The Grants Office offers a wide range of training opportunities throughout the year, but their annual conference continues to be the most efficient way to obtain knowledge about current trends and best practices in the grants profession.

This year is particularly important because the Governor’s Grants Conference is going green. This means their conference site, the registration process, and the presentations all fit within the green conference guidelines of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. You can feel good about being a part of this healthy trend here in our beautiful Maryland, where we are working to build a cleaner, greener future for our children and theirs.

There are a lot of changes regarding government funding that will be addressed at the conference, including the new federal transparency law’s implementation, and a similar bill I signed into law in May that will add more transparency to Maryland State government, which has always been one of this Administration’s paramount goals.

You will notice improvements to this year’s grants conference. Your survey answers from last year’s conference were taken into consideration by the 2008 planning committee. This year, there will be abundant opportunities to mingle with the presenters, and to ask questions at the Federal Technical Desk where experts can assist you privately anytime during the day.

We will begin the day with federal and state grantor panels “showing the money,” discussing how they operate and what winning applications look like. We will end the day with foundations doing the same on their panel. And in between, we will be discussing the best ways to find, win and manage grants throughout their life cycle.

Join us for a day of unparalleled expert technical sessions and quality networking with your colleagues at one of the first state conferences to go green.