Provides both seasoned and first-time Employment and Training Administration (ETA) grant applicants with guidance on ETA's grant programs, the competitive grant application process, developing a competitive grant application, and application review process.

This web-based toolkit is an interactive, self-paced Web guide on Employment and Training Administration's (ETA) grant-making process, designed specifically for small community organizations and first-time applicants for ETA funding. The guide addresses ETA’s grant-making mission; its funding priorities; the Agency’s grant application solicitation and evaluation processes; and “how-to” guidance on crafting responsive and potentially competitive grant applications. The interactive and printer-friendly annotated sample Solicitation for Grant Applications (SGA) includes annotations with comment notes that provide readers with information related to specific sections and general requirements of an ETA SGA; related helpful websites; and hyperlinks that take readers to additional outside resources to support applicants in developing more comprehensive and potentially competitive proposals.

Major Findings & Recommendations

Key tips for prospective ETA grant applicants include:

  • Become familiar with ETA grantmaking priorities;
  • Review SGAs to find open grant competition opportunities;
  • Read the SGA thoroughly and become familiar with all of its contents and requirements;
  • Understand ETA’s evaluation of applications process, as each grant application is evaluated, receives a score based on evaluation criteria, and is then ranked for the selection of funding;
  • Outline a plan for application development based upon the evaluation criteria framework; and
  • When developing your application show that you understand the context use data to establish need align your project with the SGA demonstrate your experience and capacity provide evidence of partnerships discuss leveraged resources connect with other efforts discuss outcomes and deliverables and offer a reasonable budget.