Here is a letter of inquiry Maggie used when seeking a grant for one of her local nonprofit agencies. Note that Maggie links the project outcomes to the stated objectives of the granting agency found in their guidelines. Take care to do the same in your letters of inquiry.

Dear Program Officer:

Last fall, the XYZ nonprofit launched a mobile media laboratory, a van equipped with laptop computers, digital video cameras, digital-video editing software, educational software, and e-learning curricula.

The project was deployed in response to needs for technology education and educational enrichment in several areas of the community. In its scheduled visits to inner-city and other public and parochial schools, and community and youth centers, the project provides kindergarten to twelfth-grade enrichment in the subject areas, and Internet and video-production training for children and young adults who would otherwise lack access to equipment or connections.

While the educational outcomes for project participants are not yet available, they do appear promising. The project has been enthusiastically received by teachers, students, community members, and organizational representatives. Students have a natural interest in the cameras and computers and quickly learn to operate the equipment and to edit film. Project staff uses that interest to encourage further exploration and study in content-area subjects, as requested by the teaching and administrative staffs of the individual schools.

XYZ now proposes that it use the project not only to enrich academic studies but also to engage children and young adults in the creative process. Through a new program called [project name], staff plan to assist up to thirty at-risk middle and high school students in exploring their range of talent and in developing the artistic skills needed to support their natural abilities.

Students will participate in the new project five days a week for eight weeks. They will receive several one-act plays written by a local writer, a freelance playwright, and director, who will develop four to six “starter” plays on various topics of interest to young people. He will guide the students in writing the middles and ends to the plays they select. When they are finished, the group will read all the works and select a person to act as the playwright for the remainder of the project. All students will also study stage production, acting, directing, camera operation, and film editing with the playwright and a staff videographer, and through interactive teaching modules on the Internet accessed with project laptops.

Students may then select or try out for assignments related to producing the play and videotaping it as an artistic film. Some will become actors, others set designers, camera operators, costume designers, film editors, etc. Completed plays will be performed live and filmed and edited as short features for broadcast on public-access television or streaming to the Internet. Some components of the plays may be made into performing exhibits for display at the local partner agency. The completed curriculum and resulting work will be shared with other school districts that require new or enhanced arts programs.

Project outcomes include: