Literacy Fund Grant – Organization Application – Indigo Love of Reading Foundation

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Step 1 of 9 – School Information

Organization Information

Full Name of Organization*

Your full name*

First Last

Your role at the organization*

Your e-mail address*

Full Address of Organization*

No. & Street Name City Province Postal Code

Does your organization have charitable status?*

Yes

Please indicate charitable registry number*

Tell us about your organization, your mission, and overall vision*

Official web address of your organization

Social media links for your organization

Use the plus sign beside the text field to add additional lines for each social media link – including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn

Please list the following information for each of the priority schools that you support that would be funded through this grant application request:

School Name	Address	Total number of students in eligible grades	Actions

There are no schools.

Total Number of students across ALL of your priority schools in eligible Grade levels (JK to 8)?*

I hereby indicate that the above listed schools have been informed of and have granted permission to submit this application to the Indigo Love of Reading Literacy Fund Grant.*

Permission granted

Letter of interest support*

Please submit a Letter of Interest, signed by the Principal or lead administrator of each of your priority schools confirming their support of this grant application on their school’s behalf.

Drop files here or

Accepted file types: doc, docx, pdf, jpg, Max. file size: 100 MB.

Does your organization have established literacy programming in place for your priority schools?*

Yes

What is your organization’s approach to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion?

This question exists for information-gathering purposes and will not affect your eligibility.

Additional Information

The Indigo Love of Reading Foundation help to build partnerships between organizations and local (or remote) Indigo stores to provide additional assistance using grant funds (e.g. Purchasing books and educational resources, book curation, etc.) and for hosting special events over the duration of the three-year program.

In the event that your organization is selected as a 2024 grant recipient, what store location would you like to be partnered with?*

– No Results –

Are you aware if any of your partner schools have previously applied to the Literacy Fund Grant?*

Yes

Not sure

Indicate which year(s):*

Are you aware any of your priority schools previously been awarded a Literacy Fund Grant?*

Yes

Not sure

How did you find out about the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation?

(Check all that apply)

loveofreading.org

Indigo.ca

In an Indigo, Chapters or Coles store

Adopt a School program

A former Love of Reading Literacy Fund grant recipient or applicant

The Indigo Love of Reading Community Response Fund program

School Board/Trustee

Other

You selected "Other". Please define:*

Section A: Tell us about your school community

1. Tell us about the current literacy levels of the school partners you would be reaching through this grant. In doing so please cite any relevant local or national research, test scores (reading inventories, qualitative/quantitative surveys, report card data, etc.) to support your current reality.*

2. Please speak to how the demographic landscape of your school community may have impacted your reason to apply for this grant. In doing so, please cite any relevant information to support your statements.*

Some examples of information you can provide that help to paint a picture of the scope of need faced by students and families in your school community(ties):

Average Median family income within your school community
The percentage (%) of lone-parent (also referred to as single-parent) families in your school community
The percentage (%) of students in your school community that speak a language other than French or English in the home
The percentage (%) of students in your school community that self-identify as Indigenous (I.e. Aboriginal, First Nations, Métis, or Inuit)
The percentage (%) of people/families in your school community who have a post-secondary certificate, diploma, or degree (e.g. university, trade school, college, etc.)
The percentage (%) of people who moved from one residence to another at least once in the last year (e.g., family moved to a new apartment)
The percentage (%) of your students’ families needing financial support to by school supplies and/or enable their child to participate in school activities (e.g. field trips and clubs)?
The percentage (%) of students that access nutrition programs through your school
Any special learning designations or indexes such as the TDSB Learning Opportunities Index (LOI) that apply to your school. When citing a special learning designation or index, please ensure you are describing the criteria that define the designation.

*For any metrics provided you must state the source of this information. This can be derived from a number of different sources, eg. Census data (Stats Can), family/caregiver surveys, school board data, etc.

3. Please share any other relevant information about your priority schools, and why you feel it would benefit from an Indigo Love of Reading Literacy Fund Grant.*

Section D: Project plan

Note that funding is allocated in early September of 2024 with subsequent annual allotments being distributed to schools over a period of 3-4 school years.

What major milestones (outcomes) will your literacy project achieve?

List and describe up to five (5) MAJOR MILESTONES your organization will achieve in partnership with your schools over the 3-4 years of the grant to execute the main goals of your literacy project
When listing supporting activities that will help achieve each of your milestones, please keep your descriptions short/concise wherever possible
Please include a general timeline that outlines the duration of when you will execute your activities to achieve each milestone
Please list any staff members, special committees, or community members (e.g. Intervention teams, Parents associations, etc.) that may be working to help your schools accomplish each milestone

Please see a sample project plan HERE.

Milestone archieved	Supporting activitiy (ties) to achieve milestone	When (dates)	Who’s responsible?	Actions

There are no milestones.

CONFIRMING CAPACITY: Please list any past grants you’ve received that you feel speak to your capacity to execute on the Indigo Love of Reading Literacy Fund Grant*

CONFIRMING SUPPORT: The Indigo Love of Reading Literacy Fund Grant is most successful when students, teachers, and parents are involved. Please indicate how you plan to build support from these groups to execute your project.*

Please indicate how you plan to build support from these groups to execute your project. Please consider the following in your response:

What strategies have you used in the past to encourage engagement with your school communities?
What have been some of the successes as well as challenges with building bridges between your partner schools and their surrounding communities?
How would you build a community of support to ensure this grant is best used by the schools you would be supporting?

Turnover plan*

Many schools will experience turnover in key roles (e.g. principal, librarian, educators on school literacy teams) in the course of the multi-year Literacy Fund grant process. Describe the general transition plan that you would put into place in the event there are key staffing changes at your school over the duration of this grant program.

Section E: Project Budget

In this section, you will be asked to identify and describe all the items/services that your school will need to purchase with your grant funding to support execution of your project plan. Recipient schools are part of the grant program for 3-4 years.

90% of the funding is set up as a corporate account to buy books from Indigo Books & Music Inc. at a 30% discount.

10% of the funding is given in the form of a discretionary cheque to fund special literacy events or initiatives (eg. read-a-thons, literacy based-school trips, author visits) at your school that stir the imagination of the students in a way that will help inspire a love of reading.

You can view a sample of a project budget plan HERE.

How will you spend the grant funds on books (your 90% allotment)?

When completing your budget, please consider the following criteria carefully:

Identify and describe ALL the book items that will be purchased with the grant funding to support your literacy project; please keep your descriptions as concise as possible
Your budget items should directly relate to the project summary (Section C) and project plan (Section D) of this application
Feel free to use the supporting notes column to contextualize your book costs
Please note that books purchased through grants funds are at a 30% discount to the listed price. For example- a book found at Indigo with a $10.00 regular listed price can be purchased at $7.00 (with the 30% discount applied) with your grant funding
When listing a budget item, please ensure you have researched current costs of the item to the best of your ability and you have considered any operational funding that you may already be set to receive to finance the cost of your item

Budget Item	Description of the item	Grant funding amount in Canadian funds ($)	Supporting notes	Actions

There are no Items.

How will you spend the grant funds on supporting literacy resources (your 10% allotment)

When completing your budget, please consider the following criteria carefully:

Identify and describe ALL the items/services that will be purchased with the 10% portion of your grant
Your budget items should directly relate to the project summary (Section C) and project plan (Section D) of this application
Feel free to use the supporting notes column to contextualize any listed item costs
Please note that this portion of the grant cannot be used to pay for items such as salaries, major furniture upgrades, capital investments (playgrounds, building additional rooms, etc.), or school textbooks
Your 10% discretionary amount CAN be spent on items like school trips, student awards for literacy initiatives, professional learning opportunities for teachers, author visits, etc.: items/ services that will help to bolster a love of reading culture in your school
When listing a budget item, please ensure you have researched current costs of the item to the best of your ability, and you have considered any operational funding that you may already be set to receive to finance the cost of your item

Budget Item	Description of the item	Grant funding amount in Canadian funds ($)	Supporting notes	Actions

There are no Items.

Book budget*

This should be 90% of your budget

Support budget*

This should be 10% of your budget

Remaining allocation*

Please ensure your number is $0 or above before moving to the next section of this application

Section F: Project impact

1. Who are the groups of people that will benefit from your project?*

Please check all that apply

Students at your school

Student’s parents, caregivers, other family members

Educators

Community members (not parent/caregivers)

Other

Please specify other groups

2. Please estimate how many individuals (e.g. # students, # teachers, #parents/caregivers, # community members, etc.) will be directly involved, participate and benefit from your literacy project?*

3. What is your plan to create awareness or promote your literacy project? Tell us about the communication tools (e.g. emails, social media, newsletters, etc.) that you will use.*

4. How will you track and measure the success of your project? Please refer to the application guide for examples of qualitative and quantitative indicators that you may want to use to evaluate the success of your project.*

5. Please specify if there are certain benchmarks that you are looking to lift (eg. reading and writing scores in your standardized testing) and to what degree would you look to lift these benchmarks through the support of the grant?*

6. The Indigo Love of Reading Foundation works with grant recipients to track quantitative and qualitative change in key impact areas. Examples of key impact areas include improvements in variety of books, student literacy engagement, and student literacy achievement.

Recipient schools will be required to complete an annual report each year of the grant that will require collaborative input from teachers, students, librarian/library staff, and other stakeholders. Please review the information HERE to see a sample of some of the quantitative (metrics-based) and qualitative (reflection-based) questions that your school will be asked if you are chosen as a recipient of a literacy fund grant.

After reviewing this information, please answer the following questions:

A. Does your school have sufficient capacity to collect this kind of data over the next three years of the grant? (applicant will indicate “yes” or “no”)*

Yes

Please specify the barriers that will allow you to answer some or all of these questions*

B. Does your school currently collect information quantitative/qualitative data of this kind?*

Yes

Please elaborate on the quantitative and/or qualitative data that you currently document that aligns with Love of Reading’s reporting requirements.

Section H: Community Involvement

At the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation we truly value youth voice, in addition to hearing from other members of your school community such as educators, school staff, parents/caregivers about your culture of literacy. We ask that you use this portion of the application as an opportunity to share a creative project that highlights your school’s need for additional funding and your vision for how the grant would support transformational change around literacy at your school. There are two options for submitting this creative community project component:

1. A video that captures the values of your school, its commitment to literacy, and need for funding. Your submission should include interviews/reflections from your school community, including:

Your school principal
A student or group of students at your school
Teacher(s) at your school, including any librarians/library staff (if applicable)
Community members external to your school (eg. parents/caregivers)

The video should be a maximum length of 5 minutes

Link to video

Share a video link from an online video storage such as YouTube or Vimeo. Please ensure it is viewable as a guest user.

Upload video

Upload a video in MP4 (h264/h265) format

Drop files here or

Accepted file types: mp4, m4v, mov, mkv, Max. file size: 100 MB.

2. A PowerPoint/Google Slides presentation or Google/Word document that captures the values of your school, its commitment to literacy, and need for funding. Your submission should include the following voices:

Your school principal
A student or students at your school (you may consolidate letters, quotes or reflections from students)
Teacher(s) at your school, including any librarians/library staff (if applicable)
Community members external to your school (eg. parents/caregivers)

You are welcome to integrate multimedia components such as photos and video within your presentation that reflect your school’s culture of literacy and need for funding.

Link to slide/document

Share a link from an online storage such as Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive or Box. Please ensure it is viewable as a geust user.

Upload slide/document

Upload a slideshow, document or PDF

Drop files here or

Accepted file types: pptx, ppt, pdf, doc, docx, Max. file size: 100 MB.

Please enter the email address(es) of the people to whom you would like a PDF copy of your grant application sent

Separate email addresses with a comma

Please note that once you have submitted your school’s application, the submission will be final.

Schools will not be able to revise their applications once submitted. If you have further questions please contact the Foundation at loveofreading@indigo.ca.

Literacy Fund Grant – Organization Application

Organization Information

Additional Information

Section A: Tell us about your school community

Section B: Current access to books

Section C: Project summary and need

Section D: Project plan

Section E: Project Budget

Section F: Project impact

Section G: Enriching the Ecosystem of Learning at Your School

Section H: Community Involvement