Program Sustainability

If there were ever a term aptly designed to strike fear into the heart of a novice grant writer, it is Program Sustainability. Most RFP's these days require that the proposal describe a coherent plan for maintaining the project beyond the funding period. In some cases, this is easy, "once we use your money to build sidewalks, our guys in public works will maintain them." But in others, the grant writer is left to scratch their head, thinking, "I don't know where we're going to get the money now (yet), how am I supposed to know where we're going to find it thirty-six months from now?"

In a perfect world*, sustainability planning is incorporated into the project from day one. The first key to solving this puzzle is having a strategic plan in place. You need to know where you are today and what your organization is going to be doing thirty-six months from now before you can begin to address where you should be looking for funding, today and in the future. As part of the strategic planning process, you evaluate the types of projects you intend to implement, assuring that they are aligned to your organization's mission. Once you have determined which projects are necessary to support your mission, you begin designing a rough draft of the project.

The project design process is the stage at which sustainability should become a focus. Some project designs are inherently sustainable, particularly projects that focus on systemic change (i.e. professional development, training, etc). While other programs, like infrastructure projects, have a very definite set of maintenance costs that must be weighed against the benefit of the program. Still others, especially those involving a lot of personnel, are decidedly challenging from a sustainability standpoint. The best approach is to evaluate the project on the front end to determine if there are ways to maximize the benefit of the project while minimizing the long-term costs. (An example would be utilizing funding to train a large cross section of an existing workforce to implement a new programming strategy, rather than hiring all new employees to implement it.)

Once a rough draft of the project is in place, then the work of identifying appropriate funding source(s) begins**. The funding research stage is another area in which sustainability planning should be considered. It is a "no brainer" that we all prefer a five year grant over a twenty-four month grant, but there are other issues involved. Is there a planning grant available and will securing it first improve our chances of being awarded an implementation grant down the road? Are new competitions held bi-annually? Are multiple agencies funding the same types of projects on different cycles?

This is when having a seasoned funding research specialist becomes priceless. It takes a lot of time, effort and good old fashioned research to know: all of the funding sources out there; all of their respective funding cycles; and, all of the intricate relationships between various funding programs, both within an agency and across multiple agencies. (For example, it is almost impossible to learn that the federal Department of Education's, relatively small, Integration of Schools and Mental Health Systems grant is considered a precursor to the much larger, Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant, without actually talking to someone at ED or reading my blog.) Even I can't profess to know all of this, although I admit to knowing more than your average bear.

Going back to the importance of strategic planning, not only does your organization need an overall plan, as I've demonstrated here, each project needs its own strategic, long range funding plan. The RFP will likely require it and it's necessary to ensure that your project survives beyond the initial round of funding.

* Yet again, repeat after me, "the world of grants is never, ever a perfect world."

** If the process described above seems to be in exact reverse order from the way your organization pursues grants, you are Putting the Cart Before the Horse.