Running your PTA

Joanne Reeves has been using grants to support Havannah CP School PTA for two years now. We sat down to talk applications and positive impacts

“ A grant’ s a grant. If you don ' t get it, nothing ventured, nothing gained, you ' re in no worse position. When you ' re doing it as a volunteer, every little bit to boost funds is golden.”

As part of my work with other charities, I ' ve always been closely involved with grant funding. For the PTA, I tend to look at more physical items for grant applications, like extra resources for the library, school gardens and forest schools. Over the past two years, I ' ve put in over 40 applications – I ' ve always got a grant application open on my laptop for somebody!

I ' ll scour through all of the different grant websites and email lists and earmark grants I think have potential. I ' ll then run back through them to see if there ' s a top three to five that are suitable. We ' re lucky because we ' ve got the Cheshire Community Foundation. They’ ve been one of my biggest wins, giving £ 2,500 to develop a brand-new school garden completely from scratch.

To renovate our school library, one of the applications I put in was the Tesco Blue Tokens. We got £ 500 towards books, bought new books and bookshelves, painted the room and put up decals. Now we have a fully kitted-out school library. The enjoyment on the kids’ faces when we presented this brand-new reading retreat was just immense. And that ' s what it ' s about. It ' s the look on those kids’ faces when something ' s there for them that wasn ' t there before. We ' ve been told there were kids going into the reading retreat to read who just didn’ t show any interest in books previously. So, it ' s a real win-win!

Start small. If it ' s your first time, start easy with your local councils, your Tesco Blue Tokens, your community champions. Once you get them under your belt, it gives you the confidence to move forward.

Don’ t get too attached. There ' s lots of competition out there for grants, and you can ' t get too despondent if it doesn ' t come through.

Hold on to your applications.

I keep copies of every question and answer in my documents – you never know when you ' re going to come across another grant application and realise you’ ve already answered that question before. You might need to tweak a couple of words, but you ' ve got the basis of your answer.

Not all grants are monetary.

There ' s nothing to stop you applying to people for donations of goods. With the school garden, we got all the trees and shrubs donated by a wildlife group.

Be bold. I was in PC World and said to the team,“ We ' re doing a school library and we ' d really like a cheap laptop.” It just so happened the area manager was there and said,“ I ' ve got this ex-display model we can ' t sell. Would you like it?” If I see an opportunity, I ' m in there like a shot!

Photography: iStock. com / Owen Price

14 PARENTKIND. ORG AUTUMN / WINTER 2025