Grants Office CEO Offers Up Five Indispensable Tips for Companies Serving Public Sector Customers with Grant-Seeking Information

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Sept. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- With public sector budgets under increasing pressure, companies that sell to municipal, education, and healthcare are finding new ways to help maintain their customers' buying power. To that end, companies have begun offering their customers help with identifying and pursuing federal and state grant opportunities. Done right, the process can be beneficial to the community and very profitable for the company as well.

Indeed, the U.S. federal government alone provides over $400 billion each year in grants, much of which goes to support purchases of products and services by public sector organizations. State governments and private foundations also deliver a significant amount of their support through grants.

The August 2012 issue of Grants Office's FUNDED magazine (www.grantsoffice.com/funded) includes 5 tips from Grants Office CEO Michael Paddock for companies offering grant support and the community institutions considering accepting it.

The tips are:

1. Start by identifying the need – The community's need should drive their purchase specifications, not the other way around.
2. Grants fund projects, not products – Funders frown on proposals that look like wish lists, without a clear objective and a credible action plan.
3. Follow normal procurement – Grants can create additional budget for products and services, but grant-funded procurements still have to follow local policies and procedures.
4. Think big, but not fast – Although federal funding in particular can enable even small, rural organizations to make big purchases, the process is lengthy, usually 12-18 months.
5. Keep it in context – Vendors contribute valuable expertise as well as products and services to the project, but the public sector customer receiving the funding is ultimately accountable to the funder for how they use the money.

Grants Office has been a leader in providing expert grant consultation and funding information that powers many companies' grant support initiatives. After ten years of providing these services on behalf of our clients to gym teachers, police and firefighters, and public servants at other institutions around the world, we have worked through many of the challenges associated with navigating this potentially profitable process.

Online and downloadable PDF versions of the publication are available for free at www.grantsoffice.com/funded.

Grants Office, LLC is a national grants development firm based in Rochester, New York, providing federal, state, and local information and grants development support to municipalities, nonprofits, and industry partners. Additional contact and services information is available at www.grantsoffice.com.

Media Contact:

Susannah Mayhall
(585) 473-1430 ext. 105
[email protected]

This press release was issued through eReleases® Press Release Distribution. For more information, visit http://www.ereleases.com.

SOURCE Grants Office, LLC

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