I need info on where to find grants for land/housing, for homeless teens. where can I find this information?

Question

The vision I have is one where homeless teens (15-up) can stay in a farm-like setting, where we can have horses and some land. I would need counselors on-call, and bunkhouses for the teens, as well as education grants to get them on track and independent, while feeling like they are part of a community. If they worked with the program, they would be given free room and board. This is my dream. We don't have money for the land or the housing, food, seeds, etc. Has anyone ever done something like this? where do I start to get information? This is a very unique situation and I would love to get started but just don't know how to get the money through grants?

Answer 1

To get grants you pretty much need to be an IRS approved nonprofit corporation (called a 501 c 3 from the # of the IRS reg involved). or have one to be a fiscal agent for you that is to handle the finances till you get IRS approval.   So the first step is to talk with your church or another nonprofit in your community and see iof they share your vision and will help.  You can also incorporate as a nonprofit and seek your own IRS approval and ideally you should do this too (see www.irs.gov and click on charities and nonprofits at top of page and also go to web site for the secretary of state in your state and look for indfo on filing a nonprofit corporation.   If you are able to do all the paperwork yourself you are looking at about $600 at minimum and anywhere from 3-18 months wait.   In our area lawyer fees would run an additional $700-2000.   If yours is to be a Christian oriented organization you may also want to go to www.themissionarychurchinternational.com which may be able to simplify and speed up the process cnsiderably for you.

While doing all that have someone start putting together a board of directors. That generally means people in the community who have some influence and some money and can see your vision.   Have another helper research grants  so you will have info when you are ready to apply. The Fooundation Center www.foundationcenter.org offers both info on grantmakers and how to write a grant application.   Yahoo search is another great place to research grant possibilities.    Somewhere along the line you will want to go to 1800runaway.org and   http://youtube.com/1800RUNAWAY thought the name says runaway they also help homeless teens no matter why they are without a home or away from home.   and can tell you whomn in your area is into helping.

You will also find it helpful to go to http://lampga.tripod.com  which is an organization thatb helps homeless teens and teens threatened with homelessness just to get some ideas and maybe some helpful advice on how to do things.  

I hope this works for you. It is alot of work but it is doable.   Please post someway in here and let us know what is happening.

Answer 2

Before you think about grants and other donations, you need to be thinking about putting together a board of directors, getting in contact with experts regarding homeless and at-risk teens willing to donate their services to you, having letters of endorsement from other organizations affirming the need for this endeavor, solid and verifiable research showing the need for this endeavor, and putting together a business plan, showing what you expect expenses and operations to be for at least the first year. Only when you have all that in place, and have followed the directions detailed in the web sites listed below, would you be ready to solicit donations.

Starting a Nonprofit Organization

http://www.managementhelp.org/strt_org/s... (one of my favorite resources)

Starting a Non-Profit

Checklist- The Things You Must Do to Start a Nonprofit Organization

http://www.ctnonprofits.org/pages/NonPro...

Starting a Nonprofit Organization - How to Start a Nonprofit http://nonprofit.about.com/od/nonprofitb... -

How to Start a 501c3 Nonprofit Organization

www.wikihow.com/Start-a-501c3-Nonprofi...

The Nonprofit FAQs

http://www.nonprofits.org