Grants that are meant to produce tangible outcomes

Those who follow me, both here and on my other blog know that I am a supporter of a diversified educational strategy.  STEM is great, but someone has to build and run the machinery and use the stuff engineers dream up!

It won't do a lot of good to get more manufacturing and assembly jobs back into this country if  we don't have anyone trained to do them. Not to mention the fact that working with your hands as well as your brain is good for the economy, good for your personal financial situation, and may give workers a reason to pursue other education to progress up the career ladder.

Today's manufacturing jobs are not those of the mid-20th century, and often blend in well with more formal STEM educational goals.

Personally, I find that payng for a kid to go to college to "find themselves and their life work" is both fiscally and socially irresponsible, particularly given the dismal report of the emotional readiness of students to enter college.

If I had my way, every person would have to work for two years before they even considered college.

That's just me, but hey...I'm entitled to my opinion too.

To that end, I highlight grant opportunities that fall into that arena, and here is one that fits. To give credit where is is due, this came to my attention through Grant Gopher, and the lead paragraph reads like this:

"Nuts, Bolts & Thingamajigs awards grants annually to trade schools and community or technical colleges capable of hosting a summer camp program for girls and/or boys ages 12-16. Summer camps have been a successful way of introducing middle- and high-school students to the fascinating, high-tech career choices available to them in today's automated manufacturing industry."

The website is http://www.nutsandboltsfoundation.org.  It doesn't offer tons of money, but it could be a good fit for their target partner demographic. The closing date is November 15, 2015. You can visit their grants page at: http://www.nutsandboltsfoundation.org/camps/grants/

Federal Apprenticeship grant FOA announcement

The following FOA opened on December 11, 2014, and closes on April 30, 2015.

FOA-ETA-15-02

American Apprenticeship Initiative

Department of Labor

Employment and Training Administration

Note:  The lead organization, i.e. the award designee, MUST be a nonprofit, although for-profits are encouraged to participate in the training protocol and delivery phases.

The entire announcement is available through grants.gov and is, as noted, offered through the Department of Labor. The synopsis is available at: http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/search-grants.html. Click on the DOL link, and then on the FOA number. From there you can download the full announcement and supporting documents.

This is a large-scale program, with a minimum award amount of $2.5 million and a maximum individual award of $5 million, with a funding program cap of $100 million. There are more than 1100 potentially eligible occupations and persons as young as 16 may be eligible to take advantage of the program.

There are significant minimum results required, with the lowest funding level requiring 300 apprentices to be served, so this is probably best suited to nonprofits already working in the general job training or skills development fields that have existing partnerships at the business, state and local government level.