Demographics and Other Research

One of the most critical elements of any proposal is solid statistical documentation. This is the most compelling way to make the case as statistics are a common denominator which can be used to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. Most grant applications require some sort of numerical data. Solid documentation of this type is one of the most convincing ways for a grant writer to make a compelling argument for a project because it makes the need seem believable and more real.

An example of how this works would be the hypothetical case of a grant writer who is trying to show that the majority of residents of a particular neighborhood are of low-and moderate-income status. The proposal writer would need to gather statistics from a recognized source to document this. Data from the Census offers information on household and family income for various geographies from the block level up to the national level. This is the most widely recognized source of demographic, social, and economic data in the United States. In our hypothetical example, if the proposal writer is lucky, the neighborhood in question may conform to Census geography. It is possible that a particular block group may comprise the neighborhood in question. Where this is not the case, the writer may need to work with individual blocks in order to build data which corresponds to the neighborhood in question. A detailed discussion on what information is available through the Census and how to use it is provided later in this chapter.

The grant writer may also use other indicators of economic distress such as the level of poverty, the age of housing in the area, the median value of the houses, median contract rent, number and percent of housing units lacking complete plumbing or kitchen facilities, and number of families not owning a vehicle.

The writer of a grant proposal for a heritage tourism project, such as the development of a small local museum, could use this same information in order to make the case that the area in which it is located exhibits economic distress and therefore show the need for a tourist attraction. The application should document that promotion of heritage tourism will bring in needed dollars to stimulate the local economy. In this instance, since we are talking about an area broader than just a single neighborhood, it would be appropriate to use unemployment statistics which are available by county from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (U.S. Department of Labor).