Grant Funding for 2021?

[bennybooboo]

What are some things that coaches/teams doing to raise funding for athletes in the coming year?

We have filed grant applications with the the larger charitable organizations, but across the board we're hearing a lot of "we didn't have any fund-raising opportunities in 2020, so no grants available to distribute" (or a variation of the same).

We have taken several steps to prolong the longevity of our equipment/ammunition stores, like spending less time live-fire training and more time warming up, focusing our minds, perfecting our positions and (gulp) rationing ammunition.

What are other coaches/teams doing to make upcoming teams/seasons as successful as possible without digging too deep into the athletes/families pockets?

[spektr]

This is a time to do the friends and family thing. Beg.
Ask people for help, there is power in it.

Watch tbis, its well worth the time!

https://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_palmer ... anguage=en

[Tavishwm]

This wont help immediately, but every junior shooting program should have a MidwayUSA Foundation account.

https://www.midwayusafoundation.org/

[bennybooboo]

Thanks for checking, but yes, I set up our foundation account about a year ago. We can apply for a grant from our endowment which will help with some of the costs of conducting a team for a season. Unfortunately, replenishing our ammunition stock is proving to be problematic lately.

Have any other coaches seen improvements from spending less time at live-fire and more time on other aspects of training?

[SPPcoach]

We bought two Mantis-X2 devices this year, and probably should have bought four. This is not nearly as sophisticated as the SCATT but I believe it is well worth the $100 each when the budget is tight.
It is especially beneficial to younger/inexperienced athletes to teach trigger control.
A side benefit is that the lower cost makes it reasonable to loan these out to athletes to dry-practice on their own with parents permission.
A benefit to coaches: my athletes sign up for the MantisX app. Then I 'join' them to the team group in the app. Now I see when they practice, how many shots and what their score was! Good for accountability.

Yes the Midway Foundation endowment program is the GREATEST opportunity out there for shooting teams.

Look at your local 501 (c)(3) charities. We participate in their raffles. We sell their tickets and keep 1/2 the money. There is zero risk to us. If we don't sell tickets, we are not beholden to any overhead, like many fundraisers.

[Jreifsch]

We apply every year for an nra foundation grant

https://www.nrafoundation.org/grants/

[bennybooboo]

Things are going to be tight this year, no matter how we look at it.

Very few NRA Foundation fundraisers happened last year, which has a direct negative impact on their ability to contribute to programs. As far as our MidwayUSA Foundation endowment, the BOD at our club elected to roll over their grant in order to build the principal balance.

Smallbore ammunition is tough to come by, but luckily we have several cases stored away.

I have a feeling that this season we'll be working a lot on our inner-position. Some of the athletes and coaches that are shot-quantity focused may need to become excited about shot-quality.

[bennybooboo]

Just received word that our NRA Foundation grant requests will not be funded this year. Also talked to other coaches in our area who received the same news.

Has anyone here submitted NRA Foundation grant requests that were funded?

[PaulB]

We submitted a NRA grant request and the state committee met to make its recommendations. The "word on the street" was that there was more money available than the requests received (Covid-19 program shutdowns I guess). Our field rep made up for the lack of Friends of NRA fundraising dinners by having a lot of successful on-line raffles.

I received the following email on March 18:

The State Fund Committee recently met and selected your application for Grant Number: xxxxxxx / Project: Va. 4-H Shooting Education Program Support to move forward in the grant process. Your application will be reviewed by The NRA Foundation Board of Trustees for final approval and we anticipate approval emails to be sent out before the end of the first quarter, March 31, 2021.

Sincerely, The NRA Foundation Grant Department

The lack of an email with a grant announcement by this time (April 5) is a little concerning.

[jhmartin]

I'm guessing this is on a state by state basis depending on what the state committee decides.
In terms of late notices, I just received my final report instructions from last year.
Most of the NRA minions were not working or working from home this past Year & seems like some have just now started coming back in.
We used to have fairly individual state directors .... now most are gone and there are 7 for all the states........

[soapbox-moment] All while WLP is hiding on a yacht [/soapbox-moment]

[bennybooboo]

To add to the misery of our denied grant application request, our Washington state rep is not returning phone calls, and nobody at NRA Foundation HQ is picking up the phone or returning calls either.

This really stinks because many teams depend on grant funding to operate. NSSF told us last summer that their grant program was tabled for the foreseeable future and may not ever come back, RMEF rep stopped returning emails on our 2021 project application, and now NRA hq and state rep has ghosted us as well.

Kudos to MidwayUSAFouyndation.org for continuing to fund shooting sports activities

[SPPcoach]

our Washington state rep is not returning phone calls, and nobody at NRA Foundation HQ is picking up the phone or returning calls either.

Yup. The NRA Foundation Field Reps got furloughed. Our Arizona Field Rep hung on for quite a while in lombo. We got an email about October that our new Field Rep was the Field Rep from Colorado.
I sent a few emails but have not heard back from him. I imagine their job is total chaos right now with lots of questions that they really can't answer. As soon as the fundraising dinners are back on the schedule, I would imagine the rest of the train will get moving again. Certainly the better for all these youth shooting programs.

Kudos to MidwayUSAFouyndation.org for continuing to fund shooting sports activities

Here here!

[spektr]

Can you do Patreon for shooters?
I would take 50 bucks and spread it around