Grants Information Network of North Carolina: History

A long time ago, before StarTrek, there was the void. Skip forward to the 21st Century. Sometime early in the 21st Century, Mark Ezzell, who was the Federal Grants Coordinator at the NC Governor's Crime Commission called together an informal workgroup of grants administrators that he knew of in local governments, colleges and universities, K-12 school districts, and nonprofit organizations. Some of these initial participants included Bill Carruthers, Thomas Caves, Al Deitch, Rebecca Troutman, and Andy Watry. Mark was interested in building an argument that could be presented to the governor's office and state legislators for the creation of an office in North Carolina to promote and support the work of securing for North Carolina a greater share of the federal competitive grant funds that were available. Maryland, for instance, has such an office.

Mark would convene the group about every other month. The group would not only promote the grants office concept, but also shared information about existing and pending federal grant opportunities. While the group made little progress promoting the grants office idea to policymakers, the regular meetings continued and the group expanded. Eventually, the information sharing became a key component of the group. The Grants Information Network (GIN) was born. The group also collaborated with the Office of State Management and Budget to hold several standing room only grants seminars for local and state government units.

Eventually, there came a time when Mark left the Governor's Crime Commission to take a job at the Health & Wellness Trust Fund. As things happen in situations like this, Mark became busy in his new employment and the workgroup lost Mark's leadership. Shortly thereafter, Bill Carruthers, sent an email around to the workgroup to ask if there was interest in continuing to meet, but with new purposes such as networking, collaborating and cross-training. And, we would continue to work on promoting a 'Grants' office in North Carolina. To a person, everyone responded with a positive, "Yes". It seemed some good things were happening even if we weren't making progress with creating a Grants office!

More to follow...