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Subject:
From:
Barbara Wilson-Clay <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 10 Sep 2002 15:40:55 -0500
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I'm delighted so many people have written me asking for ideas about getting
a milk bank started.  Several thoughts:  To all who said, I'm too busy to do
this myself... I'd like to say:  Who isn't?  I was too busy to volunteer for
a year and a half until our milk bank was off the ground, and so were the
neonatologists and the nurses and the rest of our team. As a working board,
we devoted a lot of time to developing policies and proceedures, moving
furniture, and begging for money.  Now we have a paid staff that runs the
place, and we're all still too busy, but we keep showing up anyway.  You
can't wait for other people to do a job that needs to be done, nor can you
accomplish anything without a team.

No lone rangers start milk banks or change bfg policies in their
communities.  If you haven't joined your ILCA affiliate or started a
breastfeeding coalition of some other sort, you won't have any help and
you'll soon burn out.  It was FUN starting our milk bank.  All the founders
got close and we are all so proud of ourselves, and we celebrate together
about twice a year, and enjoy our board meetings as times to reconnect.

I can't write you grants for you or do the home work it takes for you to
learn how to locate grantors (not unless you want to pay me a consulting
fee:).

I'd recommend that you start networking in your own community.  Someone at
your local health dept. or community women's shelter or food pantry has a
list or book of grants, foundation money, etc. that's locally available or
available in your state.  There often are grant writing workshops given by
associations of local non-profit agencies.  Here in Austin there is a group
called the Austin Area Health and Human Services Association which is made
up of reps from lots of small, local non-profits (Meals on Wheels, etc)
Groups such as these have seminars on grant writing and keep each other
appraised of grant announcements. Groups such as  March of Dimes have small
grants that often help with small research or other types of projects. So
call around and network with your colleagues until you locate someone who
has or knows who has these resources in your town. The National Institutes
of Health all the way down to local Ronald McDonald Houses give money to
worthy projects.  These are all resources we used or at least explored when
starting our milk bank.   I'd also direct interested people to investigate
associations with their local blood and tissue bank.  Some communities are
pursuing the idea of linking milk banks with existing tissue banks for a lot
of logical reasons.

Writing a grant is easy in one sense because it isn't really a creative
process (at least ones I've written weren't -- you just do a lot of work
preparing the proposal.)  Once you contact the grantor, they provide a
packet that you follow like a cookbook.  It tells you everything they want;
you provide it.

We have staff at our milk bank who can help with some initial guidance for
anyone seriously interested in starting a milk bank, but just like me, they
are busy with their jobs.  They can share up to a certain level, but no one
is going to do anyone's homework for them.  So we'll advise, but you have to
do your own networking and fund raising.  In fact, I'd say that for our
advice not to just be a drain on our time, it'd be smarter for you to
assemble a group seriously interested in the project first.


Barbara Wilson-Clay, BS, IBCLC
Austin Lactation Associates
LactNews Press
www.lactnews.com

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