Mini-Grants

GRANT APPLICATION PROCEDURE
CROSSROADS MINI-GRANTS

From the proposal to the Lilly Endowment:

“Hope College is at its best when it leaves faculty free to develop ideas and initiatives not conceived by planners from ‘on high.’ In the past, faculty and staff have shown great creativity and resourcefulness in creating and implementing their own ideas, and we think it essential to create space for them to imagine their own projects.”

In order to facilitate creative faculty and staff initiatives that focus on “thinking theologically about career, calling, and life,” the CrossRoads Project expects to award a number of Mini-Grants of varying amounts. We invite applications from any member of the Hope College faculty or staff for proposals pertaining to questions of vocation and vocational discernment. Applicants are encouraged to shape proposals that promise to accomplish any of the following: (1) promote their own research; (2) facilitate their further education; (3) impact students in a given course (or a significant number of students in non-class settings); or (4) impact other faculty and staff in the continuing discernment of their own vocations.

Potential applicants are encouraged to meet with the Director of the CrossRoads Project to discuss their ideas before submitting a final application. Examples of projects that might be appropriate for mini-grant funding include: developing an annotated bibliography of useful resources for addressing the question of vocation; developing a program in living out one’s vocation through a particular field; developing a forum for addressing topics central to maintaining vitality in one’s sense of vocation, including that of the institution as a whole; helping members of the community to assess the multiple callings that compete for their energy and time; and any other proposal that is not eligible for funding under another of the CrossRoads Project’s initiatives.

Proposals will be judged on their originality, viability, and likelihood of deepening collective understandings of vocation. Most awards are expected to be in the $1,000 to $2,000 range, and will not ordinarily exceed $6,000 per proposal; however, strong proposals will be funded until allocated resources are disbursed. Proposals are most likely to be funded when they do not duplicate, and cannot be funded by, current or upcoming initiatives of the CrossRoads Project or other Hope College programs. Faculty members who are not associated with the CrossRoads Project’s Pre-Divinity programs and Pre-Professional Pilot Programs (in Education, Business, and Health Professions) are especially encouraged to apply for these grants, as are Hope College staff.

Applications should be submitted to Dr. David S. Cunningham, Director of the Project. Funding decisions will be made by the CrossRoads Advisory Committee. There is no predetermined deadline; applications are considered on a revolving basis. Each application should be in the following format:

1. Indicate your name, your academic title, and your affiliation with any on- or off-campus programs related to your application.

2. Provide a one-paragraph narrative describing the development of your interest in the academic and professional interest that the program would serve. (For example, if your project involves work in another part of the country or the world, describe any specific interests and experience in travel to that place; if the project is not directly in your own discipline or field, describe your interest in and connection to its subject matter.)

3. Provide a brief (750 words or fewer) description of the proposed project, indicating all necessary details about who will be involved, how their involvement will be secured, what resources will be necessary to carry out the project, and your intended means of evaluating and assessing the project. This account is meant to offer “just the facts”; it should not include an argument for funding, which is addressed in section 6, below.

4. Construct a timeline for the implementation of the program, including any advance preparation that will be necessary, a timetable for the involvement of others, the dates of any planned conferences or travel (or an indication of when these dates are likely to be known), and all necessary follow-up processes.

5. Provide a basic line-item budget estimate, indicating the amount of money requested in specific categories and providing, where necessary, an explanation of any unusual expenses. Small details are not needed, and all numbers are assumed to be rough estimates. Money can always be transferred to a different category, if necessary, in the actual implementation of the grant; the evaluators request this information only to have a sense of how the money is expected to be spent.

6. Offer a brief (750 words or fewer) argument in favor of the proposal. Indicate the benefits to be gained — for yourself, for the program’s intended audience, for the College, and where applicable, for the wider community. Because this funding will come from a program focused on the theological exploration of vocation, your argument should indicate, as concretely as possible, how the proposed project will encourage such exploration to take place.

7. Applications should be countersigned by the Department Chair and the Divisional Dean. This does not indicate “approval” of the proposed program so much as a willingness to support the faculty member’s travel and time commitments toward the program. If the proposed proejct will be related to or dependent upon some other already-established campus program, please include a letter from the Director of that program indicating support for the proposal.

Please submit:

1. One paper-clipped & signed copy of your application, no later than 5pm Monday, November 10, 2008 via campus mail to David Cunningham - CrossRoads Project -or- drop off at Van Zoeren 182.
2. One electronic version of the application for our files; send as an attatchement via e-mail to crossroads@hope.edu with 'Grant Proposal' in the subject line.

There is no set deadline; applications are considered on a rolling basis.

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