Among the many other activities TLAM has been participating in this Fall, we have been writing a proposal for the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Grant provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The grant-writing process was lead by Omar, and completed with lots of help from Robin, Jake, and Kelly. Although we won’t share specific details of the proposal here, we are excited to think about the possibilities of continuing and expanding Convening Culture Keepers and our collaboration between tribal cultural institutions and LIS programs.
We’ve always been thinking about how to sustain the relationships we make and continue expanding and improving the work that we do. But before we started writing a grant that involved CCK, we wanted to meet with members to make sure we shared the same vision.
So, at the end of this past summer, we met in Wausau to focus our thoughts on the direction CCK should take. Anita Barber was a wonderful facilitator in helping us think about our priorities, values, strengths, and obstacles. We even developed a mission statement to help guide CCK into the future! After this meeting, we felt ready to draft our grant proposal.
Who knew that writing a grant was going to be so hard? Writing a grant sounds pretty straightforward, but it is much more complex than we ever expected. Our idealism sometimes got the best of us (i.e. our enthusiasm far exceeded the possibilities of reality). Many of our initial ideas had to be reworked because 1) this was Robin, Jake, and Kelly’s first time writing a grant, 2) we had to consider the needs and requirements of so many different groups of people that would be involved in our proposal, and 3) some of our grand schemes didn’t exactly mesh well with the bureaucratic process we are working in.
From start to finish, Robin estimates that we considered well over a dozen different project ideas – over email, in coffeeshops, in hallway conversations, and in SLIS offices – before fine-tuning our strongest, most exciting, and most realistic proposal.
We submitted the proposal in mid-September, and won’t hear announcements until March. After so much hard work and personal investment, it’s hard not to want immediate feedback and answers. But until then, we’ll keep on keepin’ on.
-Robin and Jake