Good News! GEAPS Foundation Opens Grant Application Up to $180,000

The Grain Elevator and Processing Society (GEAPS) Foundation announced today the accepting of applications through June 10 towards the 2024 grant program which has a total available funding of $180,000.

Who is eligible?

Grant funding is available to any organization, institution or individual who can demonstrate competence and capacity for developing and delivery of eligible projects responsive to the Foundation’s mission. 

Eligible Projects:

To be eligible for funding, projects must be complimentary to GEAPS’ professional development program with respect to one or more of these core competencies:

• Grain Quality
• Facility Maintenance and Design
• General Operations
• Risk Management
• Human Resources

English is to be the primary language of all components of the work product funded in whole or in part by the Foundation.

The target end-users of grant-supported projects are GEAPS members and prospective members and by extension, their employers. The highest priority is filling any identified gap in needed and currently-available educational and training resources. Conversely, projects that would be considered redundant to or directly competitive with existing available resources would be considered ineligible for grant awards.

Proposed programs/projects must be accessible to GEAPS members and non-members through GEAPS.

For 2024, priority consideration will be given to projects that focus on grain quality or entry-level grain operations content. Professionals charged with grain quality management as well as new employees, especially those new to the grain industry, comprise target audiences in the GEAPS learning strategy and these topics are supported through consistent GEAPS member feedback. There is preference for any newly-developed content to be made available in more than one language, in addition to English.

Eligible project expenses/use of grant funds

• Direct expenses only, excluding “ineligible expenses,” to include:
  • Retaining project-specific subject-matter experts for content development and peer-review
  • Retaining project-specific creative-service experts for program design and production

Distribution of grant funds

• The Foundation is not obligated to distribute the total grant-award “up front”
• The Foundation will determine the timing of the grant-award distributions taking into consideration the scope of work, work plan, project budget, and other sources of project funding, if any.
• For multiple “progress-payment” grant-award distributions, the Foundation may require substantiation of progress performance to date prior to any subsequent distribution.
• The Foundation may require a grantee to refund all or part of any grant-award distribution for “failure to perform” with respect to the grant application.
• Funds are considered cost-reimbursable and the Foundation may require a grantee to return unexpended grant-award funds received at end or termination of the grant-award period.

How to Apply:

This is a two-step process.

Step One – Applicant and Project Prequalification: [due June 10, 2024]

• Applicant and proposal pre-qualification submission.
• Applications will be reviewed, and applicants notified of the board’s decision.

Full details on the grant process, as well as applications, are available on the GEAPS Foundation website at: https://geapsfoundation.org/grants.