MPPTA Grant Writing Fundamentals Workshop

Technical assistance. We offer technical assistance to farmers who are essentially either in the process of processing meat or poultry or would like to process meat and poultry. We offer technical assistance, and we actually have four scopes that we do cover within our technical assistance.

Our first scope that we cover is Federal Grant Application Management. What that consists of is navigating through federal grants, um, processes and procedures, pre-award application process throughout the post-award grant, as well as management and compliance.

Our next scope that we have is Business Development and Financial Planning. With a business, it's always important, of course, to have your business financial planning documents, resource market intelligence, um, and also making sure that we're able to assist with business plans or even feasibility analysis.

Our third scope that we have is Meat and Poultry Processing Technical Operations Support. And what that consists of is advice with, uh, providing resources to support any type of operational needs that you may have, whether that may include workforce development, um, plant processing development, trainings, as well.

And then our last scope that we have is our Supply Chain Development. Our supply chain development consists of supporting, um, and providing development with maintenance of a successful supply chain, making sure that we're able to create, um, and have the, have the relationship between, between, uh, suppliers, processors, as well as distributors, and of course, most importantly, our customers.

Tonight, we are here to essentially assist with a lot of information that is needed, really helpful information that is needed when writing a grant. And so tonight, I do have some of my peers here, um, with me. I have, um, Mr. Miles, who essentially is over the Federal Grant Application Management. We also have Dr. B, who's also over the supply chain development. And then we have, um, Dr., excuse me, Dr. Harris, who's also here with us for the Operational Support.

But most of all, I'm going to go ahead and say again, thank you everyone for joining. I'm going to go ahead and pass it over to my peer, Mr. Mr. Miles Robinson.

Well, thank you. Thank you, Veronica. Good evening to everyone again. Miles Robinson, um, here at Tuskegee University's, uh, College of Agriculture, Environment, Nutrition Sciences. And we're just pleased to be a part of this team of providing, uh, technical assistance and, U, insight to producers, uh, processors, farmers, uh, and ranchers as they pursue, uh, uh, their particular, uh, inter-farm enterprises and producing enterprises.

We're fortunate to have with us, uh, here at the University, uh, an expertise internal to the university, um, and the College of Agriculture and Environment Nutrition Sciences here at Tuskegee. Uh, Dr. Barrett Von, who is going to lead, uh, the presentation tonight, uh, in this grant writing workshop. Uh, understand that there may be some, uh, um, participants on the call that might not necessarily be in the meat processing, um, uh, enterprises, but there might be, and there certainly will be, some, uh, information that was going to be imparted by Dr. V that might be helpful in overall grant writing efforts. So we look forward to that.

So without any further ado, Dr. Barrett Von is a professor and interim assistant dean for academic affairs and student success here at Tuskegee University. He conducts research, teaches food science, he engages in outreach to farmers and rural businesses. Dr. V's work at Tuskegee has afforded the opportunity to engage in applied research in food safety, small farm sustainability, food properties, biofuels, and energy and agriculture, and wetlands. He has been with Tuskegee since graduating with a doctoral degree from Penn State, where he researched sedimentation, basic, U, hydrology. And without any further ado, we're just fortunate to have Dr. V, uh, with us this evening, and, uh, we look forward and, uh, we'll pass the baton to you, Dr. B.

Good evening. Good evening, Miles. Thank you so much for that, um, warm, uh, introduction. Um, I'd like to really thank the people that organized this program. Um, the MPPA is a newer but very vital program at Tuskegee University in our College of Agriculture, Environment, Nutrition Sciences. Um, we are in the process, and have for some years, been putting together a great team of people who are experts in the area of meat science, um, which is not something that you find commonly at most universities, and certainly not at some of the, uh, other 1890s.

I was very, um, honored to have been asked to do this session on grant writing this evening. Um, I have, grant writing is something that I'm very much passionate about. Um, yes, passionate about money, but you'll find through this, uh, presentation that there's a lot more things, uh, that go into, um, why we write grants. And so I'm hoping that this is going to be an interactive session. Um, I don't necessarily want it to be, you know, just kind of me just droning on. I want some interactivity. So, uh, if anybody has a question, if you are able to, I know it depends on what kind of device that you're using, if you can go ahead and raise your hand if a question comes up, um, and then we'll just, we'll go like that. Um, right now, um, can we next slide, please?

Thank you.

Just a little bit of information, uh, there. We go. Uh, just a little bit of housekeeping that we'll get started. Next slide, please.

So essentially, if you can please have your video on so I may see, uh, whether or not I'm making some sense to you. It's kind of hard to gauge if all I'm looking at is black screens, uh, if you're dealing with some bandwidth issues, then I fully understand that, cuz sometimes you're not able to really do that, and maybe you don't want to be a distraction, but it does kind of help me, uh, sort of gauge my process. Uh, if you have a question, please raise your hand so that I may easily find you. As you know, in Zoom, if you hit the raise your hand, it'll send you to the top, and I'll be able to answer your question. Um, and, you know, your physical hand may work as well if I see you, but if I don't see you, then definitely use the device to do it. Uh, please keep your device on mute so that we will be able to clearly hear the person speaking, either myself or one of the team, or yourself who's asking a question. And then please, please ask questions. If you have a question, someone else probably does too, and that's how we all learn.

Um, before we get started, I'd like to at least ask all of you that can conveniently type on your device without crashing your car or anything else, uh, kind of tell where you are, um, from, and also what do you hope to get out of this session, and what crop or or, uh, are you raising or what livestock are you raising in the chat box?

Okay, I see, uh, Karen Turner from Savannah, Georgia. So also put what do you want to get out of this session? Like, what would you get out of this that would make you feel like you've invested, um, your investment of, uh, two hours or so was valuable? Man, Georgia, just general information. Okay. Better idea of the process. Okay. Successfully supply all the information. Okay. Good information about the grant writing process. Okay. More specific sources for meat and poultry to share. Okay. Raising cows, looking to learn as much I can. All right, great. Okay, wow. Says Southeast Michigan. Okay. Learning more about grant writing. Located in Minnesota and Iowa. He Lee County, which, oh, Dr. K, more about processing, how to write an effective grant. Fantastic. Northwest Louisiana, helping, uh, intertribal agriculture council. Right, right. I'm sure a couple more people are. Okay, here we go. Columbus, Georgia. Located in Chinburg to gain knowledge. Raising chickens and goats. How to write a grant. All right, great.

Can we go to next slide, please?

So the focus of this workshop is not on a particular opportunity. Join the meeting. Um, the, excuse me, I gotta throw we off the, um, the focus of the workshop is so that whatever opportunity comes up, that you'll be better equipped to be able to to, uh, get, take that opportunity or to decide that that's not something that's for you. So this is a little slide that says, "Give a man a fish, eats for a day." Or, "A woman fish eats for a day. Teach a man the garden, and the whole neighborhood gets tomatoes." Right? We all know how prolific tomatoes can be. Is my sound coming through okay?

Yes, sir. Apparently. Great. Okay, good.

Next slide, please.

So a little bit about me. I'm a professor at Tuskegee University. I've been here for 21 years. No, I can't believe it either. Um, I've been on several dozen review panels since 2007 to present, and I actually was a panel manager, uh, in 2013. I think I might have actually done that twice. I need to update. So, um, in my career, even though it's not a lot of money, particularly for a professor, but I've been awarded over a million dollars. I just stopped counting when I wrote the book. And I wrote the book in 2013. Yeah, the principles are solid. Um, it may be a little bit dated. You can find this on Amazon and some other electronic sellers. That's my only plug I'm going to do. And, um, my epiphany in 2005, five or so, after, um, you know, being on a number of panels and having, uh, a lot of different experiences, is what I call the 10-75-5 rule. And essentially, what that rule basically says, and I may need to pause for a second in a minute, is 15% of, you know, if you took all of the proposals that are sent in to any opportunity at any time, it could be NIFA, it could be DOE, it could be, um, NRCS, whichever funding opportunity, could be Ford Foundation, Carnegie, whoever else. About 15% of those, they're just not good. There's, they're not going to get the money at all. They are not going to get the money. And there could be a lot of reasons why. I've actually been in that 15% before, um, and I've known it. Just a moment. Uh, and I've been in that 15% before myself. And essentially, the reason has been either I didn't have enough time to really put it together well, um, I didn't, wasn't able to get the letters that I needed, cuz sometimes it's hard to get people who are, are cooperators or actual partners, um, and it could be a variety of different reasons. And you say, well, if you knew that you weren't going to get the money, why would you send it in? Well, one of the good things is that you always get feedback from the reviewers. Even though you know the stuff that you probably are missing or haven't put in there, it's still good to get some feedback on it anyway. Uh, and then there's 10%. And the 10%, they are outstanding. They are the top of the class. They rise to the top. When the reviewers are reviewing them, they are absolutely positively ending up being at the top of, of the heap. Uh, they may not necessarily get the money, but they position like they're ranked outstanding. Um, and sometimes they're resubmits, like they've already submitted once and they resubmitted, corrected some of those errors, and now they're at the top of the heap. Um, some of the things that they may be doing really correctly is they, uh, they've got a really well-done project. They include a bountiful number of partners involved with, uh, letters that make sure that they have everything that they need, including evaluators, including a really good dissemination plan, a really good communication plan. Um, they are, they are have very well-founded partners, not just somebody that called to say, "Hey, can you do this?" but they have a history of partnership that may include preliminary data. So a number of combination of those different things will put people in the 10%. And what I basically found is that the vast majority of proposals that are submitted are in the 75%. They're okay. They're good proposals. They may have a great team. They may have, uh, all the equipment they need. They have a, a dynamic concept, but they're, they're okay. They're good. They may be above average, but they're just not going to get the money. And so really, some of the things that I, that I talk about in this presentation, we'll talk about in the book, are some of the things that you can do to sort of get you from the 75% into the 10%. I don't guarantee that, of course.

And one of the, uh, recollections that I have early on in my grant writing career was, I wrote a proposal. I can't remember which organization it was. It may have been the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program, the SARE program. Um, and I got my reviews back. I didn't get the money. And I got a glowing letter. I mean, glowing. Um, Dr. Von, your proposal was excellent. You did a great job putting it together. All the individual reviews were great. The review summary was great. And, but the letter said, you know, um, "Dear Dr. Von, you know, we're sorry to, uh, to inform you that you have not been selected." So being a, a newer professor, you know, I went on and called up the, the person, the coordinator. "Hey, I got, got your reviews. They were actually on paper. That's how long ago it was. I've read them over. I'm trying to see what was it that I did wrong? Why didn't I get the money?" And the gentleman basically said, "We had enough funds to fund three proposals. You were number four." So I, I didn't do anything wrong. It just, just kind of fell that way. And, you know, you're either on the side of being funded or you're on the side of not being funded. And these things happen. And you just, you retool, you reapply, you, you know, kind of set your calendar to, uh, resubmit next year. And there's been sometimes I've resubmitted to programs and did get the money the next year.

Next slide, please.

So there are a couple sections that I'm going to do. I'm hoping to get through the first two sections, uh, within the first, uh, 50 minutes, and we have probably about five or 6:55, like us to take about a 10-minute break. Um, but I want to kind of go through these materials now. I may go through these really fast if I don't see any questions. Um, I may go very, very fast, but I do want some engagement. Um, but the first section is going to talk about brainstorming and capturing a vision, which basically is trying to find out like, what is it that you actually want to do? Um, why is it that, you know, you're driven to do what you do, and what you want to do ends up having to take funding, which is why you want to write a grant. And there's lots of times when spending some time on really capturing your vision helps you determine what it is that you want to do. The next section is going to be on selection and defining an idea. How do you really put that together? And when I talk about an idea, I talk about something that's in written, fixed form. The idea, not the ideas that are kind of floating in your head, but the manifest, the manifestation of such, actually on paper or in word. Uh, then we talk about structuring objectives. So we'll get into some of the nuts and bolts of how you really sort of put those things together. And then at the end, we'll talk about identifying measurable outcomes and developing tasks, uh, which is really where the rubber is going to end up meeting the road when you're trying to put your projects together.

Next slide, please.

So the first one, brainstorming, capturing and vision. Next slide, please.

So there are a couple key concepts that I want to teach out, and I kind of touched on it. Your vision is everything that you want to do, period. It's for some people, is what they feel that they were called, uh, to be on earth, is the reason for their existence. It's a divine calling that they have. It's what they've been created for. Or it could be what you see yourself doing in the future, long-term, like what your purpose is, uh, in certain spheres of your life. Life, uh, whereas your idea, as I've already touched upon, is something that's written down and and much more, uh, solid. It's, it's what's, it's what you're going to be submitting to people for them to review and to say whether or not they think that it should be funded or not.

Next slide, please.

So your vision is what you want to see accomplished. It's what you want to see actually to come forth on the earth. Um, it's the goal that you want to see met, and it requires support to see it through, of course, because most people's vision is way bigger than, um, they have the resources for, or perhaps even the time in their life to do. And it's progressive, like your, your vision changes over time. And it impacts, over, you have impacts from your vision over time in terms of whom you're able to help, what you're able to do, the amount, the scope of what it is that you're able to do, um, over your career. So, you know, early in your career, maybe you're helping people in your county. Later in your career, you're actually able to, uh, impact a region in the state. You know, and, you know, things have have kind of, uh, grown.

Do you modify your vision to fit grant programs? Wait for the right grant to come open? How do you weigh those back and forth? That is an excellent question, and that actually is talking about in the next slide.

Next slide, please.

So your idea actually is a written description or documentation of your vision. It's what will be done with a prediction of the outcome, and it's in a finite time and space. So you may have your life's work, and your goal may be, you know, you want to be able to help people to develop small herds, um, and to be able to sell those direct to, you know, stockyards and or private customers who want, you know, very well-groomed heirloom cattle. As you can see, I'm not an animal science person. My degree is in agricultural engineering. Engineering. And, um, so that may be what you really want to do. What you want to build over time is helping people, uh, to build those programs so that they can be sustainable, so that they cannot have to go through the regular channels and get really kind of, uh, low prices on their, on their cattle, um, but that they can do, you know, small herd cattle and get really high prices with, uh, you know, small herd buyers that want, you know, really, really excellent cows. Um, and so that is the idea. And so that's what you actually are doing. That is your written description. Your vision may change and progress over time, certainly, because you grow as a person, you acquire skills, you acquire partnerships, things change in your personal life, and sometimes there are some things that you're just not as passionate about. So yes, your, your vision will change over time. But when we talk about the idea, we are specifically talking about, um, what you, it is that you are submitting to a body of people who are going to review it and consider, uh, what it is that you've written for funding.

Next slide, please.

Thank you for the question. Yes, Dr. Was that the response to McKenzie? Yes, it was. Okay, great. Yes. Uh, and so when we talk about your idea, it's a portion of the vision. Okay. If your vision is A through Z, your idea may be A, B, and C. So let's say that you have these different things going on that you know you want to, uh, start this program, and you want to work with youth, and perhaps you do an intergenerational program, and you're looking at high-value, um, livestock, and also, you know, livestock that appeal to the emerging international, uh, communities that are in, you know, different urban areas, and you want to deal with transportation thereof. Like you might have a whole bunch of different ideas that are going on in your head. And I know some of you have a lot of ideas in your head, which is good, because, you know, as much as we say life is short, life is actually long, uh, and there's a lot of work to be done. Um, so, you know, we are given a lot of things that we'll be passionate about. And when we discover those things, like we're like, like this needs to happen, a lot of times there are things that you say, "This needs to happen. It's probably you that needs to do it." So basically, buckle up. You know, it's like, if it, if it bothers you, it's probably something that you, you should be pursuing. And whether or not you need to seek partnerships to do it, or funding, or further education, or whatever it is, if it's, if it's really something that you're passionate about, you should pursue it. You know, because it's just going to bug you. Um, I'm just saying from personal experience. Um, but, you know, your idea is actually going to be a subset, and perhaps sometimes a small set, a small subset of those different things that you really want to see happen. And so that might be A, B, and C.

Next slide, please.

So, um, if your idea is A through Z, your idea, I'm sorry, if your vision is A through Z, your idea may be A, B, and C. And very few funders are going to support A through Z. But most, just A, and or B, C, and D. So when you're looking at the funders, you know, they're looking for something that appeals to them, right? So they have certain things that they're interested and passionate about. And also, they will label those as being their priorities. Um, I was looking at a grant opportunity yesterday, and, you know, they clearly delineated what their priorities were. They were saying, "We care about this, we care about this, and we care about that." And fortunately, with a little bit of creative, um, framing, I'm able to position what it is that I want to do to get funded, um, within those priorities. And you have to be really careful, because if you're not looking at what the priorities are, if you, if you become too project-focused, if you say, "Okay, well, this is what I want to do, and this is what's done," but you're, you're not necessarily, um, considering what it is that they want to fund, um, but you're saying, "Well, I'm just going to throw it up there." Well, I mean, you know, go ahead, roll the dice. You may very well, um, be funded. But a lot of the times, you know, if you're out of their scope, someone's going to say, some reviewer is going to say, "This is a great idea. We really like it. We hope that this happens, but it's, it's just out of our scope. It's, it's not within our priorities." Um, and so you need to be mindful of that. So sometimes, you know, few funders are going to fund everything. And yes, if you got like large center funding that's, you know, sustainable and renewable and stuff, then yes, you can really do that. Uh, and certain entities are able to qualify for those kinds of funds. But most of the time, if you're just writing for a project, you know, there's a couple things that you want to do. There's a couple things that you want to see, um, and you want to be sure that you, you know, you're putting those together and and putting those down as best as possible.

Next slide, please.

There we go. So, but the one thing that I want all of you to understand is that the reviewers are critiquing the idea, not the vision, and not you. So there's going to be some times when you're going to get, get feedback. The feedback is not going to be positive, and sometimes the feedback is not nice. I think over the years, um, a lot of the organizations, funding organizations, have tried to be very sure that people are being as, um, respectful as possible. I know that I've seen over the years with, uh, USDA, the National Institute for Food and Agriculture, that they are actually giving instructions to reviewers on how they should be phrasing statements in their reviews that go back to, uh, the funders. And it wasn't necessarily that way, because I know I got my feelings hurt a couple times, getting some things back from reviewers. But, you know, they're not critiquing, they're critiquing the idea. You might have a brilliant idea, but poor execution, because you didn't have enough time, or you weren't able to get letters, or, um, you know, you, you flubbed on a budget somewhere, and that just kind of threw one of your reviewers in a tizzy. But they're, they're not critiquing the vision, like what it is that you want to do is more than likely, um, a wonderful thing to do for agriculture, for livestock, and everything else. Um, and they're not critiquing you personally either. Even though I will say some of the times, at least in previous years, when they would write some stuff, it did seem very personal. Um, and yes, there are sometimes when you have reviewers that are off-base, that they did not read, uh, the entire thing, um, and they missed certain parts, and they said, "Well, why didn't you do this?" And you read, reading, you say, "I did that. I absolutely did that. I did that, like, on page 12." Um, but, you know, it is what it is. You just, you know, put it in for the next year, the next solicitation.

Next slide, please.

So you may be asking, "Well, what is the purpose of determining your vision?" So you say, "Well, you may be asking, what are you trying to tell me that I can dodge reviewer or negative comments?" And I'm saying to you, "No." I'm trying to tell you that when you determine your vision, you won't have to. That's a poor impression of Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, but that's what you get at like 6:30 at night. So. But essentially, the thing that we're hoping that you will do is that if you understand what it is that you want to do versus what they want to do, if those coincide, then you're probably good. Um, and, and I know that sometimes we see an opportunity, we're like, "Yes, I want to do this," and, you know, the money is great. But if you're off-base from what it is that they do or fund, more than likely, you're going to end up in that 75%. I'm not saying you can't go ahead and roll the dice and go ahead and submit everything and and do what you need to do, but, you know, it's your time, it's your resources, uh, you know, of, of what you need to do to put these things together. Some of these proposals are easy to put together, but the majority of them take a little bit of time. You know, you'll get every so often these opportunities where they just, just want, "Oh, we just want three or four pages. Just tell them what you want to do." You know, your abstract, your, your purpose, your methods, a little bit of background, and your budget. And those are great because you can crank those out and just send them right. And at that point in time, you might be like, "I may as well try. It's only going to take me a couple hours to put this together. I just go ahead, send it, you know, email it. If I don't get it, I haven't invested a whole lot." But if you're talking about something like a 20-page something where you've got all of these different forms and everything else, you might just want to be sure that you're marshalling your, uh, resources, uh, well.

Next slide, please.

So when we talk about brainstorming steps, what I, what I recommend people do is just really kind of sit down in front of some paper with a pen or pencil, or on a tablet or stylus or iPad, or whatever it is that you prefer to use. And then write down short descriptions of what you want to see accomplished or which goals you want to see met. And these are, this is for your vision. These are like all the things that you want to see. Like for me, I want to see, you know, more farmers get food safety certified or something similar. I want them to be able to sell to commercial markets. Um, I want them to be great at grant writing. I want them to have access to, uh, transportation and, uh, storage so that they can be able to sell their crops. I want them to have online presence so that they can actually, you know, connect themselves with buyers. Um, I want a lot of different things, you know, but that's what I'm called to do. Those are the things that make me passionate. So, or, or, you know, make me that I'm passionate about, rather. Um, so you want to find out what it is that those things. And one of the things that you'll find is that you need to understand what is inside your vision and what is outside. Um, and so inside my vision are things like produce food safety on small farms and things connected to that. Small herd livestock, not necessarily inside of my vision. Is it a great thing? Yes. Do I know people who teach that and they help farmers with that? They do great. We have extension agents who do that day in and day out. They are livestock people. They love it. They enjoy it. They have, you know, seen outputs and outcomes like they've seen, you know, small farmers' lives change. But that's just not something I'm passionate about. Now, can I write a great proposal for that? Well, the proposal might be great, but it's going to be pretty hollow, right? Unless I wrote it for Dr. Harris and the team. So I mean, I could help with that, but aside of that, if it was just my own personal research, then no. I mean, it's, it's not. So, you know, I try to look at opportunity and say, "Well, does this really fit into what it is that I want to do?" And the reason why I, you know, put somewhat of emphasis on that is that if you know what you want to do and you know to whom you're called, doing outside sort of things will definitely pay the bills and pave your way to where you want to go. But you want to make sure that you keep focused on what it is that you want to do. Um, you, you know, I, you know, there are some areas that I could go into, but they're just not my primary interest. What I do something outside of the area to make sure that it, you know, funds me to be able to do the things I want, of course, I would do. I understand the possibility that I may go off onto another track, of course. But can the vision change? Of course. So if I find something that I'm, you know, getting some responses with, then I'm say, "Hey," because I know that before I was doing produce food safety, I had, I didn't have a knowledge. It wasn't even, I didn't have an interest in it. I didn't have knowledge of it. It wasn't until, um, I got a call one day that said, "Barrett, we need you to do, uh, to do Good Agricultural Practices training for farmers." And I'm like, "I have no idea what that is." But I learned about it. I went to the Cornell website, downloaded some stuff, read some stuff, made some calls, looked at some websites, and found out that that was an area that I really feel is important. I was part of a project where it was a linchpin part of the project, um, and I kind of had to be the person that, um, you know, either you were going to be with the project or not be with the project. And that was at, not a comfortable position in many cases, particularly with people who were farming longer than I, at the time, were alive. But, you know, either this project is going to succeed or fail. But yes, so I kind of went off into that direction, and it's been, um, it's been really productive for me, um, for the last decade.

Next slide, please.

So the next section really is talking about selection and defining idea. So once you've sat down, you've written out all these different ideas of stuff that you want to do, stuff that you're passionate about, uh, you know, you, you defined what your grander vision is, you've kind of considered all the different things, um, we come to the point where you're looking at a particular opportunity, like an opportunity that comes across your desk, or you know that it's coming up, um, and how you really start to to do what you need to do to take advantage of that.

Next slide, please.

So, you know, your idea is a portion of the vision. This is a review. But remember, the reviewers are critiquing the idea, not the vision, and not you. And remember, your idea also includes the execution. So if you've put together something that's not necessarily the best formatted, or it's hard to read, um, those things go into it. Does neatness count? Yes, yes, it does. Have I gotten proposals that I've had to read that are like 10-point, and I'm just sitting there like, "Why did they do this? Why did they do this?" And, you know, that has an impact on the reviewers. Remember, the reviewers are human, until they get AI reviewers, which I'm sure someone is working on as we speak right now. They're still humans. Um, you know, compliance interviews, probably done by AI at this point, I guess. But the actual reviewing is still done by human beings, like you and me, I presume. Um, so, but remember, they're critiquing the idea, not the vision, not you. And the, the idea is how it's been put together and framed. I mean, even things such as white space would be helpful, like putting an extra character return, um, or carriage return, just to open it up so it looks nicer. Those things do matter. Like I said, neatness does count.

Next slide, please.

So you're defining the idea. So you have all these different ideas, A to Z and beyond, and you say, "Okay, well, I'm going to look at, um, you know, what it is that they want to fund. What ideas that I'm currently kind of have up in the air or been, been mulling around in my mind that kind of fit towards that?" And you say, "Okay, well, you know, they will fund this. They're looking to do this, and they're looking to do that." Um, there are some other things that I think I want to do, but I don't want to necessarily throw those things in because I want to keep it as focused as possible. When the people are reading, they want to say, "Okay, I know why this person is writing this." Uh, and so let's say, in this case, you know, you identify that your ideas B, L, and T are, you know, really good and delicious ideas. And so, uh, you know, you look at those and say, "Okay, so I'm going to put this together." And when you figure out like what it is that you want to do, or what components that you want to actually have funded, then that's good. Like, I'll say, for example, um, I have a concept. I say it's a subset of of the vision where there's like five different components to it. Well, I know that there're going to be some funders, even in that subset of the greater vision, that they're just going to want to fund three. I mean, everything that they've written says, "Okay, we fund this, we fund this, and we fund this." Now, either, you know, I will go to another funder to to kind of have those other two funded, or do some creative accounting. Um, but, you know, by and large, I understand it. I'm not going to throw all five at this funder. I'm not going to muddy the waters. I'm going to say, "This is what we're doing. This is why we're doing it. This is who we're going to be assisting, um, and this is what we hope to to get out of it as, as, um, outcomes and outputs. Uh, this is how they'll be measured." And so, you know, your objectives will really come down from those subsets of the things that you want to see happen. And so they will relate to your objectives, and they're what you want to see as an outcome. So, uh, we'll talk a little bit about the difference between outputs and outcomes, uh, later on, but there is a difference, and it will be my joy to explain the difference to you.

Next slide, please.

So your objectives are those sets of tasks that will achieve B, L, and T. So essentially, we'll, we'll get to objectives later.

Next slide, please.

So, you know, selection, sorry, not section, but selection and defining steps. So, you know, select a few descriptions that relate, are, are set in time and place, and can be supported. So the things that you've written down are the different subsets or components of your vision. You know, select a few, like I said, you, I have five things that I want to do with this particular project. I'm going to select about three. They relate. They'll be at the same time. I have a longer-term vision for what I want to do, but right now, some, I need somebody to to pay for it, like for next year. I don't need them to pay for it for 10 years, you know, just next year. If I get the money to do this, I'll be very happy. And then have a very well-defined overall goal with between three to five general steps to achieve it. And I hesitate to use the word objective at this point, but typically when you're looking at things, people that are reviewing kind of like to see things be, they don't have to be simple, but they have to be framed in a way that's simple to absorb. Like I've seen proposals where they've had like seven objectives, and, and you're just, I mean, it's not that they can't do all seven, it's just when they framed it, they could have framed it as maybe three or four objectives with multiple tasks under them, and it would have read better. So like, "Objective seven is we're doing this. Objective nine is we're doing this. Objective 12." And you, "Oh my God, how are you?" You know, it's, it will seem over ambitious in over ambitious in some parts, whereas if you said, "This is objective one, you know, part A, part C, or part D, or 1.1, 1.2, 1.3," maybe it seems a little bit better.

Next slide, please.

So one of the things that you want to do is you want to outline the proposal. When you get the, the Request for Proposals, and we don't have one on hand, uh, a Request for Proposal will come in different forms. So it could be, uh, a call for proposals, it could be a Request for Proposal, it could be a Request for Applications, it could be the Federal Register listing, which is, if you get one of those, they're just a little bit thick and hard to kind of get through, but they're not impossible to sort of read. Like they're there, they're very, very compact and very, very small type. So, you know, download the PDF and and put it on Zoom, kind of take a step at a time. When you're outlining the proposal, be sure that you are taking into account all of those, um, compliance things. Like they want it on, uh, done in Word, done with what choice of fonts, they want Times New Roman or Arial, whichever ones, they want space and a half, or they want single space, or they want double space. They want 1-inch margins. Uh, all those things, those things matter. Those are things that will get your idea kicked out at the beginning. Like they're asking for double space, and you say, "Well, I'm just going to do space and a half." The people that are reviewing these for compliance, they know you're not going to fool them. If they say, "Okay, we need you to do it in 10 point," you try 11. They'll know. They're looking at this stuff day in and day out. They know this is 11 point. And all they're looking at, they don't want to reject proposals, but what they do want to do is to be sure that they put in a fair process, because if you're doing 10 point and other people are doing 12 point, and it's a 10-page limit, like that's not fair. So they'll be kicking you out. The other thing that they want to do is they want to have a reasonable number of proposals to be able to send to their reviewer. So anything that they can do to sort of disqualify things, sort of ends up being a beneficial thing, uh, in, in a weird way. But, you know, it'll be those kinds of things. So you need to pay attention to those things that have to do with, you know, your formatting and those things. And if it says six-page limit, trust me, it means six. If it says, "Don't put a bunch of links in it," don't presume that the reviewer is going to go to every single link. Like, "Oh, yeah, go to my website, and it's got all this stuff." That's not being fair to other, uh, to other proposals. And I've known some reviewers who do it. I don't. It, it's either within the, the, uh, the four corners of the of the pages that you're allotted, or I'm not going there. I'm not going there on my computer. I'm not typing in. Just forget it. No, because that's not fair to the other folk, uh, that wrote a, a proposal. So make sure that you outline it. Some proposals will give you hints as to the sections that they want. It may be they want their abstract first, then introduction or background, and then your, uh, methods, and then your expected results, and, you know, your evaluation methods, those kinds of things, dissemination plan, communication plan, data management plan. Be sure that you take into account all those things. It could be a logic model, and we're going to touch on that this evening. It could be, um, uh, a variety of different things, letters of support, um, and we'll, we'll talk about that next. Uh, so whatever it is that it's asking for, be sure that you understand what they're asking for. Um, you know, and in those different sections, be sure that setting out the section so that they can clearly find those sections. And one of the things that you want to do is a lot of proposals, particularly with us or government, they will absolutely positively let you know exactly what criteria they're using. Now, do the criteria match up one to one to what it, or the format that they're asking you, or the question that they're asking you to answer? In many cases, they're not, which is awfully weird. Uh, but, you know, the reviewers are going to look at kind of that rubric and they're going to use it. But everybody has written in the format that they give, so everybody's at the same disadvantage. So you don't really have to worry about that, because it all really kind of comes out in the wash. What you want to focus on is that when you, if you yourself have time, if you're not trying to do this at 11:59, if you have time to go through what the, um, what the criteria are, then you want to go through and see, "Did I satisfy this? Did I satisfy that? Did I satisfy the other?" And if you really have time, find an external person, another person to go through it. Uh, and be sure that you proofread. Uh, there's editors, there's, uh, there's all kinds of external, there's Grammarly, there's a bunch of other things. Microsoft has upped its game with its own editor and Word, so those things, those things do matter. Like words getting misspelled sometimes, they can irk people who are reviewing. Um, and so, you know, you want to be sure that you're kind of on top of those things. The other big thing is contact potential supporters and ask if they will be willing to write letters or sign one draft a letter just in case. So there are some instances where, uh, if you're dealing with farmers or ranchers, they don't have time, but they, you know, if you go out to their ranch and you say, "Hey, this is the letter. Can you read it over and sign it or put it on your letterhead?" If, if they're, uh, that sophisticated, you know, like, "Yeah, I'll put it on my letterhead. I'll sign, you know, to, you know, United States Department of Agriculture, NIFA, for this program, you know, I am writing in support of, you know, so-and-so's, uh, proposal named such-and-such, and we think that it's a great idea, and we'll absolutely change the world of of livestock." You know, "Thank you, sincerely yours." And, you know, you do that. And sometimes, you know, uh, reviewers will look at those letters and they'll see that.

They're form letters, but the one thing that we know about farmers and ranchers is that they do not put their John Hancock easily. You know, if they trust you enough to go ahead and sign that, they mean it. You know, they they have to have a trust and relationship with you enough to say, "Yes, I'm going to go ahead and sign this." Because they, at least the farmers I've worked with, they they wouldn't play with that either. They know you well enough to go ahead and write that letter and it be a form letter, uh, and go ahead and sign it, or they they really and truly don't. And some of them are going to be real diligent and they're going to read it. Uh, they're, I'm sorry, they're going to read it and they're going to go ahead and sign it.

Um, one of the other things that you want to be certain of is that a farmer and rancher, and whoever your, um, end consumer or end beneficiary, letters from them weigh way more than any elected official. For you to get a letter from your Governor, it's a phone call or email. For you to get a a letter from your Senator, it's a phone call or or a, uh, uh, email. Um, from mayor, same thing. City council person, those are great. I would say get those, they're easy. You just send them a blurb, they crank them out, they got staffers do that day in and day out. Um, you know, but when you're able to actually show that the end recipients, the end beneficiaries, are actually in support of your project, it speaks way more volumes than anybody else. Because that really proves that, yes, we should fund this, because small farmers and ranchers are saying themselves, "Yes, we think this is a great idea. This is going to help me." And that's why you try to get those letters. Unfortunately, letters are typically difficult to get because people are busy, uh, and sometimes people are dealing with some technology issues. But make sure you do it.

The other thing is, you want to be sure that if you, if you are, if you kind of are opposing these ideas to your potential beneficiaries, that you know some of them were like, "Well, how can I be involved?" And if you do this early on in the process, process, and you can write things like you have an advisory committee, or you have a review board, or you have, uh, people who are going to be willing to test your prototype, and those things also speak volumes. When they see people are actually going out to other people, other disinterested people, not like partners or other people inside of your own business, um, you know, and they're saying, "Hey, can we be involved?" And you're involving them, you know, honestly and, um, thoughtfully, intentionally, that also speaks volumes. So it could be just as easy to say, you have an advisory committee. Uh, your advisory committee is going to meet. You made provision in the budget to sort of compensate them for their time, and you say, "You know, we have this program. We're going to lay it out before we lay it out to the public. Uh, we're going to lay it out to them and get feedback and make changes that we need to make." Those kinds of things make, uh, uh, you know, really speak volumes. And but it takes kind of having those relationships and being sure that you're forming those, um, early on in the process. So they could be pre-existing relationships that you're leveraging to do that. Um, and like I said, speaks volumes, absolute volumes. So, you know, it, it is good to, you know, th, those of you, you, you do have relationships right now with other ranchers, and take advantage of of those. Um, what you don't want to happen is you to come up with, uh, a brand new mousetrap, and people are not interested in trapping mouses anymore for some reason. You know, and people that are in the industry who are going to be on the panel, because pick people on the panel because they're experts, are going to say, "We're not trapping mouses anymore. We're trapping, you know, muskrats or something." Right? So they'll know those kinds of things. And, um, so that's why it's good to be sure that you're in contact with potential supporters. Like I said, like still get those top letters. Still get letters from universities. Still get, you know, letters from extensions. Still get letters from Mayors. Still get those. Like, in most cases, they're pretty easy to get because they've got a staffer that did it and they've got a rubber stamp. But definitely focus on those.

Next slide, please. So at this point in time, I think it's 6:51. I'd like us to take a quick 10-minute break. Uh, and let's reconvene at 7 o'clock. Um, 7 o'clock Central, 8 o'clock Eastern. What is it, Pacific? Let me interject there. Unless there is some burning question that gives you an opportunity to, uh, uh, slow down. I know you've been running 90 miles an hour here forth by an hour. There might be a burning question out there that might help us relax a little bit. Um, so why don't we invite, if there's a burning question before you take that quick break, is there someone out there with a question? I, I know one, uh, there may be some basic, uh, inquiries on the on the call as far as nonprofits versus, you know, for-profit businesses, agricultural businesses. Some, uh, participants on the call tonight might not necessarily be in farming or producing and that type of thing and might be looking for some basic, uh, grant application information. So can you speak to that for a moment before we?

Certainly. Um, you know, depending on what your, what your organization is, um, you know, there's going to be some funds that are available to you and some that may not be available to you. And that's why it's really important when you go into the proposal to see specifically what kinds of organizations are eligible. Like there are some, uh, there are some grants that are out there that universities are excluded. Like they want to fund businesses, or they want to fund nonprofits. They do not want to fund universities. Um, you may be able to partner with someone who has a nonprofit that you may have an existing relationship. They go ahead and they, you know, write the proposal, list you as a cooperator, collaborator, co-i partner, uh, sub-award, how, whatever it is that's permissible. Um, but the one thing that I would definitely do is be sure that you know what kind of organization that they want to fund. Um, you know, you don't want to be in a position where they say, "Well, we don't fund that kind of organization." Um, you know, and one of the things that's really quick to do is call the organization. Now, I do know there are some organizations, they put materials out there, they put, uh, funding opportunities out there. They're like strictly email. They do not, they don't even list a phone number. They don't list, uh, someone who's over it. Um, and those things, you know, sometimes they just don't have the staffing to be able to, uh, field phone questions. But, you know, even if you send an email to whoever should be listed as the organizer, coordinator, or anything else, to say, "I'm thinking about this." You don't have to, you don't have to give them the entire concept. Something short, brief, no longer than probably a half a page or a page, just let them know, and they will be happy to tell you, like, "Yes, that's something that we can do."

Okay. Do you have an outline or advice on how to create synergy among potential community partners when going after USDA grants? It appears that these grants want a wide reach when funded.

Um, I have, I don't have an outline, but I have advice. Be honest with people. Um, definitely be, be fair. Uh, if you are going to be collaborating with people, if you say, "Well, you know, we're going to go and we're going to train teachers, we're going to do this X, Y, and Z," or, you know, "We're going to reach out to these, uh, different communities that are there." Um, you know, people's time is valuable. You know, one of the criticisms that I personally make when I see, or let me say it the other way, one of the things that impresses me as a reviewer is when you have a proposal, a proposer that is very, not even generous, but fair to the people that it is that they're including. So I've seen some proposals and they've said, "Well, you know, we're going to have these teachers, and they're coming to these classes, and we're going to teach them about this gizmo thing for them to go and take back to their high school or middle school." But I remember distinctly seeing one where they were paying for, um, they were paying for their lodging, they were paying for their travel. Uh, it was car travel, but they were reimbursing their mileage, and they were paying them something like $1,000 each for the, uh, program. Now, you may not be able to do that depending on what your budget is. And over these last couple of years, uh, under the current administration, coming after, uh, the pandemic, there were some massive USDA grants. Um, I was on some review panels where literally the sky was the limit. You know, most of the time, um, you are looking at, um, you know, they had to kind of rob Peter to pay Paul. So they might have had an evaluator, but they didn't have an economist on it. If you're dealing with $3 million for a proposal that you typically would have like $300,000, or you have a million and typically you would be riding for $300,000, like you, you could put everything into it. And I'm not, not saying that they were, um, mismanaging the resources, but I think that it, it was really important that when they were including these other entities, these schools, or, you know, uh, travel groups, or whatever else, they were being really fair about their time. They weren't just kind of adding them on as as a, uh, as a, as a sidebar to say, "Oh, well, we're just, we're collecting data from them, and then we're going to teach them some stuff, and they should be perfectly happy that we're even, you know, dealing with them." Um, but I really think that, uh, if, even if you don't have a pre-existing relationship with them, if you go to them and be honest with them and say, "Hey, we want to include you as a partner. Like, we want to build a long-term relationship. Yeah, we're going to try to kickstart it with this particular opportunity, but understand that we're going to continue to look at different opportunities." Like, um, there was another university in the state. They had reached out to me. Said, "Hey, you know, somebody referred us to you. We want to, uh, you know, we want to partner with you at Tuskegee. We're a small school here, too, in Alabama." And they were very honest. They said, "Look, we're looking to teach, uh, young children in this rural area, and we want you to interact with them. Like, we think that there's a value to these children seeing someone teaching them that looks like them." And they were honest. Like, they were just upfront and honest to say, "Look, this is what we want to include Tuskegee, or someone from Tuskegee, so that we can be as effective as possible in teaching this STEM content to these young people, and we believe that representation matters." But they were upfront and honest about it. So I think that that impressed me more. Like, yeah, they were slicing into a nice bit of money out of the budget, which is always good, but also being honest is is always good. And on in the long run, you will win. You know, um, you know, if you're building relationships that become beneficial moving forward, um, because at some point in time, they may have opportunity to say, "Hey, you know, would you like to come in, uh, with us on this?" And so that kind of stuff happens. So if someone reaches out to me, you know, say, "Hey, we like a letter of support, or we're doing this." Like, I will say, like, you know, even if you're not doing money, if what you're trying to do is going to be helpful, if I don't feel like you're, um, taking advantage of myself and Tuskegee clientele, then yes, I support what you do because we all win. But there may be another time when you have resources and you say, "Hey, you know, you were willing to support us. We got the money. We're dealing with this, this bigger thing. Would you like to get in on it now that we can actually cut you into the into the, uh, proposal?" And sometimes, you know, that works.

Uh, next question. And, uh, do you have a network of grant writers with agricultural background as a resource?

Uh, yes. Call Tuskegee University. No, I actually, I don't, unfortunately. Um, I know some people who, uh, do it well, but we do it for the university. Um, the one thing that I would say is connecting a lot of, and don't laugh when I say this, what I see is connecting a lot of farmers and ranchers who are active about doing things. Actually, is social media. Um, and organizations. Like, I think it's, it's great if you involve yourself in organizations. You should do that. Um, and but, you know, some of those conferences, they come once or twice a year. Um, but if you need to know someone's out there, like if you go into, you know, social media, there are groups. There's one platform that really focuses on groups a whole lot. Um, and, you know, there are agricultural groups, there's farmers groups. You can, you know, join some of those groups and say, "Hey, does someone know of a grant writer that's, you know, has such and such a background? It's dealt with, you know, livestock, or dealt with produce, or dealt with processing?" And most people will respond. You know, say, "Yeah, I, I know someone who does that," and you can get some candid information. Um, so, yeah, you know, going to being a part of your organizations, I think is really helpful, um, in making sure that you yourself are growing and connecting yourself to the larger, uh, you know, quote unquote ecosystem of your field. But definitely, there are other ways to connect with other people, uh, as well. And I would definitely take advantage of, like, if I was looking for a grant writer for one of you, I know two, three groups I would go. I know a rancher who is interested in, you know, a, uh, livestock grant. Is there somebody y'all could, uh, recommend? And I would just put it up in a group and, you know, I, you know, there would be some responses. People say, "I mean, some people just like it for some reason and not give me a response, but, you know, there'll be, you know, a couple people who say, 'Yeah, there's this one person that does it. They do it. They, you know, did it successfully for me.'"

All right. Next question. Oh, we got a couple questions. I'm going to keep going. Do you think that nonprofits are able to partner with for-profit organizations for MPPA Grants?

I can take that one. Okay. Um, so in reference of MPPA Grants, we actually don't provide grants. What we do is we essentially, um, help look for them for you. Um, but we don't provide a specific grant to you. And I'll actually let, um, Mr. Robinson go a little bit more into exactly what it is that he does as far as the grant aspect and trying to find a good grant for you.

Thank you for Veronica. Um, what, what this entails is is just that is depending on what type of funding or, uh, what type of grant that you're looking for, operation costs, um, you know, operational expenditures, equipment, you know, operating capital, um, you know, labor, infrastructure, that type of thing. It, it just depends on what the need might be, um, in your particular operation and where we can find a place. Um, say USDA Rural Development, USDA, uh, Agriculture Marketing Service, could be Risk Management Agency, it could be a Small Business Administration. Some of the, um, uh, the grant opportunities might be there, as well as sometimes you have to resort back to maybe a portion of your, uh, need might be in the form of a loan. So there's been times when, um, you know, business operations might necessarily need some of both. If you can't, uh, if you're not able to acquire 100% grant, then there's, there's always the opportunity to do a, may, a portion of the actual overall project cost, um, and in, uh, in a loan. And also, while we're on that, uh, just depends on, you know, what grant, uh, opportunity there might be. There's also the, uh, the question of matching. Sometimes there are matching requirements. Like, for example, the Value-Added Producer Grant that comes out, uh, annually by USDA, um, under the Rural Development, uh, where, if the project cost, it's a 50% match. In other words, if the project cost might be $200,000, the overall total cost of your project might be $200,000, then USDA is going to be looking to you for $100,000, um, of a matching, um, um, the overall matching, that overall cost of of the project. So it's all that kind of, um, you know, uh, but we have to just match, uh, the requirements for the particular, uh, need that you might have. And that's what we're doing. And so part of Tuskegee University's mission here and objective is to work with, uh, these sources of of revenue. So you don't necessarily have to know it all. If, once we engage with you and we know what you're looking for, then we'll, uh, certainly assist you in trying to identify where those sources of funds might be. Just depends on what the need is.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Robinson. Um, I know there was a question that said about startup. Um, I'm going to presume, if you want to type in some more clarification, but I would presume that you are asking about, are there startup funds for, what specifically for a farm or for a nonprofit? Is that what you're asking specifically?

Thank you. For example, the grant could be a, uh, Rural Business Development Grant, for which a for-profit organization cannot apply directly, but a nonprofit can apply. Did you want to take that one, Miles?

Yeah, it's pretty much, um, I think he expressed it, uh, just right. And that just depends on the, again, the, uh, grant application of the grant opportunity, uh, is of whether you qualify or not. And, and that's why particularly dealing with USDA and and their programs, the first thing they do is determine eligibility. Um, and that's, that's kind of a prerequisite to any of this, uh, application for funding. So you know right away whether you qualify, your business, or your operation qualifies or not, without going through a full, um, fledged, you know, application for funding. So that's, that's kind of the first, first step. So, uh, see the next question. That's, uh, so how do we engage Tuskegee officially to start a conversation on consultation?

Veronica, you might want to take the protocol on that, and then we'll go from there.

Yes. So if it is meat and poultry related, as far as processing facility, whether you're in the beginning stages, want to possibly think about, um, opening up a processing facility, or you're in that at this point and just need some additional funding, or, you know, you need some help with business plans, or anywhere in where you are in your project, we can assist. I'm going to go ahead and provide you our website, and you can actually click at the bottom, you can scroll to the bottom, and it'll actually allow you to submit for, uh, technical assistance with us. And then what we'll do is we'll essentially follow up with you, um, within 24 to 48 hours to go ahead and start an actual Zoom. So I'm going to go ahead and provide my email address that you guys can contact us directly, as well as the website.

Are they okay for meat and poultry startup in the chat?

Um, is are you asking if there's funding available as far as for meat and poultry startup? If I'm understanding that correctly? And so, in, in this case, what I would say is this would be one of those, uh, scenarios where we would essentially have you go ahead and submit for technical assistance. And then at that time, I'll really be able to evaluate exactly what your needs may be, and then I can at that, uh, moment essentially call on to my leads to see how we're able to assist. So it looks like you're looking for startup, uh, grant money, startup grant money. That means I would just, of course, relay the information and see exactly what it is that Mr. Miles, uh, Robinson may have at that time and see what we can do. But I definitely would encourage for you to go to our website, scroll all the way to the bottom, and go ahead and submit for the technical assistance. So therefore, we can move forward. And, and that's why I mentioned earlier, some of the, um, ideas, if, if you're not yet already in business, or if you're not already producing or processing, um, it just depends on where you are and what space you're in, you know, currently, as to what funding agency might be available to you. I know at USDA, for example, um, beginning farmers and ranchers, you know, they have a, like a 10-year, if you've been farming, uh, farming or producing, uh, for less than 10 years, then you're considered a beginning farmer producer. Um, and depending on the, uh, the amount of the project, the cost of the project, is the, you know, again, that, that lot of that is determined by, okay, is is Rural Development a good fit for this particular project? Will they lend money for someone who's just not getting started? Would they require you to, uh, have been in business for a year or two years, have some, um, expertise, or at least some experience, um, and have some, uh, production records of what you've done? So there, there's a lot of criteria that go into determining, you know, what, you know, funding source there might be available to you. So that's, that's once the consultation begins, we get to know exactly what it is and where you are, and, you know, what, what stage you are in, so we can take it from there and then begin to really hone in on exactly what, uh, sources of funding you might be better suited for.

Okay. Uh, question is, is there a clearinghouse for current available grants?

The answer is yes and no. There are several different clearinghouses, but they are not, I do not believe that there is one unified clearinghouse. Now, in meat and poultry, is there one for that, Miss Royal?

A good question. Honestly, not sure. Dr. Harris, perhaps you could chime in.

Yes. Can you all hear me? Yes. Is there a clearinghouse for current available grants? Um, you mean like a directory? If you mention talking about the directory, you can just, um, look through SAM.gov and see what is best fit for you, you know, to see what's open and the opportunity or what area that they're looking in.

Right. Does that answer the question?

It, it does. But yes, yes, ma'am, it does.

One of the things that I would point out is that there are clearinghouses. Like, if you are looking at government funds, federal government funds, they are at grants.gov. But if you're looking at state, each different state may have different ways that they get the information out. Um, there are some private entities, some, uh, foundations, they don't necessarily put their information in different, uh, you know, databases. Like they may just have their own. And if you know about them, then you know about their opportunities. It would be nice if there was a unified clearinghouse for all of them, but I don't, I don't know of any right now. Um, I know that a lot of the funds that I've gotten have been federal. They've been either federal, federal, or federal flow-through, and some state. But even some of the state money was actually, you know, federal money as well. Um, but, okay, hang on a second. Okay. We applied for the RSI Grant last week, and I'm working on one due May 15th. But we like to stay busy. Oh, there's lots of grants that are out there. If you just focus on the ones that are open on USDA, that would take you a bunch of time. But the one other thing that I would say is USDA, um, has a lot of grants set up for agriculture, but agriculture or agricultural topics are really even within other units. It could be within Labor, Department of Labor. It could be EPA. It could be, uh, uh, DOL. It could be MBDA. It could be a variety of different, um, aspects to agriculture that you're looking at wanting to get funded that might not be per se an agriculture. So, you know, if you were looking at labor, that could be Department of Labor Statistics or or Department of Labor. It could be Minority Business Development, um, Association. It could be, uh, EPA. EPA has, you know, like a little teeny section that deals with agriculture. Department of Transportation has sections where they deal with certain issues in agriculture. Um, you know, different organizations. So I would invite you to look at some other different organizations and, and, you know, it would, you know, be worth a call to say, "Hey, we're working on this project. Is there some way that, um, we might be able to, um, you know, partner with your government organization?" Um, and also, the, the more that you really connect yourself with with different, uh, organizations, you'll find out that those, uh, funding opportunities are out there. Um, but, you know, anyone that's looking for grants to write, there, there's always something that's due somewhere in your state or federally, uh, in, in some way. And like I said, looking at federal government, it could be Health, it could be NIH, it could be EPA, it could be NSF, it could be a variety of different ones, um, that they, they touch agriculture. Agriculture is so vast, um, that, you know, it touches into every single area, even defense. I mean, you know, so there may be some opportunities there. Like, you know, soldiers got to eat, sailors got to eat, Marines got to eat, Air Force got to eat, Space Force people, they may eat something that's, you know, looks like Tang or freeze-dried, but they got to eat too. So I mean, you know, kind of consider like, what is it that they're looking for in their logistics chain that you can kind of say, "You know what proposals you have going?" And don't be afraid to call folks. Um, so, yeah, great question and good luck on your, on your RSI Grant. Barrett, we, uh, took, took your break time. Do you need a minute, or do we keep going? How do you, how do you feel? How do you feel right now?

I'm, I'm fine with pressing forward.

Okay, great. So we have more time at the end. Um, great. Okay. Next slide, please. On to structuring objectives. So we talk about goals and objectives. So you, you at this point in time, you've written down everything that you want to see changed in the world and bettered in the world. And then you found this opportunity and you say, "Okay, well, this will help me better the world because they're going to give me money." And that's good. And then you have to figure out, okay, like, what part do they really want in my grander scheme of bettering the world? Are they willing to pay for? So you look at their objectives, their priorities, and you say, "Okay, well, these things that I want to see done fit into what they want to do, and they align," which is great. But then they're basically going to want to say, "Okay, well, what exactly do we want to do? Like, we get it that you've got these great ideas, but we kind of need some more detail. So what is your overall goal, and how do you plan to get to that goal?" That is to say, through your objectives.

Next slide, please. So essentially, like we were just talking, you have your vision, what you want to see in the world, your purposes, why you want to see it. And you define, you know, with a nice dashed line around, you know, what your vision is and outside, uh, is good stuff, but not good for you per se. Now, uh, so for me, it's like, produce food safety. Things that be outside, like small herd livestock, like that's great. I think it's great, but that's not just, that's that's not my, uh, my thing. So, you know, after you define that vision, then you have an opportunity that comes up. And next slide, please. So you figure out, okay, what subset is it that you want to do? And that's your idea. So you say, "Okay, I need to write down something within the four corners of paper to be able to say, okay, this is what I want to do." And the goal is why you want it funded. Like, why do you want this money? Like, whom do you hope that it will, uh, impact? Um, and so that ends up being your goal.

Next slide. And so from that, you look and you consider, um, you know, these are the different objectives. You have objective one, objective two, up to objective N. Like, could be three, could be four, could be 17. Um, but and under that, you know, this is the thing that you want to achieve. And under that are steps to get there. Those are your tasks. So it's kind of like you have your overall goal, you have multiple objectives to get to that goal that are tight and cohesive. Um, and then you have tasks under each objective that get you, you know, to that objective. And so it, it all breaks down. So when you, when you're writing this out, and they're talking about, you know, this is your method, or this is your plan of work, or these are your activities, it takes many different forms of what they're going to ask you for. This is how they want. They may say, you know, "List your objectives and, uh, your activities," or "Objectives and your tasks," or whatever the RFA says. And one of the things that you, you want to kind of mirror the language of the RFA. Make sure you're speaking the same language they're speaking, especially if you're going outside of your normal scope. Like, if I wrote something for NSF, I need to describe stuff and mirror back the language that they use. I may understand how, uh, um, USDA describes something, uh, or a phenomenon or an aspect, but I need to write it back to them using their own language. So that ends up being key. So that, well, I don't understand this. Well, yeah, you do, but I'm calling it something different. Don't give them, don't give them a reason. Right? Just mirror how it is that they're framing it to what they're doing. If they're using, like, when it comes to language, um, how they're describing it, just go with it. Um, I hate to just kind of hearken on this, but if they're calling it minority, call it minority. If they call it socially disadvantaged, socially and historically disadvantaged, use that language. If they're calling it, you know, whatever it is that they're calling it, just go with it. There's no sense in having them try to figure, okay, well, I know that this is supposed to be benefit certain people, but they're saying it should benefit somebody else. It's outside of their scope. Don't give them, don't give them a reason.

Next slide, please. So we talk about goals and objectives and funded projects. And I'm going to kind of speed through these. I wanted to show you for a particular, um, opportunity that I saw that you can really kind of identify when people write an abstract of a project where you find it. So next slide, please. This was actually for the, uh, Local Food Promotion Program, their transportation and marketing section. They had about $31 million, $32 million, and they funded, uh, year before last, they funded 94 grants. Um, and I know that you may not be, uh, you may not be applying for this particular program, but I'm just using this as an example. So we're going to look at at four proposals and kind of show you how they structured it in terms of identifying what their objectives were.

Next slide, please. So this is a project that came out of Arizona. And strangely enough, it was a project in Arizona, but they were dealing with Hawaii, which was kind of a weird thing, but I'm sure that the, uh, reviewers had, uh, you know, a hoot. But, uh, essentially, you can look and identify what their objectives are. You know, they're looking to improve the income and economic opportunities for both traditional and contemporary agriculture producers through one, conducting market research on species that have market potential; two, identifying gaps and solutions for needed aquaculture supply chain infrastructure; and three, developing a brand trademark with production standards attached to it to promote seafood grown in traditional native Hawaiian aquaculture systems. Okay, like they clearly identify what their objectives are: one, two, and three. Those are ones that make sense together. Like, identify, first of all, they're doing market research to see about certain species, aquaculture species. Two, identifying the gaps and solutions for needed aquaculture supply chain infrastructure. So they're saying, "Okay, finding something that people want, figuring out how to get it to the people that would want it." And three, "How are you going to distinguish yourself on an already crowded marketplace, uh, so that you're actually selling what it is that you're trying to promote?" And that's the developing brand. So you can see that that's a holistic thing. They all relate together. They go towards, um, you know, helping out the, uh, aquaculture and Hawaiian Islands and gets these folks in in Arizona State some really great trips. Actually, I think that they had partners that were in, uh, Hawaii, so they probably didn't have to make too many trips.

Next slide, please. So, for example, this one, I won't read everything, but this was a group that was looking at a local food hub and node connectivity project. You can see that they enumerated their objectives, but one of the things that they did that we talked about earlier was they have one, two objectives, but their first objective has two parts. So they kind of kept it tight. And it says, "Expand and connect infrastructure of five mid-tier value chain, uh, enterprises, food hubs by one, or a, establishing a new food hub facility in Gunnison, Colorado, and, b, expanding four hub-to-hub distribution routes to meet increased demand." On and all, so they clearly identify what it is and talk about, you know, to developing the wholesale market.

Next slide, please. And so this third one, coming out of New York, um, and you can see that they enumerated them. They have four here, not too many, as long as they're cohesive, right? Um, one of the terms that I use, uh, when I see a bunch of objectives that don't seem to match, I call it "frankensteining." Like, you're putting different parts together that don't necessarily fit together. It really isn't frankensteining. It really is Franken, well, it is what Frankenstein did, but he created a Frankenstein monster. Um, so, "Expanding promoting the offerings of local foods." Two, "Expanding newly established rural access delivery program." Three, "Increase exposure to and purchases of locally produced projects." And four, "Creating new and expanded market opportunities for local farmers." Right? So they looked at what it is that they wanted to do, they framed it, they had their four main objectives, and that's what they did.

Next slide. And as for this one's objectives, also enumerated, they had four. You know, uh, this is coming out of Vermont. They got money to leverage farm-to-school to increase local purchasing through collaboration, innovation, and supply chain. So they were talking about creating marketing materials, uh, and then developing a product catalog to improve conversion rate, distribution of annual Harvest of the Month calendars to keep it, you know, keep it top of mind for the folks, and in collaboration with regional partners to support states in developing and improving local purchasing incentive programs for K through 12 schools. And then a, a second, fourth objective, which I presume is probably their fifth objective, execution of a comprehensive sales push across current service area. Okay. So they have them enumerated. They're cohesive. That makes sense. Getting it from front to back.

Next. And so I'm going to spend a little bit of time on this. I know we're running out of time, and I do want to leave, uh, a good 15, 20 minutes for, uh, for more questions, even though I'll take questions as we go. Logic models. If you are applying to USDA, it is very likely that they are going to ask you to do a logic model. So I'm going to give you some basics now. I'm going to say there's a, there's a link that's on here. If you Google "logic model," a bunch of stuff is going to come up. University, I think Wisconsin-Madison, if I'm not mistaken, is kind of the place that shepherds a lot of the act stuff that makes sense for us. But we're going to kind of go through these, uh, quickly.

Next slide, please. So what is a logic model? It's a way of framing a problem where you can see it visually, so you kind of understand things and can read it very quickly and understand what it is that you're asking money for, or how it is that you're planning on, um, solving something. So University of Wisconsin-Madison, this is where it came from. The link may not work by now because I know the last time I did this, the link didn't work because they moved it someplace. But you have the situation, the inputs, the outputs, the outcomes, or the, or the impacts, the assumptions, and external factors.

Next slide. So this is a blow-up of that, of a similar chart. It kind of shows you have your inputs, your outputs, your outcomes, uh, your assumptions, your external factors, and your situations. Uh, and basically, your inputs are what it is that you put into it. You know, is this your staff time, money, um, partners? What you do when it comes to activities and participation, who are you reaching, and what are you doing? And a lot of times, people confuse, uh, their outputs with outcomes. Your outputs are basically stuff that you do, and you can enumerate that, like, "We gave so and so many, uh, workshops," or "We did so so many trainings," or "We, you know, mailed out 50 of these packets." Like, those are activities. Those are outputs. Outcomes are a little bit more complex. They are what happened. They're like the, you know, what is it that it actually has an impact? You know, short-term results, medium-term results, and, um, longer-term results. So it's like the learning, the action, the conditions changing, uh, knowledge changing, behavior changing, condition, different terms for the pretty much the same thing. This also came from University of Wisconsin Extension.

Next slide, please. So the logic model sections, kind of touched on this already. The inputs, the outputs, the outcomes. Those are really the important part.

Next slide, please. And then you talk about, you know, change of knowledge. Uh, uh, your logic model outcomes. The first level is change of knowledge. So let's say that you're doing, and I'm going to use this again. I'm probably using it poorly, uh, poorly, and, uh, Dr. Harris is probably going to let me know later. Um, let's say that you were talking about small herd, uh, small herbs, uh, with livestock, and, you know, changing knowledge basically is, do you know more about it than you did before you came to our program? Like, we invited you to a program, we set it up at someone that had a small herd, you came there and you saw how they do it. Like, did you change your knowledge? Like, and you can measure that. Say, "Do you know more than what you knew before you came to this program?" That's the change in knowledge. So change in behavior, you can check it sometime after, after, and say, "Hey, you came to our project. Did you consider it? Did you actually start doing it? Did you set aside part of your, you know, 100-head herd? Did you set aside maybe about 10 or 20?" I don't know if these are reasonable numbers. I'm not an animal scientist or a veterinarian or rancher. Uh, did you set aside 10 so that they would be high quality? Did you go and purchase you a really high-quality registered certified male cow, a bull, um, you know, so that you could kind of prepare to do that? And so that would be a change of behavior. Like, it got in their head, something changed, it manifested itself. And then changing condition would be, you know, if you can, you're able to quantify the fact that, yes, they, you know, they had their regular large portion of the herd, but they set aside a small one, got a really good quality bull, and the bull had little baby cows. So, well, the bull didn't, but the female cows did because they were with the bull. And so now you have really good quality baby cows that grow up to be really quality cows, and then you sold them, but you made more money than, like, the rest. So that would be a change in condition because you made more money. So whatever investment you made into the high-quality registered or qualified, whatever bull, then it paid off because you were able to sell high-quality little cows.

Next slide, please. So when we talk about these things, um, you have your ID, these different objectives, they're different parts of it, and this is kind of how they coordinate. So first, next slide, please. You have your outputs. Those are your activities and participants. You know, please do not confuse this with outcomes. Your outputs are just raw numbers. Those are numbers you can just get from there, like, "How many came to your program?" Um, "How many, uh, programs did you do?" Like, "You did five workshops." As output, you had 15 people per workshop come. That's output. Outcomes, next slide, please. Those are when you're measuring to change in knowledge, change in behavior, and change in condition. And those are really important because when people are reading these things, they really want to know, like, "How is this going to impact people's lives? Like, why should we invest this money into you?" Of course, you're going to get your cut, you're going to get salary in most cases. Like, we want to know that this is going to have an impact. Like, we just don't want you spinning your wheels and say, "Oh, that was nice." Like, we want to be sure that you have a good idea of what it is that you plan to happen in the world in terms of change. And, you know, what is it that you really want to see? Like, with me, I do food safety, produce food safety research, because I want them to be able to get, if they can't get a commercial, uh, contract, like a big commercial contract, I'd like the farmers to at least be able to position themselves to go to, like, a local grocery and be able to say, "Hey, you know, Mr. Brown or Mr. uh, Gray doesn't have food safety certification. I do. Like, we try to do our stuff clean, and that protects you as a local grocer. You should buy from us, really, kind of instead of him or her." And it's bad for them, but good for the one that came into my class. That's why they should. Next class. Next, uh, slide, please. So wrapping up, getting close to the end. Got a couple more minutes. Identifying measurable outcomes and developing tasks. This ends up being really, uh, valuable. You can talk about all the neat things. Good Lord, I've been this whole time, I didn't have my light on. Guess I wasn't dark. Oh, okay. That's better. Um, identify measurable outcomes and developing tasks. So, um, by and large, you could talk about, you know, you want to do this, but they're like, "How are you going to measure this stuff? How do you say it? How do we really know that the money that we gave you was well?"

Next slide, please. So next slide, please. Outcomes evaluation. So, you know, we talked about outcome evaluation plans. Change in knowledge, change in behavior, and change in condition. And so change in knowledge, most cases are measurable during the activity or following the activity. Like, you can ask people, you can give them a little short survey. Did you learn something? You know, and sometimes, you know, there are two ways to kind of measure that. One is to measure just to ask them, "Did you learn something? Did you learn something new? Do you know something new? Do you know something that you didn't know before you came?" The other way that you do, which is a little bit more complex and sometimes, uh, people don't like to do, is that you actually have them demonstrate that they know something. So you

Give them basically like a quiz. So, you, you kind of give them some concepts they should know from like paying a decent amount of attention to your, uh, to your presentation and say, "Okay, well, what is this? What is that?" And if you make it fun and interesting, then it's good. But really, you're collecting data. You can prove they had a change in knowledge, not just them saying, "Yeah, I know something new." Like, you, you have proof. And those are both valid ways. I understand why some people would, would prefer the former than the latter because the former is more acceptable. Like, people don't like being tested. Like, if you come to, you know, there'll be a test at the end, they'll probably laugh first. But it may be true. But if you're just asking them, "Did you, uh, did you learn something? Do you know something new?" Or, and you can do that a variety of different ways. There's a hundred different ways to do that.

The next step is change in behavior. So, measurable shortly after the activity and relatively easier to measure than changing condition. Uh, and so that could be, you follow up in a number of weeks, six months, however long. You know, "Came to our program." I think I talked about this already. "You know, did you start doing it?" Okay.

Changing condition. Same thing. Has to be something measurable, uh, sometime after the activity. Now, with change behavior, you may want to, in terms of measurability, you may say, "Okay, did you buy the registered cow bull? Did you look at companies that had registered bulls, but you never did that before?" Like, you started thinking about it. So, you want to put inside their, like, different levels of change in behavior. Like, "Did you set aside 10% of your pals so that you could buy this, you know, high-quality bull?" Right? And so, you know, that's a change of behavior. Then changing condition would be, you know, measurable. And, and where it becomes a challenge can be that most people don't want to talk about their personal financial business. Like, they don't really want to give that stuff. Money is always gold. There's nothing better than being able to report actual data to say, "Yes, I would have made this amount if I had just stuck with doing what I did, but I'm making this amount because it's more money." And so that's something that you may want to, uh, if you're working with, with ranchers, and that ends up, you're changing condition. Like, if your, if your, uh, condition is health, like there are certain things you could ask people. Some people may not want to give you some things. But when it comes to money, people may, you know, kind of say, "Hey, I'm not going to give you that kind of information." But you could always add stuff that you can back-calculate into it. Like, say, "Okay, well, how many of the, you know, how much did you, or how many did you sell?" And then you could find out what a reasonable cost might be, or how many pounds did you sell, or how many pounds were the animal at the time, or what quality were there? And then you can figure out what it is in terms of money. Or you could just leave it in the form that it is to kind of say, "This is what they would have had. This is what they had. They would have gotten more money." Or anything else. And sometimes, like I said, you have to reverse engineer your task to fit the desired outcomes from the output. So, you know, you know, you may have tasks that you've written already and then you say, "But that's not getting me where I need to go." Like, you need to be sure that any objectives that you have with any task is going to get you to a measurable outcome. If you have objectives that will not get you to a measurable outcome, you probably want to reconsider whether that task is actually important.

Next slide, please. So, you know, when you talk about, you know, your measurement, that really goes towards your, your outcomes and your task and your outputs.

Next slide, please. So, when we measure, we talk about change in knowledge, change in behavior, change in condition. That's just the way the logic model is set up. That's the way Extension is supposed to work. And it's a pretty good way of of viewing and and framing things. So, how do you measure changing knowledge? It could be a pre-post questionnaire. You can give a questionnaire afterwards, question before. Changing knowledge. Hands-on demonstration. You do your whole thing, you say, "Okay, I showed you how to do it. You over there, you know, I want you to do it. I'm going to take this all apart or whatever it is." Or, you know, "I did this to this cow, I want you to do it to that cow or goat or whatever over there." And, and don't hurt it, though. Um, and you let them go ahead and demonstrate that they do it. And observation. Like, you watch them and say, "Okay, you know." So, they're different ways that you can absolutely prove that they've gotten a change in knowledge. Like, they know something.

Change in behavior. Talk about follow-up contacts. That could be a postcard, could be a phone call, could be a sales visit, could be email. Even though, you know, depends on what side of the digital divide your clients are. It could be a food log, it could be an activity log, it could be a variety of things. It could be going to their farm and observing how to do things to see if things have actually changed.

And then changing conditions. When you do, you know, a case study. You say, "You know, Mr. Brown was making this amount of money last year off of this crop. They changed crops or they changed their livestock. Now they're making this amount of money." Uh, it could be a site visit, could be examination results if that ends up being in a way. You know, with food safety, it's all about the, the, um, the audit. They pass the audit, you have an outcome. They don't pass the audit, you don't have an outcome. That's, that's the only thing USDA recognized. Did they pass the audit? So, for me, it was very easy because I could say, "They passed." Uh, if they didn't pass, they didn't care. If they got ready, they didn't care if they went to my training. They didn't care. Any, they was like, because their objective was to get more people certified. If they didn't get certified, they did not care. They did not want to know about anything else. But did they get certified? So, if you were good, yes. And there are some other, you know, different ways of doing that. Uh, tax forms are financial if they're willing to give it to you, you know. Um, so, yes.

Next, next slide, please. We're going to wrap up in a couple minutes. So, outcomes really are looking at outcomes. These are impacts. You know, who, what, where, when, why, how, and at what cost? So, those are the kinds of things that you ask. And certainly, you're dealing with clients, if that's the case, you want to be sensitive to their privacy needs.

Next. And then talk about funded projects. We're going to breeze through these, talking about how they're measuring outcomes.

Next slide, please. The first, uh, next slide, please. The first one we talked about. So, this is the measurable outcome. This project will assist C production levels. Research how consumer preference might be shifted toward farm fish, including tilapia and traditional fish P race species. Identify how aquaculture producers can be supported through supply chain development. This is the one in Arizona. Is going to be in Hawaii. Dave late. That's how they're going to measure their stuff. Those are the results they're looking at.

Next, please. This one from Colorado. Uh, you know, uh, produce across the regions who want to scale up their businesses will gain reliable pathways to new, wider markets. New existing markets will gain access to a wider number of producers and products, along with reliable, frequent, and consistent deliveries. Those are all measurable. You can measure how many new markets you have. You can measure how many new producers are working with the program that you have. You can measure how frequent, reliable, and consistent deliveries are. You know, you can always take a poll. Like, "Did they get your stuff to you on time? Was it good?" You know, "Are you ordering once every other week, or are you ordering every other day?" Those are all innumerable.

Next slide, please. New York. So, we talk about, um, the, uh, this was locally grown product. You know, um, promotion efforts will raise awareness of local food offerings through the program through the Hudson Valley area with 10,000 people gaining knowledge about local foods. Like, they're just putting numbers right out there. And so, okay, USDA is going to be like, "Okay, where's your 10 grand? Like, how do you prove that?" Like, these are people that came. And that's where you start to set your level. Is knowledge about them knowing? And you've had some media go out to them? Is it people that actually came to your program? Is it people that actually came into your, uh, outlets and actually said, you know, uh, "Yes, like, we want to buy local."

Next one. Next slide, please. So, this one is in Vermont. And, you know, they have, you know, really looking at it to more deeply support, uh, customers in their efforts to tell their local, uh, food sourcing story, to improve conversion rate with prospective institutional customers, especially major institutions, and also onboard new institutional customers on new to be launch delivery routes to the underserved areas across Southeastern Vermont, Central, and Eastern Massachusetts. I hope that's Massachusetts. And so, they're telling you, like, "Deeply support customers to tell their local." So, you have those stories. "How many customers?" "Improve conversion for prospective institutional customers." So, you can tell, like, "We went and contacted these hospitals. We contacted 10 hospitals to buy our locally grown stuff. Five of them said yes." So, you can enumerate that. And then, "New institutional customers." There you go. Um, you can see how much they're using your delivery routes, the new ones.

Next, please. So, baseline data and targets. Just going to touch this really quickly.

Next, please. Baseline data. Preliminary data is always a good thing to put in a proposal. Just data that you gathered yourself. Doesn't have to necessarily be the most scientific, but it can be. Uh, you know, preliminary data is is good data. Like, you send out a survey. It's not a biased survey. Maybe got a little bit of help, but you send it out to potential, um, potential end-users to say, "Do you think this would be a good idea?" And you got the results back. You do it by email. You could do it by, you know, Google Forms or anything else. Or you go out to farms and ask them, like, "What are you looking for?" And you say, "Yes, we went out and talked to 25 farmers. You know, 20 of the farmers said they think this would be a great thing." Anecdotal evidence. Not necessarily a strong, um, but you can put, you know, a lot of the farmers have really said, you know, at some of these meetings that we've had, that they would need XY and Z, or they would prefer XY and Z. And there you go. Then secondary data is when someone else's data, and you've used that same data for your own purpose. Like, you say, "You know, so-and-so gathered this data, but in the background of that data is data that we can use to support this."

Next slide, please. And so, when we talk about targets, in terms of what you're doing, sometimes you want to understate things because you want to say that you're being absolutely, um, oh, really? Okay. Uh, you know, sometimes you want to understate things so that, you know, when you do it better, it actually is better. Like telling the captain, you know, "Hey, it's gonna take me five hours to fix this, this, uh, uh, the lithium chamber," but you know it's gonna take you like two. To impress, like, "Dang, Scotty, only took you two. That's great." Um, you know, so you understate it. But sometimes people be like, "No, why would you say it would take you five hours? Like, you don't know what you're doing. It shouldn't take you five hours to do that, right?" Reasonable is when you say, "If it's two hours to fix the lithium chamber, it's gonna take two hours." That's what you tell a card. You be like, "Make it so." And then you go on from there. And then if it's ambitious, you say, "Yes, I can do this in a half hour." Um, but, you know, it's, you know, it's going to take you two hours, and then you're going to make the AI mad. But, by and large, you know, you look at these situations. Like the one that we saw a little while ago, it said they were going to reach 10,000 people. Is that reasonable? A reviewer is gonna look at that and be like, "They can't get 10,000 people. They can't get a thousand people." Or they're gonna say, "Hey, the methods they have, they'll probably get 50,000 people. They're like understating it. Say 10,000." Okay, yeah, 10,000. And that's a personal choice. I can't make that choice for you. Some, that's that's a personal issue. That's that depends on your personality whether or not, you know, you want to be reasonable, overstate things, or kind of, you know, understate things and know that you're going to overproduce and do better.

Next slide, please. Hopefully, it's the end. Okay. Measure outcome steps. Basically, find one or two, one or more results that can be measured. That can be measured. And what are your targets? Like, what are you looking for? Like, you want to help 50 farmers. Do you have 50 farmers that you can help? Do you have the phone numbers of 50 farmers that you can actually call and actually come to your program? If not, you know, be sure you can make your targets. Right? Three to five tests that must be conducted, considering the results. List of clear results that can be measured. Like, "We will have 50 farmers at our program." Um, and then make sure that your tasks line up with your results. You might find it some tasks are extra. If they don't go towards a measurable result, you don't need to do it. Like, "Oh, we're going to start this this website. That'll do something." If you can't measure something off that aspect, and you're putting that as a line item, and you're, you don't have the capability to really trace, like, how many hits it had, or who actually did it, or you're not going to build into it, like, some kind of a feedback form or something goofy like that. If you don't have the chops to do that, you know, do it, but don't put it as an objective. Like, mention it. Like, "Yes, we're going to have a website to advertise the program, but don't put that as an objective." "We're going to have a website." Because they're going to be like, "Okay, well, how are you going to measure that people actually went to it? How are you going to advertise it? How are you going to utilize it?" And if you're not there, if that's like over what you can do, leave it out. That's extra. Like, just mention it. "We're going to do a website." Boom. Advertising our program. Leave it at that. Find ways to quantify the results of all planned tasks. Quantification is so important. And reasonable quantification is good.

Next step, please. Be the last one. Yay. Questions and answers. So, it is 7:49. Um, questions, or did I tire you all out? Well, first, thank you. Thank you. I'm serving Veronica and the other team members will probably chime in. But, first of all, thank you, Barrett. You've done a y job, uh, laying out, you know, grant writing and, I mean, you know, ideas, vision, objectives, structure, outcomes, outputs, eligibility criteria, measurable results, funding sources, reviewers of what they look for, the dos and don'ts. So, thank you. Thank you. Um, I mean, it's, it's, it's been great, great couple hours. So, you didn't even take a break, man. Oh, no. Veronica, how are you? How are you doing, Veronica? Dr. I'd like to, you know, of course, say, um, that was lots of information, and I've even learned some things myself. So, thank you so much for that. Um, and then I, of course, would like to, um, thank everyone who came on to the Zoom today, or this evening, rather, shall I say. And we, of course, do want to open up for questions. Um, but before we do that, it looks like we do have a survey that was just put in our chat. So, please, if you can take a few moments and fill out that survey there for us to provide us some feedback. So, therefore, we're able to, of course, adhere to that feedback, shall I say. Um, I'm also going to go ahead and leave my, uh, contact information in our website as well. If you foresee yourself needing some additional assistance, technical assistance, please feel free to go ahead and reach out, and we'll, of course, uh, correspond with you within 24 to 48 hours. But now, we're just going to go ahead and open up the floor for any questions, uh, that anyone may have. There was one question in the chat from V. Stewart, and I'll go ahead and, uh, address that. The question is, "How long is food safety certification valid for?" That is an excellent question. And I was explaining this to some students the other day. You certify a crop, you don't certify a farm, you don't certify, uh, a season. You certify how you have treated a set of plants that are in the ground or hydroponic and some sustainable media. And that's basically it. Like, if you get food safety certified for collards, you have certified that the collards that are in the ground right now, you have treated them or handled them in a particular way and will go on to handle them in that way. And your next crop that you do is not certified. You are certifying a crop. You may have collards on this piece of land you own, and you have collards on another piece of land you own. If you get this field certified, it's the only one that's certified. The other one's not certified. So, I, you know, I have to stress to people, it's like, you may have collards on your land, and you may have watermelon. Well, you wouldn't have watermelons and collards at the same time, but you may have sweet potatoes at the same time. If you don't get them both certified, only your collards are certified. Your sweet potatoes are not certified. You don't certify people, you don't certify farms. Uh, you do certify a packing house, but you certify a packing house for the particular type of processing of certain of the crops. So, if you certify your packing house for, you know, for, um, turnips and, uh, radishes, if you bring some squash in there, you're not certified for that. You know, that's still not a, just not a certified crop. So, I hope that answers. I know, probably went too long. Uh, other question. Thank you. I definitely learned how to get started with some basic instructions. Great, great. Glad that you helped. Yes. Dr. Diabate, wonderful presentation. Thank you, sir. May you please put this one on the MPPA website for resources? Yes, this is actually recorded. So, this will be going on our website. Thank you. Yes, it is. Any other questions? Okay, great. Um, and one thing I would say before any of you leave, please fill out the survey. You cannot overstate the importance of us getting feedback. Us getting feedback from, um, our end users, our consumers, our clients. Uh, it is the lifeblood of our ability to do these kinds of programs. Um, you know, I may be coming off like one of those announcers on PBS, but, you know, these programs are sponsored by farmers and ranchers like you. Um, and that's why we really need you. Like, you don't have to send us a check. We don't turn it back. Turn it around. Like, we do like checks, and we will take them for Tuskegee University to Ske. Has I think what three East? But I'm just saying, like, if you don't want to send us a check, please fill out the survey. It's a Google form. It shouldn't take you that long. It helps us out a lot. It proves to our bosses that we're actually doing some stuff and making, you know, an impact. Um, and so they'll say, "Yes, they got good results." Because we can tell them, "Oh, yeah, we had 30 people in the room. It was great." You know, "We're popping champagne at the end. We had a great time." Like, no, they need to hear from y'all. Like, it is valuable. It, it is invaluable to have your feedback. So, please do not. I'm sure they're going to send out an email with the Google, uh, docs link or or form link. Please go ahead and fill that out. Um, I hope so. But you can fill it out right now. It won't take you any kind of time. Like, you open up another window. Like, click it. Zoom. Other window. You can still listen to me tell these corny jokes for the next couple of minutes. Um, but it, it's vital important. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, no. Just, Barrett, you're so, so right in that. So, we, we definitely invite everybody to, uh, uh, do complete those surveys and get them back to us. Yes, indeed. And then also too, um, please be on the lookout. April the 23rd, a tentative date for our next webinar. And our next webinar will be on Workforce Development. So, I'm sure that will be, um, a very special webinar. So, we definitely invite you and just be on the lookout for that to be our tentative date, which is going to be April 23rd. And we'll make sure to get the information out to you as well. All right. Any other questions? And thank you so much for spending the last two hours with us. Um, I definitely appreciate it. I was honored to do this. And on to you, Miss Roy, or Dr. Harris, or Mr. Robinson. Well, of course, thank you everyone for joining us this evening. And I hope you all have an amazing, um, evening and the rest of your week. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you all.