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When Courtney Hause, campus victim advocate at the University of North Georgia (ÌìÃÀÉçÇø), wanted to enhance her engagement with students, she reached out to ÌìÃÀÉçÇø's Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) and quickly learned participation in Grants Academy would provide tremendous support.

"I applied for a Walmart grant before I went to Grants Academy, and I was unsuccessful. I was so new to grants that I wasn't quite sure or understanding of what I really needed to do," Hause said. "Then I went to the Grants Academy, and it provided me with a deeper understanding of what I needed to do to be successful in getting a grant."

Her subsequent grant application was successful.

To Hause, the community-focused Walmart grant was a great fit because the funds enabled her to spread awareness of resources for victims of crimes. One such event was the fall 2025 semester "Lemonade Stands" hosted the Department of Public Safety. Officers were on hand to engage with students, faculty and staff on all five campuses.

"People would come to the lemonade stands and talk with police officers and me. They would interact with Mavis, our therapy dog," Hause said. "We gave information on our LiveSafe app. I shared which safety options are available and reporting options. It was overall beneficial. We got to meet a lot of students because of it."

Hause credits her success to the support of the academy and OSP staff.

"Going to Grants Academy and understanding the knowledge that they hold in this area was a really cool experience," Hause said. "I worked on writing the grant in the academy. They helped me every step of the way."

When Dr. Yolanda Carr, director of OSP, was hired in 2018, she was thrilled that the academy had been organized.

"By offering hands-on training, the academy walks participants through the entire pre-award process,” Carr said. “OSP has a great team of staff who work with the participants to be successful by assisting them in developing the knowledge, skills and confidence to pursue external funding."

Hannah England, director of academic coaching, attended the May 18-20 session, about a year after moving into her current role at ÌìÃÀÉçÇø.

"I'd seen the Grants Academy pop up every year and assumed it was for faculty. Then I realized it's open to faculty and staff members who are wanting to write grants," England said. "I think finding specific funding for specific programs of interest or just finding programs to further research and program development, is really important.”

England said she was surprised at the vast amount of grants offered for educational purposes. Her hope is to secure a grant to help fund expansion of the peer coaches program. She is currently waiting to hear back about her first grant application from the funder.

"It's nice to know that ÌìÃÀÉçÇø has processes in place to support someone pre-grant, post-grant and all the way through that journey," England said. "The Grants Academy is a great resource for anyone who's interested in finding and applying for grants. There's so much money out there to be found. You must search for it, know what you're looking for and find the companies or the people whose vision matches yours."

Sairagul Matikeeva-Kinney, assistant director for international student services and recruitment, had almost 15 years of previous grant-writing experience, primarily in the nonprofit sector. She enrolled with much excitement.

"This workshop provided a valuable introduction to the fundamentals of grant writing within a higher education and university setting. I have been developing a grant idea and exploring ways to bring it to fruition, so this workshop presented an excellent opportunity to refresh my knowledge while learning about current regulations, procedures and institutional processes. The workshop exceeded my expectations in both content and delivery," she said. "The Office of Sponsored Programs team did a tremendous job of providing practical guidance and support. Their expertise and commitment are clearly instrumental in helping ensure the success of grant applications across the university.”

Attendee Loren Bass said the speakers who shared their experience with the OSP were encouraging.

"It makes you want to do the work of writing grants and helping support not only the programs that we're passionate about, but also the work of us as an institution," Bass said. "It's very exciting to know that we will be supported from start to finish."

Bass, director of recruitment and community engagement in the College of Education, said the event was "very hands-on, very intentional," and the OSP staff was "a great resource."

"Since 2018, there have been 38 awarded proposals where a Grants Academy graduate was either the lead principal investigator (PI) or co-PI," Kelly Millsaps, senior grant specialist for pre-award, said. "Though we celebrate any proposal submission as a success."

Millsaps said the academy has been offered since at least 2014.

Dr. Bryson Payne, director of ÌìÃÀÉçÇø's Institute for Cyber Operations, an attendee of multiple grant workshops, has been the PI or a co-writer in grants and projects totaling $93.6 million since starting at ÌìÃÀÉçÇø in 1998. He said he's hoping to pass the $100 million mark to continue to support ÌìÃÀÉçÇø's computer science and cyber students and the university's national security strategic big bet.

Payne credits the OSP team for this success.

"ÌìÃÀÉçÇø's grants team, especially  Chris Jackson, Kelly Millsaps and Yolanda Carr, helped us bring in more than $10 million in new Department of Defense funding over the past 10 years to build and run the Institute for Cyber Operations and all our programs," Payne said. "These grants are changing our students' lives, contributing to the local economy and workforce development, and making our nation stronger and safer."