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Bright Ideas

Bright Ideas Education Grants logo

Bright Ideas grants pro­vide fund­ing for inno­v­a­tive, class­room-based projects that might oth­er­wise not be pos­si­ble.

Our Prize Team will vis­it local schools in ear­ly Octo­ber to award grants.

About the Pro­gram

At Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, we believe there is no more impor­tant invest­ment than in our community’s youth. That’s why for over 20 years, we have offered Bright Ideas edu­ca­tion grants to teach­ers in K‑12 class­rooms across our elec­tric ser­vice ter­ri­to­ry. 

Bright Ideas grants give teach­ers the pow­er to put their cre­ative teach­ing ideas into action.

Edu­ca­tors may apply as indi­vid­u­als or as a team for the grants, which are award­ed in a com­pet­i­tive eval­u­a­tion process by Coastal Elec­tric Cooperative’s Bright Ideas Prize Team.

Bright Ideas grant appli­ca­tions were due Sep­tem­ber 13, 2024. The cur­rent round of grant dis­tri­b­u­tion is closed. Stay tuned for the next Bright Ideas appli­ca­tion and due dates.

FAQ

Win­ners will not be noti­fied in advance. The Bright Ideas Prize Team will be mak­ing its rounds to win­ning schools in ear­ly Octo­ber. The Team will come to your school with cam­eras rolling, bal­loon bou­quets, good­ie bags and a big check. We’ll ask your school prin­ci­pal to take us to your room, or have you meet us out­side.

Should a win­ning teacher leave a school, the sup­plies and/or equip­ment pur­chased with a Bright Ideas grant are prop­er­ty of the school. Since Bright Ideas grants are award­ed based on inno­va­tion and pro­vid­ing ongo­ing ben­e­fits to stu­dents, items bought with grant fund­ing must be left at the school from which the grant orig­i­nat­ed.

No. Proof­read care­ful­ly — changes to the appli­ca­tion can­not be made once appli­ca­tion has been sub­mit­ted.

Late appli­ca­tions will not be con­sid­ered.

Call Tay­lor Lee at Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive at (912) 880‑2223 if you do not receive a ver­i­fi­ca­tion e‑mail after sub­mit­ting your appli­ca­tion.

The max­i­mum Bright Ideas grant that can be award­ed to any one teacher or team is $2,000.

Past Recipients

Watch this past Bright Ideas Prize Team video to get ideas for your class­room grant.

Selection Criteria

To be con­sid­ered for a Bright Ideas grant, pro­posed projects must:

  • Direct­ly involve stu­dents.
  • Seek to achieve clear­ly defined goals and learn­ing objec­tives.
  • Use inno­v­a­tive and cre­ative teach­ing meth­ods.
  • Involve team­work.
  • Pro­vide ongo­ing ben­e­fits to stu­dents.
  • Fea­ture mea­sur­able results that can be eval­u­at­ed upon com­ple­tion.
  • Please be aware that Bright Ideas fund­ing can­not be used for field trips or to fund trav­el expenses/fees for guests or speak­ers vis­it­ing your school. Requests for salaries or pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment will be denied.
  • If you are request­ing tech­nol­o­gy or equip­ment for your class­room, be sure you out­line an inno­v­a­tive project idea in which the tech­nol­o­gy or equip­ment will be used instead of just ask­ing for the item. Don’t just ask for iPads, tablets or cam­eras.
  • When apply­ing, teach­ers should only ask for the amount they need to suc­cess­ful­ly admin­is­ter a project. Appli­ca­tions must include accu­rate esti­mat­ed costs for the project and show exact­ly how mon­ey will be spent in the bud­get por­tion of the appli­ca­tion.

Qualification

Applicant(s) must be a teacher in one of the fol­low­ing K‑12 schools:

    • Bryan Coun­ty
      • Dr. George Wash­ing­ton Carv­er School
      • Frances Meeks Ele­men­tary School
      • McAl­lis­ter Ele­men­tary School
      • Rich­mond Hill High School
      • Rich­mond Hill Mid­dle School
      • Rich­mond Hill Ele­men­tary School
      • Rich­mond Hill Pri­ma­ry School
    • Lib­er­ty Coun­ty
      • Brad­well Insti­tute
      • But­ton Gwin­nett Ele­men­tary School
      • First Prepara­to­ry Chris­t­ian Acad­e­my
      • Frank Long Ele­men­tary School
      • Joseph Mar­tin Ele­men­tary School
      • Lewis Frasi­er Mid­dle School
      • Lib­er­ty Col­lege and Career Acad­e­my
      • Lib­er­ty Coun­ty High School
      • Lib­er­ty Ele­men­tary School
      • Lyman Hall Ele­men­tary School
      • Mid­way Mid­dle School
      • Snel­son Gold­en Mid­dle School
      • Tay­lors Creek Ele­men­tary School
      • Wal­do Paf­ford Ele­men­tary School
    • McIn­tosh Coun­ty
      • McIn­tosh Coun­ty Acad­e­my
      • McIn­tosh Coun­ty Mid­dle School
      • Todd-Grant Ele­men­tary School

The school prin­ci­pal must review and approve the pro­pos­al.

If a grant is award­ed:

    • the recip­i­ent is asked to sub­mit a video update about the grant and how it was used to receive an addi­tion­al $250 for the class­room.
    • the appli­cant and team mem­bers grant Coastal Elec­tric the right to use their name, pho­to, and infor­ma­tion about the grant in pub­lic­i­ty.

Grant Amounts

The Bright Ideas edu­ca­tion grant pro­gram is fund­ed by the mem­bers of Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive who par­tic­i­pate in Oper­a­tion RoundUp®, a vol­un­tary pro­gram where mem­bers allow their elec­tric bill to be round­ed up the the next whole dol­lar. Those nick­els and dimes are turned over to the Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Foun­da­tion which over­sees the fund. The Foun­da­tion uses the mon­ey to sup­port needs in the com­mu­ni­ty relat­ed to food, health, shel­ter, safe­ty, and edu­ca­tion.

The max­i­mum Bright Ideas grant that can be award­ed to any one teacher or team is $2,000.

In some cas­es, when applic­a­ble, par­tial fund­ing of a project may be award­ed.

Grant Writing Tips

  • Do your research. Make sure your grant match­es your selec­tion cri­te­ria. Bright Ideas grants are not for sim­ply pur­chas­ing school sup­plies. We’re look­ing for cre­ativ­i­ty and inno­va­tion. Check pre­vi­ous year awards to gain a bet­ter under­stand­ing of what they have fund­ed in the past.
  • Gath­er your facts. Grants are not award­ed on good­will alone. Jus­ti­fy your needs and the strength of your pro­posed project through data and research cita­tions when­ev­er pos­si­ble.
  • Get the nec­es­sary approvals. Make sure your prin­ci­pal is aware and approves of the project and will pro­vide sup­port as need­ed.
  • Avoid jar­gon. Always spell out acronyms and explain terms that non-edu­ca­tors may not under­stand (STEM, SST, SIP, EC, BED).
  • Be com­pelling, but don’t over­state your case. Make sure the read­ers under­stand your needs and that you have the capac­i­ty to address those needs through the pro­posed project.
  • Keep it sim­ple. Grant review­ers usu­al­ly read stacks of pro­pos­als in a short amount of time. Don’t over­whelm them with con­fus­ing text or graph­ics. Revise and edit, revise and edit, repeat. Know that your first draft will not be the last. Take the time to devel­op the idea into a com­pre­hen­sive project plan.
  • Have an out­sider proof your work. Even if you can not put togeth­er a for­mal grant writ­ing team, find a ‘crit­i­cal friend’ to review your work and pro­vide sug­ges­tions.
  • Always review guide­lines one more time. Make sure you fol­low the rec­om­mend­ed guide­lines exact­ly (word lim­its, bud­get infor­ma­tion, etc.).
  • Good grant writ­ing = Good writ­ing. Writ­ing for grants is very sim­i­lar to writ­ing any project plan. With the appro­pri­ate time and effort, you can be suc­cess­ful!

About the Foundation

The Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Foundation’s mis­sion is to assist with the food, health, safe­ty, edu­ca­tion and shel­ter needs of cit­i­zens in coun­ties served by Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive.

The Foundation’s main fund­ing is from Oper­a­tion Round Up, a vol­un­teer pro­gram through which mem­bers allow their elec­tric bills to be round­ed up to the next whole dol­lar and invest­ed back into the com­mu­ni­ty.

Since its cre­ation in 1993, the Foun­da­tion has award­ed grants in excess of $1.7 mil­lion to numer­ous char­i­ties, orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als. In 2022 alone, the Foun­da­tion award­ed over $40,000 in Bright Ideas grants to local edu­ca­tors to fund their inno­v­a­tive class­room projects.

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