Midwest Rural-Urban Girls Collaborative: Mini-Grants Overview

Mini-Grants Overview

The Midwest Rural-Urban Girls Collaborative Project will award about thirty-five $1,000 mini-grants to encourage and foster collaboration between organizations from K-12 education, higher education, government, professional organizations, business, community-based organizations to help girls pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The application process will be announced at the Kick-Off Conference.

Mini-grant applications will awarded in three phases as outlined below:
	Announcement	Due Date	Awards Announced	Completion Date
Summer 2006	April 1, 2006	May 15, 2006	June 1, 2006	Sept. 30, 2006
Fall 2006	April 1, 2006	May 15, 2006	June 1, 2006	January 30, 2007
Spring 2007	Oct. 15, 2006	Dec. 11, 2006	Jan. 2, 2007	July 15, 2007

At the end of the mini-grant project, a short summary on the outcome of the project is required. We encourage creativity and appreciate having photos included with the summary. Please provide copies of student photo releases, if available. Funded project will also be required to participate in the final conference planned for May, 2007 and to complete the project assessment.

Eligibility Requirements

The mini-grant application requires the collaboration between at least two STEM organizations of the proposed project.
Collaborating Organizations may include organizations from K-12 education, higher education, government, professional organizations, businesses and community-based organizations.
All organizations listed on the grant application must be registered in the MRU Program Guide.

Application Guidelines
Application Component	Required Element
Description of project	Describe what you and your collaborators will be doing. Clearly define the roles and responsibilities of each collaborating organization.
Goals & Objectives	Explain how the project will expand or strengthen your services to girls by collaborating with another related organization. Identify the grant goal your project is addressing.
Assessment	Address how you will determine what the girls have learned from the activity or how the project will provide additional support for girls.
Itemized Budget	Include the materials or services you will purchase with the mini-grant funds and the materials or services you will purchase with any matching funds for this project.
Suggestions	Collaboration between a rural organization and a urban organization. Collaboration between a rural organization and a rural organization. Collaboration between an urban organization and a urban organization. Each mini-grant project should involve several girls. Mini-grant recipients should strive to bring all the students involved in their project to the Closing Conference.