Find City & County Funding & Prepare to Apply · $475 · one time
Your city is spending money to solve something. Do you know what it promised to solve, and whether your work belongs in that plan? This room teaches you to read the front and back of municipal money: where it came from, what it was promised to do, what you can honestly deliver, and how you prove it after the award.
For: Community organizations whose work could carry part of a city or county promise
Bring
In your guided workspace
You keep
A Source-to-Commitment-to-Delivery-to-Evidence Record in Word and a City and County Funding Decision Record PDF that opens with it: who received the money and where the door is, where the money came from, what they promised, what you can deliver, how you prove it. Plus a saved Grant Cycle & Program Record.
Fictional preview Fictional: a city's $5,000,000 state violence prevention award traced to its adopted plan goal, a youth jobs program's honest role and the city's own measure.
Your work product: A Source-to-Evidence Record in Word, a Funding Decision Record PDF and a saved grant-cycle record.
Before you decide the money isn't for you
You hear the city got millions for crime prevention, workforce or housing. Then you look for the application and can't find your organization anywhere in the process.
That doesn't automatically mean the money isn't for your work. First find out who received it, what the city promised, where it was appropriated, which agency controls the contracts, what the restrictions are, and whether you can make a real, documented case for your role.
The middle shouldn't be the only one who knows where the door is. No one teaches this. The room does, one question at a time, and keeps track of which ones you have answered.
The part nobody teaches
What a city is trying to solve is what it has promised to solve. Your job is to make sure what you are solving is the same thing, and to say so in their words, without bending the work.
Most organizations only see the notice. By then the money already has a source, a purpose, restrictions and a measure someone has to report to council. This room teaches you to read all of it, front and back.
Trace each dollar to where it started: federal or state money passed through the city, the general fund, a levy, an earmark or philanthropy. Log who received it, where it was appropriated, which agency controls the contracts, the office, fiscal year, amount as written and the restrictions that travel with it.
Quote what the city or county committed to solve, from the adopted budget, the council vote, the plan or the measure the department reports. Speeches and press releases go in too, marked as not money.
Say what your work already does, how you know, and what sits underneath it here: the history, kinship and trust that let you reach people. Then name the piece this money would pay for, and what you will not claim.
Outputs you count, outcomes that change for people, a baseline or "unknown," and what the source requires after award: reports, data, monitoring and closeout.
Fictional worked example · invented city, organization and numbers
Eastgate Youth Works (fictional) did not start with the notice. It started with the money, then the promise, then its own honest part of it.
FICTIONAL · City of Riverbend money-to-proof chain
What the brief keeps out. The room flags these when you type them, so you can rewrite before a reviewer reads them:
What it says instead: what you will do, for whom, what you will count, and the city's own measure it feeds.
Look inside · Fictional sample
An invented city received $5 million in state violence prevention money. A fictional youth jobs program traced where it came from, what the city promised to do with it, and the honest part its own work could carry.
Made for you if
Community organizations, coalitions and fiscally sponsored projects working with a city or county, whether or not a funding notice has been posted yet.
Your city is spending money to solve something. Make sure what you are solving is the same thing. This room teaches the front and back of municipal money the way the people who already get funded read it.
Not this: It does not search government sites, verify sources, decide eligibility or promise that a program will open.
12 finished files1 worksheet you keep
Finished files, worksheets and the places you work are counted separately, never added together. Your brief and decision record are built from what you logged. Missing facts print as missing. Every source prints as Recorded by you, because the room does not check government sites for you.
What you bring
6 finished files from your answers
6 files from your Grant Cycle record
The proposal drafts: Statement of need, Executive summary, Program narrative, Case for support, Letter of inquiry, Cover letter, Budget justification, Partner letter request, Donor thank-you and update, Organization profile, Funder progress email, Evaluation and measurement plan, Note to the funder: what makes this award workable.
10 tabs in the Grant Lifecycle Workbook (Excel)
Filled in from your record. Formulas stay live, so it keeps working after you download it.
7 steps in Position Your Mission to Move Capital
Stage 2 of Follow the Money. A fictional organization shows each step.
7 steps in the Follow the Money investigation
Taught with five real Columbus routes, each read from the public record with its date.
11 saved sections
Three of them are row-by-row worksheets: Money trail ledger, Promise ledger, Opportunity worksheet. Plus a guide for reading a notice, or for finding money when there is no notice yet.
7 parts in the included Grant Cycle & Program Record
One saved record for your grants, money, outcomes and board.
Free templates that pair with it
Free for everyone in the free template library. Not part of the purchase and not counted above.
A Source-to-Commitment-to-Delivery-to-Evidence Record (Word): the six door questions, then where the money came from, what they promised, what you can deliver and how you prove it, with a fit statement drafted only from your entries. A City and County Funding Decision Record (PDF) that opens with the same record. Plus your saved Grant Cycle & Program Record.
Each question fills in from what you logged. An open question links to the place in the room where it gets answered.
Made by the same generator buyers use, with the invented organization above. Nothing in them is real.
What it does not do. You do the finding. The room does not search city or county sites, check sources, decide eligibility, or promise an opening or an award. It will not let a speech stand in for a commitment.
Grant, contract, pass-through or restricted dollars
The same city office can pay you through a grant, a contract or a subaward of state or federal money. Each one changes what you sign, how you get paid and what you owe after.
12 finished files built from your answers · 1 Excel workbook you keep. Inside the room: 11 saved sections, three of them row-by-row worksheets (money trail ledger, promise ledger, opportunity worksheet).
What this is not. You bring the official documents and links; the room records where each came from.
Are you the city, a funder or a company putting money into a community? This room is for the organizations on the ground. Your side of the table is senior advisory, inquiry only.
