Grant Center 2017: A Year in Review

January 9, 2018

Each year, public television and public radio stations across the country work hard to secure federal and foundation grant funding for exciting projects and initiatives. In addition to the already difficult work of finding and securing grant funding, the constantly evolving political environment presented new challenges for stations relying on grant funding in 2017. At the Grant Center for Public Media, we remain committed to providing our members with the tools, resources and expertise to facilitate grant success, especially during times of uncertainty. Here is a review of the resources and services our members had access to during 2017.

Responding to a Changing Funding Environment

In 2017, we began the year with uncertainty about the budgets of many federal agencies under the new administration, and many questions about the future of federal grants. Like many in the grant world, we tried to project where gaps might emerge, where federal dollars might disappear and we listened closely to discussions in the philanthropic world about how to address this potential crisis. As foundations convened and mobilized to meet unmet needs, we identified four critical areas for stations that were facing uncertainty. We began to research solutions and alternatives and produced a series of funding guides for stations to find foundation dollars in areas we feared may face significant cuts. Our popular downloadable guides focus on:

These new guides join a series we have created over the last few years including guides to National Science Funding funding, American Graduate sustainability funding and corporate foundations.

A Focus on Professional Development Opportunities for Members

Last year, the Grant Center put an emphasis on offering members professional development opportunities. Grantwriters in public media often wear many hats and may not have formal training in grantsmanship. We addressed this need with resources to get a new grantwriter up and running from day one. Our streamed webinars include a six-part series on grantwriting basics and an October 2017 webinar brought together a panel of successful public media grantwriters to share tips and tools. In December, we debuted our three-part series on evaluation with a webinar focused on how to implement an evaluation campaigns at your station in order to better measure success and attract more funding. Each webinar in this series pairs a professional evaluator with a station case study.

We also produced four sessions in the philanthropy track of the popular PMDMC meeting in July, bringing visibility to the service and a much-needed discussion of grants to the key conference for development professionals in public media:

  • Communicating Impact: Why we Matter
  • Connecting with your Elected Leaders
  • Federal Funding Fallout: The Stakes Beyond CPB
  • So Now You’re the Grantwriter…

We continued to build grantseeking knowledge and skills through webinars for members. This year’s webinars cover the following topics:

Our website kept stations on top of important developments and trends in the grant world while continuing to share stories of successful grantseeking campaigns in public media.

Finally, the Grant Center benefited from the transition to the new APTS website with more than a facelift: the new site offers increased search functionality of our custom grants database, including saving searches and suggesting keywords, and smart personalization through displaying related content. A new calendar of upcoming grant deadlines and a live twitter feed keep all of your grantseeking needs in one place on the homepage.

One-to-one Member Engagement as a Model for Future Growth

We are continuing to plan great content and resources for members in the coming year, but we also believe in the value of providing our members with customized, one-to-one engagement. In the last year, we have met with new and current members by phone in order to identify grantseeking needs and develop engagement plans. We have also helped these members stations and national organizations identify new grant prospects specific to their needs and goals through our custom prospect research service.

We are excited to hear more about your station’s development priorities and initiatives so we can help your station fulfill its mission through grant funding in 2018. To learn more about how we work together or to fill us in on a new need at your station, visit www.apts.org/grantcenter, or contact Meegan White and Anthony Collebrusco.

Thanks to all of our members for a great year. We look forward to continue to work and grow your mission together.