Successful EMS grant applications engage VIPs and stakeholders

Successful EMS grant applications may occur more frequently if your EMS agency uses a stakeholder review process that engages community VIPs and other stakeholders (even end-users of your lifesaving services) to read and comment on your grant application before submission.

In some cases, these stakeholders might create a local solution for you because of their influence and access to local funds.  Or, after reviewing your grant request, these stakeholders may give your agency a reality check for what they think will succeed or what seems too self-serving and unnecessary. 

In any case, key communicators in your community will be able to advocate for you and/or dispel any myths about your agency and its needs.

Who is an EMS stakeholder?
In a broad sense, stakeholders can be defined as individuals with or without formal EMS training who have a strong personal interest in advancing the effort to improve access to high quality EMS personnel and equipment. They strive to offer better EMS clinical services in the field and to keep the costs to what many perceive to be peace of mind healthcare affordable. 

This interest could stem from the stakeholder feeling a personal responsibility to ensure good EMS care for his/her friends and neighbors. The stakeholder may have had an intimate experience with EMS, such as a personal or family experience, or by being a caregiver at some level in healthcare.

As a result of participating in the review of an agency’s application, stakeholders may and will most likely become knowledgeable advocates for EMS’ role in their communities’ efforts to save lives. 

Create an "elite" appointment for these stakeholders
The stakeholder review process should also carry some prestige in the community, be publicized and celebrated. To that end, a municipal government body (i.e. city council or county commission) might assist you in appointing influential stakeholders to review your agency’s grant application(s). 

A stakeholder’s invitation might indicate that the invitee has been chosen because of his/her past willingness to embrace the need for grants to achieve optimum patient care services. These individuals might also be appointed based on their previous experience with peer review processes. 

They may have demonstrated the ability to interact effectively within groups (i.e. a leadership or participatory experience in a managerial, professional, or educational capacity). And, in exchange for the prestige your agency will assign to the grant review process, your grant review stakeholders should be able to commit to a minimum period of two years of participation at the time of selection. They will also attend at least one grant review session per year with a willingness to review a list of equipment, personnel, research and training grant opportunities prior to reviewing your department’s applications.