Volume 2, Issue 5: March/April 2009

Below you will find a wealth of information on funding sources and grantsmanship. But if you are looking for general information about Character Education, here is your starting point.

GoodCharacter.com is a non-commercial website that we at Live Wire Media designed to provide you with an overview of Character Education, as well as a wealth of free resources. Just click on the link above to go to the homepage.

Or, check out the article we wrote on launching a character education program.

GoodCharacter.com also includes a valuable list of links to other important character education resources.

In these very difficult economic times when schools are struggling for money to buy any materials at all, we have put together this list of valuable sources for purchasing Character Education materials.

The Character Education Partnership has a special section on funding for character education programs.

One major source of funding for all kinds of character education materials is Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Here is the information on the U.S. Department of Education website.

Character Counts!® has this list of funding sources for character education materials.

The Pennsylvania Service Learning Alliance has published another list of available grants and funding sources.


As a general guideline, you should check the website for your state Office of Education. In every state that we checked, we found that the state website lists national as well as state funding sources. Here are the links to a couple of the state websites.

The Department of Education in Virginia, on its safe and drug-free school website includes a wide range of resources for educational funding as well as information on how to get grants. A lot of this information is national in scope; and many of these listed funding sources can be used for Character Education materials.

The Department of Education in Maine lists "Potential funding resources/opportunities".


According to the Character Education Partnership 18 states mandate character education through legislation. And 18 more encourage character education through legislation.

Here is the CEP’s chart indicating the emphasis on character education by state.

Therefore, if you happen to work in one of those states, it should be a little easier to receive funding for you character education program.

Usually it will be necessary for you to apply for a grant to receive any educational funding. To help you out, we have suggested some resources for developing your grant writing skills.

Teachers.net has put together a very helpful site filled with ideas for how teachers can look for and receive grant money. There is a lot of very excellent material throughout this site. Much of it is in their links to other sites.

Especially useful is Teachers.net’s link to "How to write a Grant Proposal".

Here is a helpful list of resources for developing grant writing skills.

Here are some excellent guidelines for grant writers. This information is designed specifically for grants in the area of health. But the information is applicable to any grant that you might write.

The Center for Social and Character Development at Rutgers University has an excellent resource page for finding and obtaining educational grants. They also have a wealth of character education resources.