keeping small town fd going!!!!

[dwyman25]

to anyone,

i'm on a small town department that has a limited budget, and i recently joined our grant committee. it seems so hard to get a grant, so i'm looking for any feedback.

[FF2426]

I'm in the same boat you are. All I can say is try everywhere Wal-Mart, The government, private buisnesses. Also why don't you look around the Grant forum you can find a lot in there I know I did.

[kfed]

Start here the AFG grant is what gave us the biggest boost up! You will have to wait for next year on it but depending on your department needs, it can take that long to formulate a needs assessment.

www.firegrantsupport.com

Sign up here and there are a lot of people with alot of advice under the Grants section of this forum. I studied all the information from this forum under the grants section.

Starting small might be good too, here is another website that might help I've not used it but we are kind of in the same boat, we still need apparatus, we are thinking of resourcing BLM, the local forest service.
http://nvfc.org/index.php?id=638

Good luck and glad to help if you need any further advice, I'm not an expert but glad to help.

[SVFD2006]

I am definetly not an expert, but I'll give you what advise I can. DHS Grants are going to quickly become harder to get. I spoke with a gentleman at their grant help desk, and he informed me that FEMA and DHS is really pushing for training. Anyone that filed for an operations grant this year can tell you that they asked if "all members of the Fire Department are trained to the level of FFII or been trained to the essentials". The Program Guidance for the grant stated that if you answered "no" to this question, it would not kick you out of the primary computer scan, but it is not likely for it to pass the peer review. You could say you are trained to the essentials, but you better have a Certified Instructor before making that claim. So if your department is not up to state standards, go for training grants. Also, for any DHS, or "Fire Service" grant, make sure to reference NFPA standards that you can not currently meet without the grant, and throw statements and words from the Program Guidance back at them, and be good at BS without lying.

Other than that, and I'm not trying to be a smart @ss, use a search engine for firefighter grants. The amount of untouched money out there is amazing. Try your Fire Marshall's office, although those are hard to get. We've just started pushing grants hard this year, but have got a few in recent years from DHS. Another local FD has received about $450,000 over the past five years, so the money is out there. Like I said, not an expert, but I'll try and answer any questions you have.

[KENNYWOOD12]

to anyone,

i'm on a small town department that has a limited budget, and i recently joined our grant committee. it seems so hard to get a grant, so i'm looking for any feedback.

I know how you feel, it is hard to get a grant, and the approval process takes FOREVER, but its worth it in the end, our department got a grant for several new sets of nice turnout gear.

[THEFIRENUT]

Go over to this part of the forum:

http://forums.firehouse.com/forumdisplay.php?f=355

There is a vast amount of help there. There are grants every were. Sometimes you need to think outside the box.

Here are a couple:

FEMA- Fire Act (of course)
UDSA
Fireman's Fund
Hamburger Helper
Tums
Walmart

Here in Texas, the big ones are:

Texas Forest Service
Texas Commission on Fire Protection

I am sure that there are a lot more out there from your local community.