Grants/Funding/Used Equipment

[joynercknott]

Dear Friends,

I am the principal of an elementary school in NC and was wondering if there were any technology grants that were available at the school level.????

We have started a Promethean initiative and our teachers are very excited (at current we have 9 boards and hope to have one in each classroom by 2009). Our system will not fund the initiative so my PTA has bought a couple and we have used instructional funds as well. We also desperately want to add a couple of wireless laptop carts with 24 laptops in each, but can't get funding for that either.????

Does anyone know of a reliable off lease computer dealer and also if there are any used Promethean Boards/Equipment for sale?

Thanks for your help

[LisaD]

I would imagine that your local Promethean reseller would have some leasing options available.

I did a presentation at a NC conference last year called "Finding Funding." I would be happy to share with you some of the key notes from that presentation:

Show me the Money (Ideas for Finding Funding for Activclassrooms)

1) First, start thinking like a salesperson and try to find out who you can “sell” this concept to. Make a list.

Example:
Internal District
• Curriculum folks
• IT folks-
• Facilities folks (facility spreadsheet/ savings)
• Professional development
Community
• Parents,
• Rotary Club,
• PTA,
• Business Partners


2) Then prepare yourself with WIIIFM. That means What’s In It For Me. Everyone in the list you make from step #1 will want to know what’s in it for THEM. Not to sound negative, but ask yourself how does helping YOU help THEM? Align what you want to do with with they want to do.

Put yourself in your shoes...what makes them respond?
Good press?
Invite the press (make a press release, have an open house, be prepared for questions, have students demonstrate)

3)Put together an Action plan specific for THEM. I For example, if you want to ask business partners to participate or Sponsor a classroom, think about invite them in for a well-prepared presentation and have available a handout that list stuff like this:
How many Activclassrooms can YOU sponsor?
• What you get for $5000. (sample $)
• Benefits for students
• Long duration of donation (vs paying for pizza night)
• Effects many students for years to come
• Plaque on the wall…showing sponsorship.

4) You will find that your funding will come from various sources and that's ok. You will probably end up assembling the funds together perhaps from PTA, some from Title 1, some from grants, some from Special Ed, ESL…

Last advice:
Be careful of grants disguised as discounts
Get research and case studies ready
Research can be Activclassroom related or even better goal or learner- related:• Formative assessment
• Learning styles
• Active, engaged learners
• ELL studies

Lisa

[rgabino]

I was asked by my principal today to see if Promethean had any type of grants for equiptment or if there are other grants that were available for us to get the boards quicker on our campus. Currently we have approximately 25-30 boards on our campus; however, we have over 200 faculty on our staff. Our district is extremely supportive of Promethean, but of course funding is short. My principal is going to put in as many boards as possible, but we have many teachers that are interested and would like to get more in as quickly as possible. We have educational grant money from the district but we were looking to see if there was any other alternatives that someone might know about.

[davidlloyd]

There are more threads on grants here: http://www.prometheanplanet.com/forum/search.php?searchid=178370
Good luck!

[rgabino]

The link for that post isn't working.

[karenadams]

Click on Search on the toolbar on the top right and type 'grants' in the search field. This is how you can narrow down threads to a specific topic.

Good Luck!!

[scaulfield]

I know that Best Buy also has a lot of grants.
NASA also has a lot of grants for technology, and I know that many of them go un-used each year!

[rgabino]

Thanks for the info! The search info wasn't bringing up too much new info that I hadn't already seen. I will look into those.

[BenPosner]

I subscribe to ESchoolNews through my email, and this showed up in my inbox this morning. Hope it can help!

http://www.eschoolnews.com/emails/eSN/SeptemberGrants.htm

~Ben