About your range, Flatlander

Tom D · August 16, 1999, 12:33 AM

Flatlander,

I put together a public shooting range when I lived in Nevada a few years ago and got some grant money. I was really suprised at a few things with the Friends of the NRA grant. In a nutshell, it was a pian in the butt. It is a matching funds type of grant. You spend some money and they match a percentage. I can not remember for sure, but the NRA grant may not be available to you for upgrades to the city owned range. Contact your state field rep. for information and an application. It will be available for a club owned range. You can not get very much money from the friends of the NRA grant. I got $17,000 from them and this was an almost unheard of amount of money for them to grant. One of the lawyers from the trust fund interviewed me on the phone because it was an unusually large ammount of money.

One of the things you need to keep in mind about fish and wildlife grants like Pittman-Robertson is that anything you build will have to be in compliance with all federal regulations about public access, such as the ADA. These grants are also matching fund grants, and as you might expect, are also a pain in the butt. One neat thing you can do with these grants is apply for money to make you range ADA compliant. For example, a concrete pad around all your shooting benches so that a wheel chair can get around. If your benches have seats built in, you can build new benches that do not have these seats so that a wheelchair can pull up to the bench. We built benches out of concrete and steel without the seats and they were really good.

Do some research before you apply for anything. It will be time well spent. You may find some interesting things. For example, you can seed the NRA grant for matching funds with assessed value of donated labor and services. If a nice guy contractor blades a road for you and you figure it was worth $500, you can show this ammount when applying for the NRA money. You can then use the money from the NRA grant to seed the P-R grant. In other words, get a bunch of donated labor and services to get $5,000 from the NRA, and use it get the $10,000 match from the feds. Check into this stuff VERY carefully to cover your bases. All this stuff has to happen within certin time windows and a horde of other hoops to jump through. Guaranteed to keep you up a few nights, but you can get some pretty good money if you do everything right.

August 16, 1999, 12:33 AM	#1
Tom D Member Join Date: July 16, 1999 Posts: 28	Flatlander, I put together a public shooting range when I lived in Nevada a few years ago and got some grant money. I was really suprised at a few things with the Friends of the NRA grant. In a nutshell, it was a pian in the butt. It is a matching funds type of grant. You spend some money and they match a percentage. I can not remember for sure, but the NRA grant may not be available to you for upgrades to the city owned range. Contact your state field rep. for information and an application. It will be available for a club owned range. You can not get very much money from the friends of the NRA grant. I got $17,000 from them and this was an almost unheard of amount of money for them to grant. One of the lawyers from the trust fund interviewed me on the phone because it was an unusually large ammount of money. One of the things you need to keep in mind about fish and wildlife grants like Pittman-Robertson is that anything you build will have to be in compliance with all federal regulations about public access, such as the ADA. These grants are also matching fund grants, and as you might expect, are also a pain in the butt. One neat thing you can do with these grants is apply for money to make you range ADA compliant. For example, a concrete pad around all your shooting benches so that a wheel chair can get around. If your benches have seats built in, you can build new benches that do not have these seats so that a wheelchair can pull up to the bench. We built benches out of concrete and steel without the seats and they were really good. Do some research before you apply for anything. It will be time well spent. You may find some interesting things. For example, you can seed the NRA grant for matching funds with assessed value of donated labor and services. If a nice guy contractor blades a road for you and you figure it was worth $500, you can show this ammount when applying for the NRA money. You can then use the money from the NRA grant to seed the P-R grant. In other words, get a bunch of donated labor and services to get $5,000 from the NRA, and use it get the $10,000 match from the feds. Check into this stuff VERY carefully to cover your bases. All this stuff has to happen within certin time windows and a horde of other hoops to jump through. Guaranteed to keep you up a few nights, but you can get some pretty good money if you do everything right.