Frequently Asked Questions
The GDM Office is located on the Rancho Cucamonga campus in AD 109B. Ray Cuellar, Director can be reached via phone at (909) 652-6469 or via email raymond.cuellar@chaffey.edu .
The first step in pursuing an idea for a grant proposal is completing the grant idea form and returning it to the GDM Office. The grant idea form is intended for faculty or staff who wish to pursue grant funding for a project or event but who have not yet identified a funding source.
The GDM Office assists faculty and staff with identifying appropriate funding opportunities. Chaffey College has access to several websites and online funding databases that post new funding opportunities as they are published. These sites include grants.gov, which catalogs all federal opportunities, and SPIN by InfoEd Global, a searchable subscription database of funding opportunities from state, federal, private, corporate and other sponsors. The Grants Development and Management Office is available to assist you in exploring these and other resources to identify potential funding opportunities.
If you’ve already identified a potential funding source, you should complete an “Intent to Apply Form” and submit it to the GDM Office. The intent to apply form contains preliminary details about your project and the funding opportunity. The GDM Core Review Team (CRT) will review the form and make a recommendation to the associate superintendent of business services and economic development. A final decision from the associate superintendent on whether or not to pursue the grant opportunity will be provided to the primary contact within ten business days.
Writing a grant proposal is truly a team effort and involves cooperation from several key departments and personnel at Chaffey College. The GDM Office facilitates and coordinates these efforts by assembling a grant writing team comprised of faculty and staff involved with the project. The team will be responsible for providing direction in the development of the grant narrative and budget. Individual members may be assigned specific tasks such as researching costs for textbooks and supplies or writing small components of the grant narrative. College departments also contributing to the proposal development include budgeting and account services, human resources, instructional technology services and institutional research.
The GDM Office will assist in the preparation of the grant application including completing all required forms, assembling any supplementary documents or appendices, collecting letters of commitment, obtaining final signatures required for the authorization to submit form and actually submitting the application to the sponsor.
Information will vary depending on the sponsoring agency and the specific grant application requirements. Working with the GDM Office is the best approach to ensure you are including all the appropriate and required information and documents with your grant proposal application.
The GDM Office, Institutional Research, Community Education and Chaffey College Foundation offices work collaboratively to assist faculty, staff and administrators in the submission of grant proposals to secure extramural funding.
The most important difference is that the foundation is a nonprofit organization and retains a 501(c)(3) status with the Internal Revenue Service. Some funding sponsors limit eligible applicants to nonprofit organizations. In these cases, the Chaffey College Foundation submits the grant application on behalf of the college and provides the required supporting documents that establish our eligibility to the sponsor. All grants not requiring non-profit status are supported and submitted via the GDM Office.
The GDM Core Review Team, comprised of administrators, faculty and staff meet regularly to review potential funding opportunities. When a faculty, staff or administrator complete and submit an intent to apply form, the CRT reviews the form and application instructions and evaluates the information based on a scoring rubric designed to address how closely the proposed project aligns to the college’s strategic vision and president’s goals, campus/community need for the project, financial impact to the campus and our ability to respond to the sponsor’s requirements in a timely manner. The CRT then makes a recommendation to the associate superintendents for business services and economic development and instruction and student services on whether to pursue, pursue with reservations, table for further development or decline to pursue the grant opportunity. Primary contacts/project directors will be notified of the associate superintendents' decision within 14 business days. Opportunities that are tabled or declined to pursue may be appealed for reconsideration by the executive team.
The submission process will vary according to the sponsor’s requirements. Most grant applications today are submitted electronically via an Internet portal. For example, most federal grant applications must be submitted via the grants.gov website. Other sponsors such as corporate or private foundations may have similar web portals for submission. Only authorized representatives from the GDM Office and the Chaffey College Foundation have the authority to submit grant applications on behalf of the college. The superintendent/president and Governing Board reserve the right to refuse grant awards which have not been vetted through the Chaffey College grants process.
No. All requests for extramural funding in the form of grant proposals and grant applications must be submitted through either the Chaffey College GDM Office or the Chaffey College Foundation if the funds will be received and managed by the college or foundation. The superintendent/president and the Governing Board may exercise their right to refuse funds awarded to the College or Foundation if proposals are not submitted through the college’s grant proposal process.
