People are always asking me, “how is it that you are able to access grants”? I always blow off that question because I do not know. I know that if you write a good application, you score a lot of points and you are competitive. That is all that you can ask, that you are competitive to get yourself on the board.

Writing a grant is a little more than being competitive, and I have been told that you have to go through your legislator or some other politico. Most times they do not know of the program you are talking about, and they may write multiple letters of support for the same grant. I blow off that part of it all the time. 

There are cases where I follow the lead of a legislator. I worked very closely with Curt Schroder on relocating the AMTRAK yard in Downingtown. This was a case where we were taking up his suggestion to act on a blighted property. He was instrumental in my understanding of the process… which did or did not have to include him.

I would like to walk you through one of my current projects, and how I am approaching the project. I have a couple of projects that I am working on in Pittsburgh.  I have a house in Pittsburgh as well as Philadelphia so it makes it easy to operate in Western PA.  It is a different world out there.  I have not actually worked there since the late ‘70s so it is fun to be out there with all my relatives. 

My position as a Keystone Community Coordinator in Castle Shannon gets the majority of my attention and I have a large Transit Oriented Development project there. A developer is putting a $48,000,000 development in my downtown, and I am coordinating the public infrastructure with about $3,000,000 in grants to make the area around the development handicapped accessible. 

That probably would be enough for the first ring suburb of Pittsburgh, but as we got further along in the process, I realized that there was an issue concerning our stream… something small running through the town called Saw Mill Run. There was a FEMA flood map update, which put 147 properties in the flood plain after, since the inception of the town, there was no flood plain designation.

We also found that the stream had an issue concerning aquatic life, with the runoff from Route 88 causing issues. Although the concern regionally was the stream pollution, I had to look at it as the loss of assessed value in a portion of my target area. So I had a rare combination of two issues happening at the same time, even though the one was happening by itself, and I had to bring my project along and up to speed to be effective. 

So what do I do? Run to my politico and ask for action? Uh no… I started contacting the regulatory agencies and started to get input. Meetings with the US Army Corp of Engineers, FEMA, PEMA, and the PA Department of Environmental Protection are now in process as we alert them to our project and ask for input. Alerting the regulatory agencies about your concerns about something is always the first step. They are not always the easiest people to get in touch with but in most cases, you can get someone on the phone if you call them and then set up a meeting. I always like them to see the people. So I have my relevant elected officials at the meetings. This is probably the single most important part of the grant process, even though it has noting to do with the actual submission of the proposal. Put a FACE on the project!

I always research the potential for grants and I relate what my theory of the how I am going to fund the project when I meet with the regulatory agency, and get their take on my theory. I also try to emphasize the urgent nature of the project. The context of the article does not relate to projects like a mural installation or something similar.

How do you develop a theory of financing that you relate to the regulatory agencies? A little experience is good, but research is imperative. The internet now provides access to information much more than when I started doing this in the ‘70s. The first thing that you need to realize that almost never will you be able to complete a big project with one grant. Grants need to be packaged together into a financing package.  Local match is always necessary to make the project work. People like to see skin in the game.  Although that can be mitigated and your cash could be replaced by another source, if it happens that way.

If everything works out with the meetings, and everyone is aware that you will be applying, your way is paved. When they meet over the grant applications, deciding who to fund and what projects score well, the fact that you met with them will make them more familiar with the project.

It makes a difference.

Barry Cassidy can be reached at barrycassidy@comcast.net.