assess their interest in funding school sails again in 2012? It was clear from our interaction with Upton in 2009, for example, that they would not guarantee year to year funding. Ditto for the schools involvement in the coming year.

2. If you can manage it, I would recommend applying to both foundations by September 15. This way, you know where you stand for support well in advance of the sailing season. If Gerber drops off, there will be plenty of time to reschedule the boat for October. You may want to discuss timing with both foundations as you proceed to come to a final decision.

3. There was some discussion this summer about GLNMM applying for a grant from the Muskegon Foundation (MF) and your involvement to assist? What happened there and could the MF be an additional sources of support for school sails?

4. Your question about partial support from the schools and stretching grant support is a compelling one. The only way to know is to ask partner schools or those who may be partners if they can partially support school sails. Maybe the grant could be worded to acknowledge the option of partial school/parent support - say half fare per child @ $15 - with the remainder paid through the grant. Otherwise, full funding would click in. Most schools have some funds to assist kids in need through parent or community organizations. Principals general know who needs help and how to do it, although school sails might not be their first priority. I'm sympathetic to your concern about leaving some kids at the dock. We shouldn't do that.

5. For two years, we have talked about establishing a Maritime Education Fund with uncommitted funds that can be used at the Museum's discretion for school sails and other educational activities. As you have noted, most grant funds are specifically directed to children in their communities. Patti and I have talked about approaching a donor to establish the fund and will work toward that goal in the fall. Your description of a district where some kids can pay and others cannot may help point to a need that should be addressed.

The agenda for the Saturday, August 27, grants committee meeting at Julia's @ 10 a.m. is shaping up. In addition to your work, Sharon Dodson is pursuing 1812 exhibit grant possibilities through the Michigan Council on the Arts and Cultural Affairs. There are other school grants also in the offing as the new year begins. I hope you can attend with an update and get further feedback from members of the grants committee at the meeting.

Thanks again for the excellent support that you are providing for school sails in Muskegon for 2012.

Sandy Bryson
Grants Committee Chair

P.S. Mike, in a day or so, I may send your report and strategy questions out with my response to the grants committee by email and direct them to the Forum. I can't tell who has read the postings. This is relevant and timely stuff.

[Mike R.]

I've contacted FACF, and they said we could reapply. They are not opposed to funding Daisy Brook again, but they encouraged us to also look at other school districts in Newaygo.

I have not yet contacted Gerber. All but one of the Gerber trips will take place in October, which means we cannot incorporate feedback from those trips into our application if we apply now. They won't even get their final report from us until after those October trips are done. I doubt Fruitport will give us much help.

There are lots of ways we could play this. Maybe we could ask Gerber to fund Daisy Brook this year and FACF to fund another Newaygo school. That way we could use the positive responses we received from Daisy Brook in two applications.

If the New Era trips go well this October,maybe the Oceana county foundation would fund a return visit in Oct. 2012.

Re. GLNMM's application to MF: I discussed doing this for them but we were unable to agree on terms, so I suggested that they use our grant app from last year as a model and do it themselves.

I should also mention that I have asked Patti, Katie, and Capt. Adele to consider altering the program to allow three sails during a school day instead of two. This would allow us to accommodate more schools during our visits, make scheduling more flexible, and make the trips more profitable. Since a visit to the GLNMM is worthy of a field trip even without FGW, and we will be offering additional materials for classroom use next year, I proposed that we cut back on the dockside portion of our program and plan to offer three 80- to 90-minute sails during a 5-hour period.

Here is one other thing that I should append to my report: We hosted a small after-school group from Muskegon Heights (?) one afternoon for a short dockside tour. This was paid for by a donation from a Ship's Company member who had a connection to this group. This sort of thing might be a good way to use up leftover funds, if there are any (there may be some this year, since some of the schools provided their own transportation -- maybe we should just require that all schools provide their own transportation instead of asking for a contribution per student).

[Mike R.]

Update:

Our application to FACF and GLNMM's application to CFMuskegon are under consideration. If both are accepted, we will not need to apply to Gerber unless we want to spend even more time in Muskegon than is currently planned. If they are not both accepted, the next deadline for Gerber is Feb. 15.

The New Era field trips went well. We could partner with them for an application to CFOceana, which has March 15 and Sept 15 deadlines.