Writer finds niche in grant work for the city

It’s been seven years since Jo Ann Dial moved here from the Chicago area. In that time, she has parlayed her writing skills into a technical and grant writing business, Writeworks, that proves its worth to the city of Whitefish more and more each year.

“Grant writers are more important now than ever due to the economic conditions,” she said. “This is all I’m doing now.”

Her role in getting a $650,280 federal grant to help Whitefish transition to 24/7 fire and ambulance coverage got her recognition by a grateful city council.

The money will be used initially to hire six full-time firefighters and will provide funding over five years, but it won’t provide personal safety equipment, including bunker gear.

“That will require additional funding, and there is grant money available for this purpose,” Dial said.

She’s also working on a FEMA grant to help pay for the $9.1 million Emergency Services Center the city hopes to begin building at Baker Commons this year. Dial said the soonest the city could find out about this grant funding would be in June.

Dial said she began writing grants in May 2002 when her husband, Whitefish police chief Bill Dial, mentioned several department needs that lacked funding. Dial had no training in grant writing, but she had spent 23 years with the Big 10 Conference, including work as the director of external relations.

“I have been writing all my life and have a knack for grant writing,” she said. “I am fortunate that I possess good attention to detail.”

Details are important to grant-writing. Applications must be tailor-made to match the funding opportunities that exist.

“They need to match as closely as possible,” she said.

Dial said she tracks funding opportunities daily, from surfing the Internet to the e-mails she receives with information about updates or new grant programs.

Her first application was for a federal grant through the Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services program for a school resource officer.

“This successful grant brought in $125,000 to fund the SRO position in the Whitefish School District,” she said. “This program has been very successful and has continued to the present time.”

Since then, grants she’s written brought the police department $5,000 for laptop computers, $18,500 for drug interdiction, $40,000 for traffic and DUI enforcement, $20,000 for narcotics investigations, $5,000 for ballistic vests, $51,500 for three motorcycles, and $177,707 for digital equipment to improve interoperability.

In addition to the $650,280 SAFER grant to help the fire department transition to 24/7 service, Dial has applied for a $235,905 federal grant for a quick-attack brush truck — a four-wheel-drive truck used for fighting structure and field fires in rural areas.

Dial said the city will see significant benefits from both the new fire chief, Thomas Kennelly, who is a CPA and has written successful SAFER grants in the past, and the new city manager, Chuck Stearns, who has a strong background as a city financial officer.

“They will absolutely help,” she said.

Dial notes that it’s unethical for grant writers to try to get paid by a grant they work on. She said she only requested payment for four of the 17 successful grant applications she worked on for the city. She also does pro bono work, including ghost-writing a self-help handbook and work book for a psychologist.

Recently, she was contacted by the director of the University of Illinois Regional Institute for Community Policing to join their team of grant writers on a contract basis.

“I am very excited to be afforded this opportunity,” she said.

Resources for grant writers include The Grantsmanship Center, which was established in 1972 to provide training for nonprofits and government agencies. They conduct about 150 workshops annually. Visit them online at www.tgci.com

The Chronicle of Philanthropy is the newspaper of the nonprofit world, providing print and online information to charity leaders, fundraisers, grant makers and others. To subscribe and learn more, visit online at http://philanthropy.com.

Information on more than 1,000 grant programs worth about $500 billion annually can be found online at www.grants.gov, the government resource established in 2002.