One of the items that people seeking government funding need to recognize is that there is not really only one source for many projects. There are federal grants, state grants, and local grants, each being a little different and each being a little alike.

The key to the first part of grant packaging is a strong commitment by the local entity concerning what they are going to put up as match dollars. It is always great to have a strong participation from the municipality. Communities that hire me normally have money problems or are not very flush in the spare cash department. That is why, as a grant writer, you need to point out the issues relating to financing in the community and make like whatever they put up is impressive.

Communities have been known to get to the point where they just want to see it happen, and however much they contribute, it represents all of their hopes and dreams to complete the project. This is the motivation for people working in the field, the fact that you are entrusted with those dreams provides a sense of urgency to professionals. If you hire someone who is just writing the grant, and not invested, maybe a little less so.

Downingtown put up $400,000 for projects, Phoenixville over $600,000 and I am now in Castle Shannon, which recently put up $2,000,000 for projects.  It is that local match that helps you determine the scope of the project. Local match can be matched on a local level. In the case of Castle Shannon, I will have two public sanitary authorities participating with me, which makes the local match richer. When I discuss the term richer I mean that the original local body does not have to commit as much to the match or can leverage other dollars at a great amount depending upon the cost of the project and any additional scope that is derived through the process.

When doing the project, it is always good to control the engineering because this is where you have the real ability to move the project along quickly. There are some engineers who love me and some who hate me.  I do not like to work with people that I consider “fee-based.” They are only there for the fee. I want someone there for the project, not for the fee. Although the fee is a necessary part of the project, it is not the only part. I have already fired engineers twice in Castle Shannon. I fired the engineers in Phoenixville when they said, “this is going to be one of the few streetscapes without trees”….”yeah right… next?”

Other than being fee-based, another issue with engineers, is their time constraints for doing the work and projects take a long time because of internal constraints like people leaving the firm or lack of credible personnel unable to work without enhanced supervision.

Once you have the local partners and a good relationship with an engineer concerning the deliverables and the timetable for the deliverables, you are ready to look elsewhere for match. People think of the Federal government first because their depth of programs offered for a variety of issues. Federal money comes with the Davis Bacon Wage Rate Requirements and State Government has state prevailing wage. These are two separate animals and should be studied for impact before you apply. If you do not know call and ask.

People sometimes forget the quasi government agencies that can offer match to you, organizations with names like “Smart Growth” something or “Preservation” something are worthy of investigation. Whatever the topic that you need to address, google that subject and put in something like “Smart Growth Funding Sources” and see if anything applies. This money may be easier to use than state or federal money, but normally is in lesser amounts. You create the “Capital Stack” for the project. 

It gets very confusing and it is all a matter of what you can do with the money you apply for and what are the constraints on the money you receive? When I think of this issue it brings back my memories of Phoenixville. The lamp post manufacturer operating out of Texas did not meet the Pennsylvania Steel Act provisions. I had to send the poles back… people had wanted the poles to be black and not blue and they got a second chance at taking a bite of the apple when I had to re-order the lamp posts.

I remember going to a council meeting and some lady from Schuylkill Township being very insulting to me personally. I did not recognize her so I asked if she was from town and she said “no.” I thought to myself that I was on the road to success. Three years before no one would have cared what I did down there because they were desperate, desperate for revitalization. Fifteen years of ineffectual approaches had set the stage to hire me… imagine they let me build a 25-foot bird in the middle of town and burn it at one point.  

The regulations dealing with grant dollars are voluminous and need to be understood before you move forward, no matter how many partners and how much local money you have in your bank account.