Winning & Managing Early Learning Grants | Janene Rox, Cronulla Preschool

Foreign. Hi, I'm Jessie Ballantyne and I love grants. I sold my house to fund the launch of the Grants Hub because I truly wanted to make grants easier to find. In the very early days, I ended up running the Grants Hub from the ICU ward of a children's hospital. Let's just say I'm committed to the cause of helping you find grants. If you're looking to get real with grants, to learn what works and what doesn't, to hear from grant experts from across the country and have some fun while we do it, then Grants Uncovered is the podcast for you. You are in for a treat today because I am here with Janine Rocks, director of the Cronulla Preschool in New South Wales. Janine and I met last year on a grants webinar and her impressive grants experience and grant wins were really clear. She is achieving big things in the grant space at the community level. Janine knows what she's doing when it comes to grants, but she also does it as part of her normal job. Like so many of you, she's not in a dedicated grants role, but does it as part of her director position at the preschool. Now, Janine is doing this recording while she's at the preschool today, so be prepared for some sounds of children or possibly the phone ringing. This is a real conversation about grants in the real world. So thanks so much, Janine, for coming on today. We really appreciate it.

You're welcome. It's great to be part of a podcast and. Yeah, share some ideas and get some information out there for everybody.

It's fantastic. And I think having you on here doing it, you know firsthand, this is your day in, day out for you. So it's what so many people who are on the grants frontline, that's exactly what they're doing themselves.

Yeah, absolutely. Trying to fit it in with everything else in your job description, it just becomes another one of those things, really. So.

Yeah, very true. Jeanine, what got you into grants? Was it the need that you saw? Were you passionate about grant funding? What got you started in the first place?

I think it was mainly because I've always worked in children's services and mainly in not for profit services, local councils, community based organisations and unfortunately, there's just not enough funding for us for all the things we want to do. There's enough funding for what we need to do, but when it comes to. To things that you want and those extras and just going above and beyond, it's tight. So there's a balancing act between how much you've got and then how that money is spent and what it's spent on. And one of the popular ways for the extras has generally been fundraising and these endeavors, like, whilst they're helpful and extremely admirable, I think it's a big ask for families that already paying out of pocket expenses. The services generally aren't free, so they're already paying a fee to attend your service and then you're asking them to put their hands in their pocket again and pay on top of that. So I just thought, particularly when I was working in a very low socio economic area, this isn't working. These poor families are, they're wanting to do it and they're wanting to help the service out because their child was attending. But it was a struggle. It was a, you know, ethical dilemma for me to ask them. It was a financial dilemma for them to find it and ask their families. So we, you know, we started to realise that it's not working and where else do we turn? And grants was definitely the answer on that level, I suppose.

So day to day for you as a preschool provider is there's funding for that that you get already?

Yeah. And that general funding, you know, covers most of your expenses and your biggest expense is your staffing, so it covers that. And then you allocate in your budget things like, you know, equipment and the bills you have to pay and things like that. But obviously you try to budget for other things, but then these little other scenarios happen or these little projects you want to work on with the children or the families and you think to do that, well, I need extra money and I hadn't thought about it when I set my budget 12 months ago. So do I wait? Do I try to find another opportunity to get that money? How are we going to make it work?

So what are some examples of things that you have, you know, got grants for or some of those projects that you're saying are the extras. Can you give us some examples of that?

Yeah. So I suppose there's two types of things really. One is the, you know, the educational side of things. Things you might be wanting to do in your program. Like you might want to offer a bit more of a comprehensive music or art program with a specialist that knows that stuff and is able to provide that program on a higher level than what the general educator is. Particularly things like Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander programs. If you don't have those staff or you want to do a second language and you don't have a staff member that speaks a second language, being able to Pay a visiting educator or visiting professional that has those skills and knowledge to then share with your children, your families. That's great. But again, to do that, some centres just charge families. Look, if you want to be part of our language program or our music program, that's an extra $10 a week and that really adds up for families. So those types of grants are great. And I think our sector in particular is getting better at recognising that and then providing smaller grants and making the process easier to apply for because it's a very clear acquittal process. You either did the program or you didn't. You either paid somebody an invoice or you didn't. It's not too airy fairy. It's not too obscure, it's very transparent. So those are the program based ones and the others are the, I suppose the facility based types of grants where you're looking to do big changes in your service. So it might be like ones we've done here. We've done an upgrade to our bathroom to make a disability access bathroom. We've done an upgrade to our playground to make it more sustainable and environmentally friendly. We've done a change to our program, our environment outside, to provide opportunities for children to take risk. Now, some of these grants might not suit everybody's environment or their philosophy, but it certainly suits ours. So we have a fire pit that we built now based on a grant. We have these amazing vegetable gardens that are huge because we have a huge space, but not all services have that. So I think when you apply for those grants, you think about those things as well. What does my centre need? What are my big dream ticket items and how can I make a grant? Or hopefully there's a grant out there that'll make that work.

Let me just touch on that. You have a fire pit at your kindergarten?

Yeah.

That's incredible. This is a stupid question, but you light real fires in there and the kids get to use, you know, play with, not play with fire, I guess that, you know, experience fire.

Exactly, exactly. So again, those of us or those people listening that work in children's services know that you do a risk assessment for everything. So obviously our fire pit has a risk assessment and there's a very clear procedure when we're doing that fire. How many children, how many staff, the sorts of things we do, the procedures prior to the fire, during the fire and after the fire. And you know, it's only fairly new for us, that only went in about 18 months ago. So it's something that the children are learning about. And the same as our staff and our educators, they're learning to manage that and to tweak the processes as we go along. But the very first time we used it, we used it on a staff development day just with our team, and we had these beautiful staff development day sitting around a campfire and it was a cool winter's morning. You can imagine. You didn't feel like you were at work. It was just wonderful. So that's great.

Yeah.

It benefits children and staff.

Yeah. And so that was a grant funded project.

It was, it was. So it came under like an environments grant, and we did it not long after the 2019 bushfires. So in our application we talked about that. We talked about how do we make these city children that, you know, these children in the suburbs aware of the dangers of bushfires and keep it fresh in their mind, but also, you know, make it safe for them and make it something that they're not fearful of, but they're aware of. So the design of our fire pit actually has this semicircle of burnt iron bark poles behind it so that we can talk about bushfires and what it looks like after a bushfire.

And.

And that was sort of done in consultation with the landscaper and he was really keen to help us share that message. And I think that in itself also made our grant application successful because it was reaching more than just an experience or an activity. It actually had a sort of a social and environmental and community awareness element to it.

I think you've nailed it, Janine. I often talk about the why of your grant or the why of the why of your concept. And I think you've done exactly. That's like a gold example of what is the why. So you've come up with this idea for the fire pit. What's the why? It's not just about experiencing fire, it's about the education and the social elements to it. You've brought in staff and children into something so tangible. It's just a perfect example of how grants can fund things that we want to do in our services.

Yeah, thanks. And I think the grant providers, that's their ideal as well. That's what they're trying to achieve by being these, you know, providers of opportunities in the community. But yeah, it's not always as, you know, perfect, a bubble as that, but when it works, you can really see why those opportunities are out there for grant applications. Yeah, that's fantastic.

You've obviously got a lot of experience. Now, you mentioned that grants have changed over time and there's smaller grants now that are easier to get than earlier. Do you remember submitting your first grant application and what that process was like?

Yeah, I do. And this will probably be not the answer you're expecting, but my first grant application was actually the last stages of the grant application. And by I mean that, I mean the acquittal process. So I was acting director for somebody else who was on long service leave and in her absence, a grant that she had applied for 18 months prior was now due for acquitted. So I'm like, oh, okay. So I had to do that part of the grant. But to do that properly, I needed to reread all of her documents in her initial application. What they were after, to make sure that I was able to complete the acquittal process and answer the questions that they wanted adequately, to make sure we got to keep that money that we'd already spent. And what that made me realise is actually the grant process isn't very complicated as long as you read all the information and follow the steps. And then not long after that, I was in a new role and I was the director full time. And I had these big dreams. I was going to change the world in an instant, you know, and I wanted to do amazing things for the service and it came down to dollars. So I jumped in and applied for every grant I could. And in that, learned lots of things along the way. But yeah, interestingly, to do it from the other end. So, you know, maybe some of your listeners might think about that too. Even just to sit with somebody that's applying for a grant that, you know, that they might not be applying for or that's going through the process of doing an acquittal. Just sit in and listen or have a read and have a look at the process that that person went through just to, I suppose, get that little bit of inside information about, you know, what's going to happen along the way. Because it is, it can be quite daunting, particularly if you're doing a big grant for your first application or a big organisation grant.

That's fascinating that you started with the acquittal and I haven't heard anyone say that before, but that's a really interesting way to learn. But it's quite clever because so often the acquittal part of the grant, that aspect of a grant application is forgotten or the grant management is forgotten afterwards. So people can be good at finding grants, applying for them, winning the funding, but forget about that acquitting afterwards. It's such a critical element of grant funding. In it, you know, not only because you need to do it, it's one of the requirements, but it keeps funding providers on board too. And I think you've probably seen it internally. It helps you reflect on the experience yourself and what's worked and what hasn't and probably celebrating some of those successes. Yeah.

And it actually gives you an opportunity to go back to that grant provider and really thank them as well for giving you that opportunity and really showing them. You know, I said I'd do this and I did it. And sometimes you go above and beyond, sometimes you actually don't meet the mark. So you actually, I think you should be honest with that and say, look, we weren't able to fully achieve this, but we did this instead. This is the change we made, especially last year with COVID I had that with a grant application last year. We had to change our game plan because of COVID So you know, you do need to be honest and it keeps you real, the acquittal process.

I think as we know you've got other things to do in your day apart from just apply for grant funding. So this is an extra for you, I'm assuming in what your day to day is.

Yeah, it is. And we do factor it in because we know that if we are successful with those grants, it does take our business to the next level. It gives us opportunities that we wouldn't normally have or we wouldn't normally have that quickly. So some of these big projects we still want to do in our service so we might factor them into our budget over a five year or a seven year plan, but in the meantime we apply for grants for them and what's good about that type of, I suppose approach is that the grant providers see you're really committed to this project and if they can help you get there sooner, lots of them will because you're committed, you're putting in some of your own money, your own time and if they can do it, help you do that a little bit further, faster so that project is successful sooner and it reaches the community sooner, they want to do that too. I haven't had one yet that says, well you're going to pay for it anyway in seven years, we'll just let you pay for it. In that type of application most of them have gone, yeah, this is a great goal and if this service could achieve that sooner, we want to help them do that.

You know, funding providers want to make a difference in your case in kids lives. That's why they're funding what they're Funding. So if they can help people do that sooner, that's fantastic. You know, that's a great goal for them that they can say not only they funded it, but they got to bring forward a project that was potentially not going to happen for seven years, as you said.

Correct. And I think that's one of the little secrets about grant writing. You have to actually think not only why am I applying but why are they offering. So why are they offering this money? What's in it for them? So it's about, sometimes it is about going to struggle to say the word philanthropy, but other times it's about marketing for that company. It's about getting their name out there, it's about having a connection to your business for, you know, hopefully some of our families will then go and use their business. So, you know, if you can show that there's a two way benefit that, you know, I can. I'm happy to stick your company's logo on all our advertising for this project. I'm happy to do an open day and invite you guys to come, come along if you want to do a media release about our campfire area, things like that. You know, we put those in our application as, you know, a way to sort of say we want to thank you. But we also know that you need to get some benefit from this as well. And that's mainly through marketing. Has been the most productive way to do that.

I think you've just got it, Janine. Like I can't really say it any other way. You just get grants. You get how the process works from your side, from the funding provider's side, like you, you really just get it. So I think people are very lucky today to be able to tune in and listen to this because these tips are gold. You would pay a lot of money to hear some of these tips that Janine's giving you today. Quite possibly she should be a grants consultant, but you know, that's a potential career opportunity for you there, Janine. I think you probably love what you do already, but this is really gold, you know, pure gold. So if you're tuning in, make sure you take note of these tips Jeanine's giving you because this is very excellent content and tips to help take your grant applications to a whole new level.

Thanks. Thanks, Jess. It has certainly been a labour of love. It's something that I have learned over a long period of time and you do get disheartened, you do get disappointed when that grant isn't successful, particularly if your passion for the project is really, really high. So if you think, God, if I don't get this grant, it's just going to be everybody's putting so much time to put the application together and things like that. So I think it is important always to have a Plan B. And whether that Plan B is just another grant or as I said, you know, we often do a seven year plan for big projects. So we'd love to get a grant in year one, but sometimes you might get it in year two or year three. And there have been projects where we've, you know, seven years we didn't get any and we just funded it ourselves. So to have that Plan B is important. And sometimes I have applied for a grant through one particular funding provider, been unsuccessful, applied for the same grant through somebody else, successful. So it's just, I think a matter of who else is applying. You know, again, reflecting on your feedback and obtaining that feedback and then just tweaking it for those different funding providers. Because they are all looking for slightly different things.

Yeah, they really are. And I think you've mentioned this approach of initially you applied for everything. And you know, we have different sort of philosophies when it comes to grants. So we see people do that, they apply for absolutely everything and that's sort of an approach they keep using. You now refine your processes. Do you have a preference for one way or the other?

Yes. So we certainly apply only for certain grants. We look at what our project is, is first and foremost for that year or for those two years and then we go, okay, where would be a good place to apply for this grant? Who in the past has funded these types of things and what other grants might be new and out there? And then we strategically apply. And if you've applied for grants, you'll see often there's a question that says, have you applied anywhere else for this grant? So sometimes I say yes, because I have, but then I'll always give other details. Yes, but it was declined because, and I'll let them know why it was declined, that particular funding provider, or yes, I have a concurrent application in with somebody else because I'm really passionate about this grant and I want to do it. And again, sometimes I think it's a little bit of, I suppose, positive competition between those grant providers that go, oh, hang on a minute, we want to fund that, we want to get our name associated with that as a, opposed to, you know, that other organisation. So sometimes that works in your favour too. But sometimes they, they may well think, and I've had that Feedback that, oh, we saw that you'd applied through somewhere else, so, you know, hopefully you got that grant because we gave ours to somebody else. So it, it's a bit of a balancing act. But I certainly do pick and choose now where I apply and how many I apply for, because it is, it is time consuming, it does take some time and some organisation, you have to dedicate that time to it if you want to do it well. And as we've said many times today, dedicating time to get feedback. So that's still part of your time to get feedback, whether it's a successful application or an unsuccessful application, to have some time, even if it's just half an hour on the phone to find out and make some points about that in your, you know, your grants file folder, whatever you use to just sort of keep it tight and a tab on those things.

Yeah, the organisation's critical, isn't it, to make sure that you've got. You're keeping track of what you've applied for, when it's due for acquittal. All of those things are a really important part of that grants management side. It's not just about submitting the grant application itself.

Yeah, exactly. And I also make note of the dates because you might submit in April and they might not be selecting and announcing till July, so September. So some of them are quite long. So you sort of almost sometimes you have forgotten, not forgotten, but you think, oh, I must have been unsuccessful because I haven't heard yet. But when you go back and check, you think, actually they're not even deciding for another four weeks. So, you know, you're still playing a bit of that waiting game.

Yeah, I think there's a different assessment timeframes that funding providers have as well. Some of them get hundreds or if not thousands of applications, so it takes them time to assess all of that as well. Which is sometimes why we see those longer term delays with the grant program particularly government tend to have really long turnaround times on their grant applications. There's a lot of different reasons for that, but I think keeping track of those dates is critical.

Yeah, I think so. And in that time frame I do, because it's just how I am. I don't try to nag, but I do keep my finger on the pulse and I'll send them an email and just say, you know, I know that you've received my application, you may have been reviewing it. Is there anything else that you wanted to ask me about in regards to that? And just let them know I'M still keen and I don't do it that often that I'm annoying, but I do it often enough that my name keeps popping in their inbox. So maybe even subliminally they might just go, oh.

And do you attach certain photos of, you know, this is what we're doing today at the kinder when their hearts over while you're doing it, Janine?

I haven't done that yet. But look, that's always on the cards, you know, some little freshly baked muffins in the photo.

That's great. Janine, you mentioned you do small grants, big grants. What would you consider to be a small grant versus a big grant? And then how do you build those amounts into your actual budget? So some of those nuts and bolts of building out your budget.

Yeah, that's a great question. So the big grants for us, I suppose, are things like clubs, New South Wales grants, and your local council can. Community partnerships grants, because again, you look at how much that they're offering. So, you know, those, those organizations offer, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money. They don't give that all to one organisation. They do split it up. So there's generally a limit, but that limit might be 15, 20, $25,000. So, you know, for us in children's services, that's a lot of money. So those, those bigger grants are for big projects and they're often the ones that we are factoring into our budget over a five, seven or ten year plan anyway. And then if we can get some money alongside what we really want to do, we know it's hopefully for the grant provider worth the investment. The smaller grants are only around, you know, I've had little gardening grants from the, you know, the local nursery for, you know, $200 and they provided, you know, seedlings and potty mix and things like, like that. And we had a little, you know, morning tea, we invited them along and again, it was still worth my time because their grant process was really simple. It was only a small amount of money, took me next to no time at all. But the benefit in terms of community connection was great. And so, you know, obviously I needed to buy seeds at some point during the year and that was in our budget anyway. But then that money that I got from the grant that was allocated into my budget, not as grant money, I can then spend on something else. And I always try to let the grant provider know that in my acquittal, that because you've been able to provide me this money, I did have some money set Aside, in case I was unsuccessful. And I wanted to let you know that that money has gone towards this as well to benefit the children and families.

I think it's really respectful, it shows appreciation. I haven't heard of a lot of people doing that, but I really like that approach. I think it shows that gratitude behind the funding. And you funded this? We had it budgeted so we could do this instead.

Yeah, that's right. And it's, you know, it's something that I think for the grant provider, particularly if they're a small grant provider, it hopefully then entices them to do that initiative again, whether it's for your organisation or for another, because it does benefit for us, it benefits children and families in the end and that's why we're here. But even other organisations, if it's, you know, if it increases safety or if it increases awareness of something or if it increases knowledge, those organisations hopefully want to keep doing that and we want them to keep doing that. So I think that feedback and that thanks from our end is important.

Janine, do you have. Now you don't have to answer this question, but do you have a favourite funding provider? Feel free to name them if you want, but you know, you might want to keep them a secret as well. If they give you a lot of money, you might want to keep that relationship going with them. But do you sort of have your all time favourite funding provider?

I think for us, because we work in children's services, we're a not for profit community organization. Our biggest go to is our local council. So, you know, we're part of their community, they're part of our community. We've got families obviously that live here, pay rates here, pay rent here, use all their facilities. So we really connect with that. And if I can say this, we use that to our advantage. You know, we sort of know that they want to support us because we're right on their doorstep and we have connections with families in a different way to what they do. So it's a two way win and they are also very personable. So you know, the local member or the mayor or somebody will come and visit us and they'll go, now we've had this application from you. We just want to do a walk around and see where you wanted to put this vegetable garden or where you wanted to install these blinds for the children to make a quieter space or whatever it is that we're doing. So they take, I suppose a more relationship based approach even though it's a bigger council because again we're on their doorstep. And I don't know if they do that for everybody, if they do that for every application they get, but they certainly do do it for us. And when we win those applications, they give us a personal phone call as well as the email. But first comes the phone call to say, just wanted to let you know we've had the meeting today and congratulations and it's so lovely to get that personal verbal, you know, acknowledgement recognition pat on the back. And then they say the official email will be coming, there's a form for your bank details. Rah, rah. But it's just those little things that they do that make me keep applying again and again for them.

That's fantastic and great work on that local council because every council across Australia is different. So usually I say local government is the best place to start for grants actually because they have such a variety of grant funding available and there's also usually grants to fund a lot of different needs for just your local area. You're not competing against the whole of Australia then for that grant funding, but to hear that yours is also going above and beyond. And some do this, but not all they're going to that, you know, that next level, they're giving you a phone call. They're really invested in what you're doing. Full credit to your local government for doing that. There's, you know, we see some fantastic local governments across Australia. There's room for improvement everywhere. But there's some, you know, great tips in here too for people who are managing that grant funding. From a council's perspective, those individual phone calls make a big difference to what you're doing.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that was one of the first things that made me realize that, you know, they've got something to benefit as well. You know, some of the grants that we've applied for through our local council, they'll have like an official afternoon tea to give you a little certificate to say you're a successful, you know, grant recipient. And then it goes on their, you know, their webpage or in their newsletter or what have you. And again, that's again marketing for them, but it's also marketing for us. So, you know, I turn up in my uniform and, you know, attend that morning or afternoon tea. Lovely. But you know, it's a two way win.

Look, you've filled this whole session here, Janine, with tips for people who are listening of how to find grants, apply for grants, win the grant funding. Do you have any final tips to.

Help people out and this is something that I've learned over time. It's great to be organised and know your why, you know, maximise your connections with people. But sometimes applying for grants that.

Or.

Apply for grant in a way that shows not only that you benefit that lots of others benefit from, it has been the biggest win for me because when that's genuine, it really makes the grant process as tedious as it may be, it makes it worthwhile because you go, you know what? It's just, it's not me solely that's benefiting or my service or my families directly, it's, you know, wider reaching and if I could just share. I suppose one of my proudest moments was it was a small grant that we applied for. It's called a seeding grant. It's obviously just a little kickstarter through a local organization. And this grant we just provided, we wanted to almost be the go between. We wanted to provide some training for parents in a parent parenting course. And it's an approach to building relationships with children that we use here in our preschool and our staff have done the training for it and I know it's expensive and it's a parent based program so we applied for this grant to provide this training free for families in our service as well as wider community. So anybody, not just our parents but other parents, could apply. We used a facilitator from another organisation to provide the training. We don't provide the training. So apart from being the go between in terms of letting people know that this course was available, that's all we got out of it. But the recognition and the satisfaction we got knowing that so many of these families had access to this program that they wouldn't have normally had access to before, benefited from that program. Obviously their connections with their children improved their knowledge about parenting improved their connection with the organisation that provided the training was established. That wasn't there before. It was just a real feel good grant result. And as I said, I've got nothing to show for it on paper or in facilities or anything. But the opportunity for families was the biggest win for me.

It's fantastic, Janine. It's quite inspirational what you're doing there. And to be your preschool is very lucky to have you there as the director. Everything that you bringing to the role itself, but just going that above and beyond doing these grants, building in the programs as well as those tangible physical projects that people can see, it's an incredible work that you're doing there and I really hope your kindergarten appreciates you, the families and the staff that you're working with. But also now we've got people all across Australia who hopefully have been able to draw inspiration, inspiration from Janine today.

You're welcome, Jessie. It's been nice to be able to share and happy to say if you want to tag my email address onto your podcast in any way, shape or form and if people have any other questions that this might have sparked for them, happy for them to get in touch.

Oh, thanks so much, Janine. You're a game lady. We'll see how many emails. Yeah, you might be inundated. That's a good thing. No, thank you so much. And it just shows again, your heart for it and yeah, just your willingness to share everything that you've learned learned. So I really appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Pleasure. Thanks, Jessie.

Thanks for joining me on Grants Uncovered. If you'd like show notes, head over to grantsuncovered.com see you next time.