The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology coordinates its research, policy, grant and training programs. The goal of the OET is to "maximize technology's contributions to improving education." Grants are available through block grants and specific requests for proposals. The Education Department initiative also is supported through grants available through the National Science Foundation. The U.S. Commerce Department has proposed workforce development grants for equipment to colleges and universities to support training students in computer-related fields. Other agencies may incidentally fund educational technology along with other programs, so it pays to watch all federal-funding sources.
Some of the biggest, most well-known U.S. foundations provide grants to colleges for purchasing computers--the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the SBC Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Intel Foundation, the Communities Foundations and especially the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Shell Oil Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the W. M. Keck Foundation and the Merck Co. Foundation. Thousands of other regional and local foundations provide funding to local colleges for the purchase of equipment. A search of your local funding information library or online foundations search tools like Internet Resources for Foundations and Grants will help you locate other potential funding sources.
To track the availability of educational-technology grants, visit Grants.gov and sign up for its newsletter bulletin. Select education and computer- technology as an interest and their automatic alerts will let you know when requests for proposal (RFP's) are announced. RFP's are formal announcements of grants. They include links to downloadable applications and instructions for filling them out, submission and award dates. These are available on the Federal Register website. Links are below.
State and local funding for computers for colleges can sometimes be easier to acquire. Funding can even be written into state budgets as a line-item expenditure for your project, if you state senator or representative can slip it into the budget. State legislators like to help local colleges with simple projects like computers and hardware, especially around election time. Check your state's grants announcement page at the state's website and get on any alerts list they may have. You may be able to find funding also through regional Councils of Government (COG's) and Workforce Boards or from state departments of education.
You may be able to talk your board of education into including your computers in the next education-bond issue. Network with local public officials about your project, talk to local foundations and individual donors about your college's need for computers. You never know where the money will turn up.
Training, networking opportunities and information about funding is also available through the American Association of Community Colleges. Their website is at: http://www.aacc.nche.edu/Pages/default.aspx .