Chasing federal grants you can go crazy. Where do I look for us government grants and how do I get these free grants? All good questions. Without having to buy a federal grants guide, I hope to show you.

This is why I have started this site. If you are here you do not have the money to hire a grant writer for 25% of your grant amount.

You are probably very much like me. For that price I could pay for college classes and do it myself.

US government grants all have a system they go. If you do not know the system then free grants are going to remain elusive. My best words of advice are learn how free government grants work, or pay someone to do it for you!

My overview of federal grants is simple.

One federal government giving us government grants through:

26 federal agencies who distribute free grants by:

15 different ways of giving federal grants to you:

Through hundreds of local and state agencies where you are finally able to get your free government grants from.

As you can see free government grants has to go through many hand before it reaches yours. US government grants can sometimes be given at the federal level. Through grants .gov. the us government grants official website. Good luck finding anything in there unless you are a professional.

Lets cover the 15 different ways that the us government grants are handed out.

(A) Formula Grants
My favorite. These free grants do not have to be paid back. Money from the federal grants set aside to State and Local agencies according to their ongoing needs not confined to something specific. This is usually how you get a federal grants for small business.

(B) Project Grants
Given to Free grants for a specific time period and for a specific need. These us government grants can include fellowships grants, scholarships grants, research grants, training, traineeships, experimental and demonstration, evaluation, planning, technical assistance, survey and constructions.

(C) Direct Payments for Specified Use
Free Government grants given directly to individuals, private firms, and other private organizations to encourage or fund a activity by someone with a specific goal.

(D) Direct Payments with Unrestricted
UseFree federal grants given directly to beneficiaries who are eligible with no restrictions on how money is spent. Things like retirement, pension and compensation programs.

(E) Direct Loans
A loan from the federal government for a specific time period. Most of these do not have interest payments.

(F) Guaranteed/Insured Loans
Programs in which the Federal government makes an arrangement to identify a lender against part or all of any defaults by those responsible for repayment of loans.

(G) Insurance
Free grants to provide financial assistance to assure reimbursement for losses sustained under specified conditions. us government grants may be provided directly by the Federal government or through private carriers and may or may not involve the payment of premiums.

(H) Sale, Exchange, or Donation of Property and Goods
Programs which provide for the sale, exchange, or donation of Federal real property, personal property, commodities, and other goods including land, buildings, equipment, food and drugs. Have you ever heard of the Dollar Home Sale?

(I) Use of Property, Facilities, and Equipment
Programs which provide for the loan of, use of, or access to Federal facilities or property wherein the federally owned facilities or property do not remain in the possession of the recipient of the assistance.

(J) Provision of Specialized Services
Programs which provide Federal personnel directly to perform certain tasks for the benefit of communities or individuals. These services may be performed in conjunction with nonfederal personnel, but they involve more than consultation, advice, or counseling.

(K) Advisory Services and Counseling
Programs which provide Federal specialists to consult, advise, or counsel communities or individuals to include conferences, workshops, or personal contacts. This may involve the use of published information, but only in a secondary capacity.

(L) Dissemination of Technical InformationPrograms
which provide for the publication and distribution of information or data of a specialized or technical nature frequently through clearinghouses or libraries. This does not include conventional public information services designed for general public consumption.

(M) Training
Federal Grants for programs which provide instructional activities conducted directly by a us government grants agency for individuals not employed by the Federal government.

(N) Investigation of Complaints
Us government grants agency activities that are initiated in response to requests, either formal or informal, to examine or investigate claims of violations of Federal statutes, policies, or procedure. The origination of such claims must come from outside the Federal government.

(O) Federal EmploymentPrograms
which reflect the Government wide responsibilities of the Office of Personnel Management in the recruitment and hiring of Federal civilian agency personnel.

These us government grants cover a wide variety of ways federal grants gives money for small business and individuals. The possibilities are endless for us government grants and for federal educational grants for you and your employees. Some free grants are in the form of loans and are what is called forgivable loans. Which means if you do not sell your business than the loan is forgiven and over time period and you do not pay anything back. The whole goal with free grants is to strengthen America and it workforce.

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Many senior executives exhibit a distinct bias: the greater their success, the greater their certainty that there is only one way to do things correctly--their way. Most senior executives are experts within their chosen field, but it's intriguing that, when pursuing new challenges, they consider themselves a "10" at all that is required, be it identifying new opportunities, targeting industries, interviewing for jobs or negotiating employment packages. Although one's expertise may be supply chain management, the executive somehow assumes that job hunting requires the same skill set.

For example, the other day I was meeting with a high-level executive who had spent the majority of his career making a positive difference in other people's lives. He told me that, in retrospect, his proudest accomplishment was the number of people he had helped to achieve senior-level executive positions. Clearly, mentoring was of prime importance to him. He had carried many flags for many people and, as a result, they moved up ladders, made more money, were recognized for their contributions, and often became noticeable community leaders.

He then shared with me that he felt it was "his turn" now. He had outgrown his position and was no longer feeling challenged. He had informed his network so that they would quickly rally to help him. He had received verbal support and was presented with two opportunities--neither of which resulted in an offer of employment or even a second interview. Ironically, when asked how he rated his interview skills, he replied, "Why, I'm a 10!" I then asked him what he would say if he were to interview with an executive who was not aware of his reputation and asked to take a minute to talk about himself.

He replied with his age, marital status, number of children and grandchildren, stated and that he was a loyal, honest, hardworking, people-oriented person. I agreed. He was all those things--all very nice behavioral attributes--but not relevant to the situation, and clearly ineffectual in an interview. People don't get job offers based on behavioral attributes. Obviously, we prefer to work with people that we like, but that is not why we are hired. We are hired because we will either make the hiring decision-makers more money, save them money, or do something they don't want to do, know how to do, or have time to do. We are hired based on our achievements, which are usually excellent predictors of what we can do for the new company.

There have been many articles and books written to help people understand that they need to sell themselves in the marketplace--that they are a product and the hiring decision-maker is the buyer. There has been much focus on what is often referred to as the "elevator pitch" or "infomercial"--an abbreviated statement of value. Yet most senior executives still fail to grasp that they must market themselves and do so appropriately.

Every decision-maker has problems. Every decision-maker is looking for solutions. Imagine the difference my executive friend might have experienced in those two interviews if, instead of talking about his personal life, he quickly and effectively presented himself as a solution! In two minutes this gentleman could have addressed his 25 year successful track record, citing various industries and positions he has held, and illustrated with a significant success or two. Then, and only then, he could have outlined his passion for growing and developing people. In other words, imagine if he had presented a quick commercial of why his product should be bought.

My friend changed his approach to job searching, including his introduction, and his next interviews had significant, positive results. He was invited back again and again, and ultimately received an offer. He commented that he now realized he was a "10" all along, but had to learn how to effectively communicate that to others. And that is the art of successful interviewing.

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Americans today have so many reasons to find at home mployment opportunities instead of working for corporate America in their strict 9 to 5 world. One of the most popular reasons people look for at home employment opportunities is that they get to be their own boss! Think about this for a minute: No one looking over your shoulder when you work! No one criticizing perfectly acceptable work! No one taking your work assignments and getting credit for them while you sit in the shadows! What a feeling of freedom when you find employment at home!

Another reason for wanting to find employment opportunities that you can do from your home is the flexibility of your personal schedule. If you start your day at 10 AM instead of 7:30 AM, no one is going to write you up. No one will make a big deal out of it. No one will know but you!

You can work late into the evening or even into the night when your employment is at home. Granted, you cannot hold phone conferences or meetings at midnight, but you can fill out paperwork or contracts, get all of your email and correspondence written and ready for sending, and even update your business cards, stationary, web pages and promotional flyers! Employment in your home gives you that flexibility because you hold the key to the building...not your supervisor.

Another nice thing about home employment is that you don't have to go out and buy a special wardrobe! You can work around your house in clothes you would wear everyday. Not only will you be making money having home employment, but you will be saving money on fancy suits, slacks or dresses for the office. Wearing jeans, slacks, shorts, t-shirts, sweats, even your pajamas is okay when your employment is right in your home!

The last big reason to look for a home employment opportunity is that you get to choose exactly what you do. Doing something you really like when you work at home is an important step to succeeding. If you enjoy writing, finding an employment opportunity as a freelance writer that you can run out of your house may be for you. If you are a teacher who hates to grade, maybe you can start a tutoring business. The possibilities are endless when you find at home employment!

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Millions will be looking for job listings in 2007. It's a big help to know where the most openings occur.

Why?

Well, if you're new to the job market . . . or this is your first job . . . of it's time for you to get serious about making a change . . . then understanding where your are likely to find job openings can help you focus.

Even if you have no direct expertise in these careers, there are opportunities for transferable skills. These are your work-related capabilities and assets that have application no matter where you work. These would include managing, accounting, factory work, warehousing, consulting, finances, sales, etc.

According to recent reports here are the six areas where you can expect to find an above average number of openings:

1. Medical Assistance. The exploding health care industry simply doesn't have enough certified talent to go around. So there are unique opportunities to break into this industry if you're able to show how you can translate your capabilities into a response to employer needs.

2. Teaching. Because of the critical shortage, if you ever had a dream about becoming a teacher at any level the are fast lane certification programs to get you into the classroom ASAP. If you fancy yourself a teacher be prepared to think outside the traditional classroom.

3. Pharmacy Work. While it takes years to get the required degree and be certified as a pharmacist, there is an amazing array of technical support jobs that require only a minimum of technical training.

4. Retail Sales. The holiday season is a terrific time to break into retail sales on a part-time basis. Many of these jobs are converted into full-time after the holidays. Moreover, because the turnover is high, employers are offering flextime schedules and huge employee discounts, especially if your friendly and like being helpful to customers.

5. Consulting. Opportunities for corporate consulting are especially good in cost control and information technology. Local government and non-profits are using significantly more consultants to cut payroll costs.

6. Self-employment. If you like to be in control of your time and income, maybe this is the time to consider an entrepreneurial venture. But if you're not quite ready for your own business you can achieve a similar independence by working for a temp agency.

This is an incredibly good time to be in the job marketplace if you focus your attention on employment areas where you have a much better chance of landing a job.

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Do you think that there is a big sign that reads, "Freelance Writing Jobs, Apply Within"? There just is not. In fact, you may have a hard time finding writing jobs of any type advertised in any employment magazine or newspaper either. So, how do you find freelance writing jobs? Let us talk about this for a moment and see if we can't find an idea or two that will work for you.

1. Begin at the beginning. Get the education you need to have. Learn what there is to know about the field in which you are looking for job vacancies. Having knowledge itself can open doors. This can help with step two as well.

2. When you do have that knowledge, do not forget to look towards the teachers you got it from for help in finding a niche to work in. They may have more resources than you realize.

3. Create a portfolio. Even if you never have any published work, you can still write, right? Write to fill your portfolio. Then, when a prospective employment opportunity arises, you'll have something to provide in the way of samples.

4. Look online. Vast amounts of freelance writing jobs are offered there. If the work can be submitted online, why not look worldwide? Try doing a websearch for "freelance writing jobs".

5. Keeping striving to meet the needs of your clients 100%. When you make them happy, they will come back with other jobs for you. And, they will provide you with testimonials and referrals as well.

All of these things can work for you when you allow them to. You need to provide yourself with all the tools you need. Most importantly, this is writing. You must be able to meet your client's needs and therefore will need to present your talents in the right light each time. When you are looking for freelance writing jobs you'll find them across the world when you look in the right places.

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How can you establish the earning potential for a new job? For example if you are looking for the salary of a freelance editor, how will you find this information? There are several ways that you can do this. However there is one determining factor that will cause you to be better or lower than the average you find. That is experience.

First, we will talk a bit about the salary of the freelance editor. Then, we will get into the qualifications that allow you to find where you can place yourself.

To find the information that you need about salaries look online. There are many websites that will actually calculate the average income from many positions. These websites can also tell you the forecasts for employment in these fields. You may look for jobs in editing and vacancies as well. To find them, just do a simple search. Or, look to your favorite job posting boards that have editing positions available. There you can see how much is being charged for each project and gauge your level of skill and experience accordingly. The websites that offer income information are free to the public to use.

It may not give you a good idea of your potential though.

In order to know your potential salary you'll need to know where you stand in qualifications. For example, are you new to these opportunities? The less experience you have in editing, for example, the less you are worth. Also, in the proofreading and editing jobs that are available, you'll need a good, solid knowledge of the way things work. You'll need certifications as well. If you have these and/or experience, your income potential is much higher than that of someone who doesn't. The websites that offer information on income levels in this sort of employment will gauge it by the level of skill, experience, and training required for particular jobs.

Simply being able to offer more of these aspects will put you in the position to make more income than others would.

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One of the hottest topics in our Problem Student Problem Solver workshop staff development sessions has gotten to be participants' upset at the damage they see being caused by overzealous state-wide assessment testing. As you may know, some states have become so concerned about measuring student progress, that many they have highly rigorous testing. In some regions, teacher and administrator employment and/or salary are based on test scores. In at least one state, personnel have been caught forging test results. In another state, schools are actually given report cards, and graded, with some schools failing. In other regions, professional sport team mascots and cheerleaders are hired to urge students to score well.

In one state, part of the progress assessment testing, includes having students write an essay. One teacher wrote the local newspaper to tell of her dismay when one of her students wrote his essay on his return to middle school following a period of dropping out due to serious difficulties he was facing. The essay was judged unsatisfactory when scored for the test on such measures as grammar, punctuation, etc. The teacher now had the difficult situation of having a young, vulnerable student receive a failing score on a highly sensitive topic. Worst still, apparently the student's story would also have been failed even if the essay's focus had been to lament the death of his mother, or to describe the beating of his sister. There is no provision to adjust tests to the special needs of students, or to give consideration to special circumstances. This inflexibility is true across many states that use progress testing.

The teachers and counselors who come to our workshop, often ask if there are approaches that could work better than what they view as "education at all costs," when students are expected and pressured to produce regardless of any family problems, disabilities, crises, or personal horror that a child may be living with. There are much better ways, and some of the best, are described below. But, testing does not leave only challenged kids buckling under the pressure. My own 13 year old, easy B+, honor roll mention, doesn't-even-study-much, normally unflappable student burst into tears recently,terrified that she will flunk the 10th grade tests she will face that are still more than 2 years away!

Here Are Adaptations to Consider:

** What Could Replace "Education at All Costs?"
So often adults have two viewpoints towards educating youngsters in distress. Some adults say that no matter if the child is being beaten, or goes unfed, or whatever the distress, the child must still complete homework on time, take tests, etc. This can heap more misery on the shoulders of a deeply troubled youth. Others take the opposite tact and say they don't want to add to the child's problems, and so they won't expect much from them. Sadly, this means the child may not get the education they still need. Instead of these extremes, find the balance between these viewpoints: never abandon your educational mission, but don't accomplish it all costs.

** Understand How Much Pain Exists
Non-mental health professionals may be shocked at the surprisingly high numbers of children in pain. The literature suggests that perhaps 10% of the children (or a family member) may struggle with substances; 10% may be emotionally disturbed; 20-30% may face sexual abuse or incest; 10-15% may face verbal, physical or emotional abuse. Even though these numbers don't take into account the overlap across these groups, that's a lot of kids facing a lot of pain.

** Stop the Pressure
There are ways to evoke a desire to perform well that doesn't have to be experienced as pressure. So many teachers believe that the pressure that is being exerted in their state is absolutely conterproductive to testing, and they are probably right. Instead of pressure, show how education skills will be needed in the adult world, and how critical they are to the kids' futures, rather than relate learning skills to scoring well on assessment tests. Education is meant to prepare kids for the adult world, not for taking tests.

** Train Kids to Be Students
We don't formally train youth to be students. Very few schools have a formal, written-down plan to teach attendance, punctuality, motivation, test-taking, homework management, discussion skills, how to focus, etc. If these nuts-and-bolts skills were systematically taught instead of just being expected, more kids might learn more, and yes, test scores could be enhanced.

** Train Kids to Manage Anxiety and Problems
We also don't teach students how to manage big problems from home, and anxiety about tests and school. Learning problem management and how to overcome anxiety will be skills a child will need for an entire lifetime, and yes, could enhance test scores.

** Stop Micro-Managing Teachers
In many states, teachers are treated like money-grubbing scum. Teachers do the most important jobs on the planet, often for humble pay, and without thanks while also serving as parent, psychologist, nurse and pastor to many lost souls. Instead of making teachers' jobs harder, give them more support and better training. Much of today's teacher training is not geared to face the big social and emotional problems that arrive each day with the kids. We also have schools where classes include a whopping 38 youngsters and the sky can be seen through the holes in the classroom. We expect teachers to teach against all odds, all while consistently criticizing them and reducing their budgets.

** Stop One-Size-Fits-All Testing
Few accomodations are made at all in performance testing. A child who was raped the night before, or slept under a bridge, or witnessed terrible domestic violence, must still perform. No one wants lower standards, but build in some type of breathing room for students with serious or pronounced distress, disabilities,crises, cultural differences, ethnic differences, language differences, etc. In one state, many of the schools that performed poorly on state-wide tests were communities with many minority group members. Little effort seems to have been made to ensure that these tests were fair to children who were different from the dominant culture. So, their school flunked.

** Stop Telling Schools They Flunk
Imagine you are a six-year-old and you hear that your school flunked. Imagine the impact on you, especially if you struggle academically, or have a low opinion of yourself, or you already live with racial bias, or you're a new immigrant feeling adrift in a new world...where even your school flunks. Let's find more grown-up ways of referring to schools that struggle.

If you want to see how the education world looks from outside the box, be sure to check out the hundreds of surprising, wonderful methods and ideas on our web site. You won't find a focus on content or testing, but you will find common sense methods that work to build motivation, stop work refusal, help traumatized youngsters, and improve class participation.

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Getting hired is tough in today's world of job layoffs, downsizing, outsourcing and cost crunching. Businesses no longer have the money to view people as simply bodies to fill a position. Instead they look for the most qualified candidates and screen their employees well. So much so that drug screens, criminal checks and employment history help companies avoid poor workers.

Resumes are another source of important information about candidates. If a resume is written with obvious spelling and grammar mistakes employers will usually discard it for reasons of basic knowledge and education. Getting the most qualified and progressive employees are an important part of business for many companies. They view good employees as productive who make few mistakes and poor employees as a liability to be replaced. A resume could show them what type of employee you really are and the reasons why they should hire you.

There are a number of things people need to keep in mind when writing their resume. Use the following list to increase your chances of employment success:

1.) Must highlight the skills and abilities of the person.

2.) Should use a format that is normally used in the field in which the person is applying.

3.) It should be clean and not more than 2 pages (variable depending on field).

4.) Your resume should have a hint of color to highlight it from other resumes.

5.) Should use parchment quality paper and an executive packet.

6.) Must have no spelling errors and use correct grammar.

Another alternative to writing your own resume is to have a professional write one for you. In this way you are sure to have one of the most ascetically pleasing and professionally written resumes in the bunch. There are many different types of resume businesses for people to turn to. Make sure the person you are working with has years of experience in the human resource field and professional writing skills.

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