Welcome to the Maine Farmcast. This is your host, Doctor. Glenda Pereira, an Assistant Extension Professor and the Dairy Specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. For today's episode, we have a pre recorded webinar which was featured on the webinar series hosted by the Northern New England Tri State Dairy Team. This dairy team is comprised of dairy specialists from Maine, myself, the University of New Hampshire, Doctor.

Sarah Allen, and Whitney Hull and Amber Machia, dairy specialists from the University of Vermont. The mission or goal of the Northern New England Tri State Dairy Team is to collaborate on projects and resources such as this webinar series to benefit the greater Northern New England dairy industry. We hope you enjoyed this episode which focused on tips and tricks for dairy grant applications.

Are available to work with your operation and navigating grant app the grant application process. We've broken down our approach into a few steps to consider if applying for funding is something that's on your radar this year. You may have noticed that specific grant organizations or programs are only open for applications at certain times of the year. Some funding pools are repeated annually and some are just one time opportunities. If you don't have your ducks in a row, it's really easy to completely miss an application window.

So if you have projects that you need to secure funding for, anytime is really a good time to connect with a service provider and start building a team that can offer support and advice. Who are service providers? Basically anyone your farm business works with. If you don't work with someone in extension, this is a great excuse to reach out and find a good fit. But a service provider could also include any independent consultants you work with.

Your veterinarian, your nutritionist, your milk buyer representative, a seed or fertilizer or supply or equipment dealer, or someone who works with your conservation district. Anyone you know who is an expert in their field and is someone you want to work with. If you have a project in mind, don't be afraid to ask anyone who comes to your farm. We're here to help and support you in any way we can and oftentimes that means and oftentimes if we can't meet your needs, can connect you with someone who has the right skill set. If a program or funding organization catches your eye, even if the specific opportunity isn't accepting applications, it's a good time to figure out how to apply when the grant opens.

For example, applying for funding with a Dairy Business Innovation Center, you will need to create an account for their online application portal, WebGrants, which can be done at any time. Another thing you can do ahead of time is to start collecting information for your project. If you are looking to upgrade or replace equipment or facility components, take the time to really look into the options that are out there. Pick your top one or two choices and be able to explain why it's the best option for you and what specific benefits it will provide to your business. Something that nearly all grant and program applications will expect from you is some words that describe your operation.

Before applications open is a great time to get comfortable telling your farm's story and developing a written statement that reflects what's important to you and your business. It's important to remember that the folks who are reviewing and ranking your applications likely don't know you. They've never met you. They've never been to your farm, and you only have this one chance to kind of paint a picture for them. And for some people, this can feel a little awkward and uncomfortable, but there's lots of resources out there to walk you through the process.

Specifically, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets have a couple great articles on marketing your business broken into these down into these steps. Step one is to get clear on your why. Your why is your unique reason for doing what you do, your motivation for farming. Maybe you are passionate about good cows or producing food for your community, being steward of the land, or perhaps you are the next generation taking your spot in the family business. Step two is to define your values.

This is the set of morals or guidelines by which you operate your business. It could include prioritizing animal welfare or milk quality or even just profitability. Step three is to develop your vision. We want to think big here. What are your hopes and dreams for the future of your business?

Are you building something to pass down to your children? Do you have specific goals for how many acres you want to crop or how much milk you want to produce? If there were no barriers to the work that you do, what would success look like to you? And step four is to establish your mission. Your mission describes how you can make your vision a reality.

So how are you going to live and manage your day to day tasks to build towards that future that you want? And once you do some thinking on these questions and maybe make some notes, it's time to put all these ideas into a cohesive statement. This can show up as a short paragraph or a few clear and direct statements depending on how creative you are. All of these examples I've pulled from websites or social media platforms of farms, dairy farms. Some market direct to consumer and some don't.

And you can see there's no real defined template here. Anything goes. But if you've done this work ahead of time, it makes whole it makes a whole lot easier to plug it into an application and it can also really set the tone and guide your answers as you work through the application. And just lastly, if this process doesn't work for you, approach is to ask people in your community family, friends, employees, just ask them what words come to mind when they think about you or your business. Ask them for three descriptive words and use that feedback from them to develop a statement that resonates with you.

Alrighty. After you've done the pre work before the application opens or, you're considering applying for a grant and the application's already opened, now you're going to want to review what are the requirements for the application. Some folks sometimes refer to it as an RFA or an RFQ, and those mean a request for application or a request for qualifications. All that entails is that the grant funders have designated a packet of things that they would like from you as a submission for the grant. So making sure that you check that checklist that a lot of folks have and review the rubric is a really good way for you to know that, yes, I've met all the qualifications, I've met all the requirements, and it can be considered for an application.

Folks sometimes get to almost the finish line, but they miss one thing that was a requirement on their application. And sometimes that's unfortunately a way that your project may not get funded because you missed one thing that was a requirement. Reach out to us. We are happy to review your applications to make sure that you've met all the requirements. A lot of the grant funders, are there to support you so that you can have a successful submission.

Reach out to those folks as as, resources because, at the end of the day, while, Amber, Whitney, Sarah, and I are a resource, we unfortunately don't disperse grants and aren't the grant funders. So we oftentimes lean on, you know, reaching out to the grant funder and saying, Hey, can you clarify this or that so that I can better help this person with their grant submission? One of the things that a lot of grants require is obviously quotes. You'll want to start working on requesting information from people on your team and even vendors or suppliers early because those may take time. You want to request letters of support or letters of commitment or intent.

And letters of support are different than letters of intent or commitment. A letter of support is often something, that a, you know, community member might write for you or somebody who benefits from your project might write for you saying that, yes, you know, I really want this farm to get this, you know, ask in the grant, and, you know, we're excited for this. Whereas a letter of commitment or intent is different in that the person who's writing it for you is gonna commit a service, or they're gonna help you with some part of your project, whether that's a project partner or even some of your ag service providers. You know, we can write a letter of commitment or intent if we have capacity for a project where it entails, you know, you have to do a field day. And so we're we're happy to write a letter of intent saying, I will help the person run the field day, you know, do the registration, blah blah blah, so that this this project submission can be more successful.

Make sure that you understand that some require letters of support and letters of commitment. And then something that we're going to talk about in the next couple of slides is a lot of times the reporting in the grant proposal wants outcomes or expectations or metrics. And that often involves, you know, an economic evaluation or analysis. And it doesn't have to be complicated, but it certainly has to demonstrate that if you are going to purchase something for your farm, it is going to have a return on investment and really support your dairy business overall. And lastly, you'll wanna prepare your application ahead of time and and, you know, maybe using Google Docs or handwritten paper is a great way to prepare this ahead of time and and having that, you know, handy so then you can work on the application as you go.

For example, some applications open early, and you can upload information and save it. And I find that that's the way it works best for farmers because you don't have two to three, four hours every day to, you know, work on this. So a lot of submission forms allow you to work as you go. Then you're inputting some information here and there, but then you're finishing the application as a whole. And again, like I said, reach out to us and other Ag service providers that can review that application for you.

So now we're gonna go into what I talked a little bit about, you know, understanding what that request for applications or request for qualifications entails. And I mentioned that there are checklists available, but what I like to really look at is how will the grant be evaluated. So, you know, I can write about cats and dogs all I want in the grant and how, you know, this product is great. But if the project says, you know, we where we need to have for example, in our reviewer score criteria here on the right hand side from the Northeast Dairy Business Information Center, You know, we're talking about dairy operations. Well, I failed, and I'm not gonna get 15 points because I'm talking about cats and dogs.

Right? So it's important that we follow the guidelines because when the reviewers are looking at your your packet, they're gonna use this to evaluate your packet and whether it ranks higher than other submissions. It's important that we know what the target and what the goals are ahead of time so that we can have a planned approach to writing our grant and making sure that we're including everything that going to be evaluated. In addition, I mentioned that a lot of applications require you to show some type of outcome or expectation or return on investment. And I have an example here.

So a lot of times, because we're dealing with a dairy operation, we look at milk production. Right? Input to output. So if I improve this one thing with this grant, doesn't matter what it is, it's likely that I'll see some benefit. And a metric that's really easy to use is milk production.

All we're saying is, you know, I know that if I implement this one management strategy that's going to come from the funding of this grant that I'm applying for, I'm able to measure that. So right now, I need to think about, okay, what are my current numbers? And then after the project completion, what are the numbers then? So for example, if I'm wanting to, implement a robot feed pusher in my barn, there's research and data that exists saying that, you know, consistent feeding practices and good management for feeding practices can help increase milk production per cow, by three to 5%. And so I had the research study that indicated that.

So if right now my current milk per cow per day is 50 pounds, we can expect to see, you know, let's be conservative on the 3% side, we can expect to see a 1.5 pound increase per cow per day. So that's really an easy way to evaluate how this, you know, implementation of whatever you're asking for on your farm is going to really improve your bottom line. This also applies to anything related to dairy storage and handling, right? If you're unable to currently control the temperature in any of your pipelines, or in your bulk tank, if your milk quality, isn't, you know, to the range or to the standards and benchmarks to meet the pasteurized milk ordinance or your, personal benchmark, those are ways that we can quantify how we will really improve, our farm and our business, because of this one small, thing that we're implementing. Right?

It has big impact and a big return on your investment. In addition, I always recommend citing where you found this source because, you you know, just saying, hey, I think magic, you know, Dave, Marcinkowski here says, you know, magic milk. We just kind of we we do this one thing, and it improves magically. But there's a lot of research stating that this actually does happen, and we can put numbers behind it. So I just always recommend, linking that as well.

And and, you know, doing a Google search is your best way to do this, or of course, reaching out to us and we can lead you in the right direction.

All right. Now you've told your farm story. You've decided, you know, what you're going to apply for. You've written that up, and you think you're ready to submit. There's still a couple of steps that I always recommend just to make sure that your application is as complete as possible before you press that submit button.

And they're pretty basic. So the first one is just actually review the grant. A lot of times if you're going through and, you know, putting in information throughout a couple of weeks here and there, you may change some of your numbers a little bit throughout, or you may change some of the project. Make sure that you go through and that you're proofreading and that everything is consistent and that it, you know, flows and all of your information stays consistent throughout the grant process. It's a good idea to have somebody else take a look at your grant.

So whoever is your technical service provider, somebody maybe that hasn't been a part of it can also take a look at it and just see how well it flows, how well a reviewer would interpret it. And make sure that you're catching typos, small errors, things that seem really simple, And they seem really small and like someone could overview them, but they do detract from your grant. And as we mentioned earlier, some of these grants are very competitive. And so you don't want to have anything in your grant submission that might detract from your project. Make sure that you have all of your documentation actually attached and in the right format.

Don't be panicking at the last minute trying to figure out whether or not you have that second letter of support that you need. Some grants require both letters of support and letters of commitment. One of those, some of them may require a letter from your milk cooperative. They may require letters from customers. Make sure that you have all of those gathered and attached before you press submit, because if you don't have those minimum requirements, then your grant can even be considered.

And you've done all of that work and forgot one piece, and now you can't, you don't even qualify. And submit it before the deadline, if at all possible, and check your deadline times. For instance, the NE DBIC grants are usually due at 2PM, and I've had farms, you know, miss deadlines because they thought it was later. And so just make sure that you have checked those deadlines and that you have them at the right time. And submit them well in advance.

Sometimes services, you know, go out. We are in rural parts of the state, and so we don't always have the best internet access. Just make sure that you're not missing a deadline for something like that. So the budget is usually the trickiest part of the grant. And make sure that you spend some time and, you know, try and make sure that this budget looks correct.

The first thing that you can do once you get, you know, your budget put together is review the grant requirements as well. Some grants are going to require that a specific percentage of your budget has to be dedicated to a specific area. So make sure that you've met that. If the grant requires a match, make sure that you've met that match. Go through and review your budget.

You know, work with somebody else to review your budget and make sure that everything is lined up in here correctly. Again, this isn't something that will automatically disqualify you at some point, but if somebody if a reviewer is looking at your grant and doesn't think that your budget meets the requirements of it, even if it does, if it's not laid out correctly, that can detract from your grant. And for very competitive grants, we want to avoid doing that at all cost. If you have a match requirement, also make sure that you know the difference between the in kind match and the cash match, because those are usually split up in a budget. The cash match is usually funds that you're putting forth.

It can be some other grant funds depending on the grant that you're applying for. Things that you're physically spending money on, sometimes it's labor. Those go towards the cash match. But there are also in kind donations that could be consultants donating their time, groups donating equipment. Anything like that that you're not physically paying for can go into the in kind.

But different grants will also split these out a little bit differently. And just make sure that you have reviewed the grant requirements and that your budget aligns with that particular grant. And small things as well. Make sure that your math is correct. Make sure that these numbers actually match up to your quotes that you submitted or that you attached.

Small things like that, small inconsistencies really can make it hard on a reviewer to know what your project is. And some small errors that, you know, are pretty common and are really easy to make. Usually, you've done your budget, but now you have your budget narrative. And you really need to make sure that those two areas match up. One very common issue is that, again, you've gone through this grant process, you've maybe spent a couple of weeks and maybe some of those numbers have changed.

And you wrote your budget narrative for the budget that you originally had, but maybe you changed the number and you didn't change it in the budget narrative. That's really hard for a reviewer to go through and look at that because they don't know what you're actually applying for. Take a second, take that extra, you know, little bit of time and make sure that you are adding up your budget, adding up your budget narrative, and that those two numbers match together. Make sure, again, that you've met all of your budget requirements within that budget narrative as well. These things have to match.

They have to meet the requirements. And similarly to the example that Glenda showed earlier with, you know, different the response in milk production, if you put a number on your grant, make sure that you can back it up. Make sure that you have explained where that number comes from. So if you say that you are going to have a match of $2,000 to help install the equipment, where did that $2,000 come from? Is it the number put the number of employees, the number of hours, and what their hourly rate is to explain that number.

One of the issues that some people get into a trap with is they say, okay, well, you know, I have $4,000 that is going that we're going to match up with. Where did that where did that money come from? Same thing with any of your expected results. Those need to be consistent throughout the grant. Those small inconsistencies make it really tricky for a reviewer to, again, just know where your numbers come from, be able to show your work, and show that those numbers didn't just appear out

of thin air. We had a mechanism for how we got that number. If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to tune into next month's monthly webinar for this Tri State series. You can search for it on Google by typing in Tri State Navigating the Future of Dairy. If you have questions, future suggestions for episodes, please reach out and email extension.farmcast@maine.edu.