Developing Your Proposal

General Instructions

Main Grant Application:

• Total amount requested must be between $200-$20,000.
• Applications must be sent as a PDF and named in the following filename format: Last name_2-word Title_Quarter Year (ex. Gonzalez_SolarPower_Fall2020).
• Your application must be submitted to TGIF@ucdavis.edu by the fall, winter or spring deadline as listed.

Mini Grant Application: 

• Total amount requested must be less than $1,000.
• Applications must be sent as a PDF and named in the following filename format: Last name_2-word Title_”MiniGrant” AcademicYear (ex. Gonzalez_SolarPower_MiniGrant2020-2021).
• Applications are accepted on a rolling basis during the Academic Year until May 1st and must be submitted to TGIF@ucdavis.edu
• Mini Grants must be completed and final report submitted by June 1st of the Academic Year

Identifying your Department Account Manager:

The TGIF proposal application requires that you name and acquire a signature from a UC Davis account manager. This individual will be the entity that holds your grant funds and administers financial transactions, student intern hires, facilitates invoices & reimbursements, etc. This individual must be a UC Davis fiscal manager; not a faculty member. Lack of an account manager may disqualify proposals.

Need help identifying an account manager? The TGIF Grant Program Manager and Project Advising Subcommittee are available to provide some suggestions on who might be a suitable account manager for your proposed project. Contact TGIF@ucdavis.edu or attend a Project Advising office hour session for guidance. 

Grant Proposal Template

Instructions: Please explain your project below. You may include photos, graphs, reports, or other materials that help explain your project

• 1.    Please provide a 2-3 sentence description of your project. (If your proposal is awarded, this short description will be posted on TGIF’s website.)
• This description should be concise and to the point. Essentially, this is your elevator pitch.
• 2.   Explain how the project goals meet The Green Initiative Fund’s mission and sustainability guiding principles.
• The TGIF mission statement can be found at tgif.ucdavis.edu/about. The UC Davis Policy on Sustainable Practices can be found here. In order to determine relevance and appropriateness, TGIF uses these guidelines in part to assess whether or not this project is deserving of funding:
  • Projects should directly address environmental sustainability on UC Davis’ campus, or in the capacity that on-campus activities influence sustainability off-campus that are submitted by UC Davis students, staff, and faculty, and must involve strong undergraduate student presence, and/or have majority student benefit.
  • Proposed applications can also conduct sustainability efforts off-campus, either at the state, national, or international level.
  • Individuals and organizations outside of UC Davis may not submit proposals. Section 3.2 of the TGIF Bylaws
• 3.   Which UN Sustainable Development Goals will this project help advance at UC Davis or in your project locale?
• Before you answer, learn more about the UN Sustainable Development Goals: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/. Check all applicable goals, and provide a one-sentence statement of how the project is intended to advance the goals selected. UC Davis is engaging with the UN Sustainable Development Goals through grants, fellowships, forums, and research (if you are interested in this campus-wide effort, you can learn more here). TGIF partakes in that effort by providing funds to projects that address some of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. This section allows you to indicate which goals your project is addressing, and to provide a brief (one sentence) description for each goal you indicate. Please note that TGIF is more interested in the quality of the connection between your project and the goals you indicate, rather than the quantity of goals addressed by your project. 
• 4.    Explain how the project will be implemented. Clearly describe project steps.
• This section serves as your project’s scope of work. This should include who is conducting the project, where the project will take place, who will be affected or involved and the intended/expected outcomes. It is helpful if this can be placed in the context of a timeline, so that when reviewing the proposal, the committee has a clear understanding of how the project will unfold. You will be asked to provide a timeline with milestones later in the application. This section serves as a descriptive version of that timeline.
  • Please outline any construction processes, research stages, event preparations steps, etc. This section will help the committee gauge the feasibility of your project, and gain an understanding of how well it has been planned, how intricate it will be, and any externalities that may be involved. Further, please address potential pitfalls and how you will address them. 
  • The expectation is that your project will either become self-sustaining or reach its intended long term goal within the time period of the project's lifespan. For the former, this could be ongoing work that will be handed down to successive groups of students, in which case it is helpful if you indicate how this will occur. For the latter this could be an event that has tangible outcomes that do not necessitate a continuation. Please address these long-term considerations for your project.
  • Project Management tools and resources:
    • Login Model example (this is helpful for groups in framing the issue they hope to address, and subsequent short, medium, and long term goals)
  • Note: TGIF is an undergraduate funded and run initiative. One of the mandates of TGIF is that funded projects are conducted by or heavily involve and benefit undergraduate students. This should be evident here.
• 5. Does this project support existing programs or projects, or is it new?
• Projects supported by TGIF can be existing or novel projects. However, TGIF is not intended to be a long term or repeated funding source for any club or entity on campus. Please explain how this project is either completely new, significantly different from any other on-campus project or initiative, or a substantially unique part of a larger project. If the project will need further funding in the future, please indicate possible funding sources in addition to TGIF. 
• 6. Does this project primarily focus on services, infrastructure, research innovation, outreach, or curriculum and education? Explain.
• Please be specific for each area of focus you choose to address. Projects may cover several areas of focus, but make sure to draw clear and logical connections to the ones that are most applicable, rather than trying to stretch your project concept to have implications in each. 
• 7. How will this project help push the university forward towards its goal of creating a more sustainable campus? Please include quantitative and/or qualitative sustainability metrics.
• UC Davis has outlined its goals for creating a more sustainable campus at https://sustainability.ucdavis.edu/progress/commitment/index.html
  • While it is likely that your project will fall under one of the nine (9) areas listed in the UC Davis Policy on Sustainable Practices, you are not limited to these goals and may go above and beyond them. 
  • Clearly connect your proposed project’s goals to campus sustainability via measurable outcomes and results. Measurable outcomes can both be quantitative and/or qualitative in nature, so do not feel beholden to providing numeric data if that is not a possibility. Qualitative results are of equal importance. Some examples of these are interviews with affected individuals and surveys provided after a workshop or an event. Metrics are a critical component of funding bodies like TGIF, as we share project results on our web page and social media, communicate with relevant groups on campus, and report the benefits of TGIF to the student body and campus administration. 
• 8. What is your plan for publicizing your project? Do you have any specific outreach goals? (Please note: All awarded projects, events, or research will be required to display the TGIF logo on them, via signage or other means; the logo will be made available to grant recipients.)
• Mediums for publicization can include, but are not limited to:
  • Website posts or pages
  • Social Media posts and promotion
  • Informational signage
  • Videography, photography
  • Posters, banners, flyers
  • Newspaper advertisements
  • Research publications
  • Course materials and curriculum disseminated to students 
  • Please ensure that you have permission to publicize your project in the manner(s) you choose. For example, campus requires that you acquire approval before putting flyers in ASUCD CoHo. 
• 9. If the project is infrastructural or will be placed on campus: 
• A: Please provide a map or detailed description of the proposed location. It is important to display where the project is on the Davis campus. If it is difficult to visualize the project at larger scales (such as a map of the UC Davis campus) please provide additional aerials, site plans, and base maps at smaller and/or varying scales. B: Document who you have spoken with in the offices of Campus Planning, Sustainability, Environmental Planning, Facilities, and/or other relevant units who are project stakeholders. We highly encourage you to speak with the relevant campus offices, project stakeholders, collaborating organizations, or professors to better work out your proposal, and to demonstrate that you have the necessary approval and support. 
  • Stating that you ‘Plan on speaking with,’ ‘hope to collaborate with,’ or ‘were unable to get in contact with’ these individuals is less than ideal. Do not wait until the last minute to reach out to these individuals or entities. Make sure to have an active dialogue with them throughout this process so they are involved in the planning process and well informed about any changes or developments. 
  • If your project includes a component that requires approval from UCD (i.e. UCD Grounds) you must seek that approval or include an indication from the appropriate parties that approval would be imminent before the start of the project. Examples of this could be building a structure or placing something physical on a campus space that needs to be approved. The TGIF Committee will be hesitant to approve projects that have not demonstrated that their project plan has been approved or will soon be approved by campus planning individuals or relevant campus policies.
• 10. Will this project require on-going supplies replenishment, maintenance, or other resources? If yes, how will the project be maintained or funded? And who will be responsible for maintaining the project or ensuring it is self-sustaining?
• TGIF grants are intended to be a one-time funding source. Your project’s longevity or ability to reach completion will be a major factor in the review process.
  • Examples on ongoing funding may include:
    • Labor expenses
    • Wages
    • Maintenance costs 
    • Supplies
    • Future stages of project development
  • While it is not required that your project becomes fully self-sufficient, or no longer is in need of on-going funding, our expectation is that your project will no longer require TGIF funding at a given date (the end date of the timeline you will provide later in the application).
  • For most circumstances, a TGIF grant will only be awarded once per project.
  • Please explain how project leadership turnover will be accounted for and handled, specifically in the case of project leads and members moving on from UCD following graduation.
  • If this is an infrastructure project, please explain how it will be maintained and by who, and where resources such as power and water will be supplied. 
• 11.  Please share any other important information you would like the Committee to know about as they consider your application, such as whether a similar project has been implemented at UC Davis or elsewhere and how it has performed, or anything else you would like to explain.
• In general, this section is specific to your project’s circumstances. 
  • This is the place to outline or further explain any parts of your project that have not already been addressed in earlier answers. This should include any potential and foreseeable roadblocks and how you plan to address them.
  • Given the COVID-19 pandemic, campus operations have been, and or are subject to change. How will limitations to campus operations affect your project, its timeline, installation, or maintenance?

Project Timeline

Please complete the following table to describe your project timeline. List milestones chronologically, inserting rows as needed. Be sure to estimate:

Project start date

Target date for project completion

Date by which you will need the first installment of TGIF money

Date by which you expect to have spent all TGIF funds

Target date for submitting final project report to TGIF

Any other significant milestones along the way

Please note: If awarded, your project must be completed within one academic year of the funding date, unless pre-approved for extended time.