How would you rate your understanding of available public safety-specific grants?

Our latest PoliceGrantsHelp homepage poll results showcase some surprising numbers in terms of law enforcement understanding available public safety grants.

• Very Knowledgeable - No Training Necessary: 2%
• Somewhat Knowledgeable - Could Use Some Guidance: 13%
• Minimal Knowledge - Need Substantial Guidance: 64%
• None: 21%

At PoliceGrantsHelp, we operate with the assumption that if given enough information and resources you as the first responder should be able to navigate through grant programs, right? Maybe not.

An overwhelming amount of you said you have minimal or no knowledge at all when it comes to understanding grants available to law enforcement agencies. Does this mean you are brand new to grants or just don’t have the time to do the research on the programs? Or are you too intimidated to pick up the phone and ask a question of the grantmaker to better understand the program? Whatever your reason, here are some simple quick suggestions to help improve your knowledge and help you hopefully improve your overall understanding.

1. Where can you Find Police Grants Information?

To make it simple for you, many of these grants are listed on PoliceGrantsHelp and include federal programs from the Office of Justice Programs as well as state grant programs that are either funded directly from your state or from federal programs that are passed down to your state to distribute the funds. The simplest way to get started is to click on your state on the grant listing page. Keep in mind we also list some corporate and private foundation grants, but because the private grants are very specific as the areas they fund we don’t list them all.

Some key online resources to search for grants include:

1. Grants.gov
2. Responders Knowledge Base 
3. Foundation Directory 
4. PoliceGrantsHelp 
5. Other Resources

2. How to Better Understand Grants for Law Enforcement

The simplest way to understand a grant program is to read the guidance the Request for Proposal (RFP). The RFP is designed to be your instructional handout for the grant program. If you have read the guidance and are still unclear on certain requirements including your project eligibility within the grant, call the contact or administering agent for the grant program. Their contact information should be listed in the RFP (usually on the bottom of the first page). Also, keep in the mind if the RFP is not yet available review the previous year’s guidance as grant programs don’t really change that much year to year.

When you start preparing your grant application including written sections and you get stuck, I recommend you take the time to review PGH articles and online tutorials that are available to you. We address many of these sections in our monthly columns (Review Denise Schlegel especially). The Bureau of Justice Assistance also put out some training videos on grants as well. I would also recommend, if you haven’t already, to signup to receive our monthly newsletter directly.

I’m hopeful this will help simplify the process of understanding grants or at the very least provide you some guidance on how to get started. We work hard at putting a lot of information on our sites to make your job easier in finding grants to support the work you do. If there are ever topics we can help with and you don’t see them addressed on the site – send us an email at expert@policegrantshelp.com.

Stay safe!