PECAP professionals offer services throughout the developing world with almost 800 national partners and supports more than 2,000 special projects.  We work with 220 overseas co-workers and 6,200 national co-workers.  Our partners span the globe.

We train nearly 55,000 blind children in schools and rehabilitation workshops, sponsor mobile eye clinics, health education programs, and treatment for more than 1,550,000 people.  PECAP partners perform more than 180,000 cataract operations and dispense 270,000 pairs of glasses annually. In addition we educate and train more than 10,000 hearing impaired.

Through our supplementary services, we provide medical care, orthopedic aids, and training for 99,000 orthopedic, polio, and leprosy patients.  We extend nurturing support to 12,900 mentally disabled and multi-handicapped people as we provide counseling through our Loving Support Network.

The Problem and Solution

Though we raise over $1.4 million in the United States yearly, this amount barely scratches the surface in relation to the need.  Currently, our funds are acquired through direct mail and major donor Fund Raising.  But, Fund Raising is only one-half an effort.  Grants Acquisition is the other half.  We need, and believe we can raise, an additional $1,000,000 a year through grant awards for our projects.

To serve more people in more countries, we must invest in a full-time grant seeking effort; however, we have few resources to initiate such an endeavor.  The start-up and implementation phases of establishing a successful Grants Acquisition Department must be three-years in length.  At the end of three years, the Department will be self-sustaining.  The funding we need is to support the first three years of the program.

The start up for Grants Acquisition is slow, but the rewards are great.  The reason for the slow start-up rests on the complexity of the grants process.  Whether grants are individual, corporate, or foundation, one must first identify a project, then research grant makers, acquire proposal guidelines, analyze the guidelines, write and publish the proposal, and submit it.  Some proposals are less than five pages in length and others are 100 pages or better.  Proposals must go through a multiple step review process.  This review can take from one month to nine months to complete.  The effort expended does not go unrewarded.

In Fund Raising, we count on donations from $5 and $10 to amounts over $10,000.  We put those funds together to support continuation of projects, purchase of medicines and other necessities.  Through Grants Acquisition, we hope to supplement our donations with targeted grant awards covering major expenditures such as hospital and optical equipment, establishment of new clinical facilities, innovative initiatives with partners, and other significant fundamental efforts.

Once a grant seeking process has begun in earnest, grant proposals can be written and submitted on a regular basis so that multiple endeavors are at various stages of submission and review at all times.  The seed funding we are requesting will be an investment in a long term program of Grants Acquisition at PECAP.  Dollars donated to our Grants Acquisition project are guaranteed to bear fruit for the future.

As insurance for success, we've gained the support of Polaris Corporation, in business for over eleven years successfully assisting health care, non-profit, and education organizations in acquiring grant funds.  Polaris' success rate is better than 90% with its clients.  The company provides the training, technical assistance, and help in finding and matching the funding sources we need to be successful.  Use of these support services to aide and guide our own grant writer so that our project will succeed is very important.  Polaris adds the grants team we need, when we need it, without requiring the hiring of additional employees.  This means we only have to hire and support one employee to complete our Major Donor Grants Acquisition Department.

What We Need for the Project

To accomplish our goal to develop a self-sustaining Grants Acquisition Department for PECAP, we need funding for the following:

1.  Personnel, One Writer/Administrative Assistant - it is important that we hire an in-house grant writer to insure the grant proposals are consistent with our focus, policies, and mission.  This person should be one who has very good writing, problem-solving, and research skills.  The grant writer does not have to know anything about Grants Acquisition because (s)he will be trained by experts in the Grants Acquisition field.

2.  Training - the newly hired grant writer will take at least four courses.  (S)he will take a two-day fundamentals course, a two-day intermediate course focused on technology and equipment acquisition techniques, a two-day Advanced course, and a two-day course offered by the Foundation Center.  Care will be taken to insure that travel and other expenses are kept to a minimum.

3.  Equipment - the grant writer must have a computer, laser and ink jet printer, CD ROM, and modem, as well as Internet access for the necessary writing, publishing, and research involved.