i-PRO Americas, formerly a division of Panasonic, is celebrating American Education Week by encouraging K-12 institutions to tap the free-of-charge services of its Grants Program to help procure funding for security infrastructure projects needed to protect students, staff and schools. 

While hundreds of millions of dollars in local, state and federal grant funding is available to schools for security upgrades, researching and applying for those grants is highly complex. Most K-12 institutions are significantly limited in terms of the resources, expertise and time they can devote to those projects. 

For this reason, in 2013, i-PRO (then Panasonic) partnered with the Grants Office LLC and set up a specialized program to assist K-12 institutions in finding and applying for grant funding for security projects. There are no requirements on how the funds must be used. Since its inception, the i-PRO Grants Program has assisted in the award of 160 grants totaling more than $42 million to K-12 and similar 501 (c) (3) entities. 

The Grants Program is one component of i-PRO’s comprehensive offering that provides K-12 institutions with technology, incentives, tools and support to create safe, secure learning environments. The company’s security solutions have been deployed by thousands of K-12 institutions nationwide. 

How the Program Works

To engage, institutions can visit the i-PRO website and use a simple form to provide basic information on the school’s security needs and timeframe. The i-PRO Grants team then assesses whether the project proposed is a good fit for its services, and if so, searches for potential funding sources and presents the institution with a report of those options, along with sample narratives and applications, and reviews the report with school stakeholders in a consultative session to determine the program and approach. 

If needed, the i-PRO team provides grant writing services to help apply for the funding. Once submitted, the i-PRO team monitors the process and tracks awardees.   

“The prospect of researching and applying for grant funding can be overwhelming — especially on top of an already challenging job,” stated  Amy Bolin, sales development manager, i-PRO Americas. “If you’re a school struggling to upgrade your security infrastructure, it’s important to know help is out there. As we head into American Education Week, we can’t think of a better way to celebrate than be helping schools with this opportunity.” 

Held annually, American Education Week will take place this year Nov. 13-19. The National Education Association (NEA) founded American Education Week in 1921 to inform the public of the accomplishments and needs of the public schools and to secure the cooperation and support of the public in meeting those needs.