HLTH 6207 Week 10 Grant Sustainability Plan Example

Sustainability Plan: What Continues After the Aitkin County Carbon Monoxide Alarm Project's 24 Months, Who Carries Each Cost, the Evidence Behind Each Commitment and What Ends When the Funding Does

Student Name

Walden University

HLTH 6207: Grant Writing

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Sustainability Plan: What Continues After the Aitkin County Carbon Monoxide Alarm Project's 24 Months, Who Carries Each Cost, the Evidence Behind Each Commitment and What Ends When the Funding Does

What Ends and What Continues

Some of the project ends with the grant, and the plan says so first. The two home safety visitor positions, the coordinator's half-time role and the schedule of 16 community presentations are funded only for 24 months and will not continue at that scale. What continues are the alarms themselves, the skills taught in each home, the visit records and a smaller set of activities absorbed by partners who already do related work. Research on public health programs suggests that sustained programs usually continue in adapted, partial form rather than intact, and that planning for which parts will continue is more realistic than promising everything (Scheirer & Dearing, 2011).

Element 1: The Alarms

Mechanism: no money needed for about a decade. The project installs sealed-battery alarms with a stated ten-year life, so the roughly 1,500 alarms placed in 600 homes need no battery purchases and remain in service until their printed replacement dates, which federal guidance identifies as the point at which an alarm should be replaced (U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission [CPSC], n.d.).

Evidence: the alarm specification in the supply quote, attached as an appendix.

Honest limit: the alarms will reach their replacement dates in roughly 2037 and 2038, all within a year or two of each other. That creates a predictable replacement wave the plan addresses in Element 3.

Element 2: Resident Skills

Mechanism: teach-back at every visit, with the replacement date written on a one-page guide left in each home. The project's recheck data will show how many residents keep the skill after 9 to 12 months.

Evidence: the month 24 recheck result, which will be reported whatever it shows.

Element 3: Alarm Checks Folded Into Fire Department Home Visits

Mechanism: an existing activity absorbs a new task. Three of the county's volunteer fire departments already offer smoke alarm checks on request. Under letters of commitment attached as an appendix, each agrees to add a carbon monoxide alarm check, including the printed replacement date, to those visits from month 22 onward, using the project's visit log for its service area. The departments also agree to flag homes whose alarm dates fall within two years, so that the 2037 to 2038 replacement wave is anticipated rather than discovered.

Evidence: three signed letters naming the task, the start date and the contact person.

Cost carrier: the departments, through volunteer time already given to home safety visits.

Element 4: A Question Added to an Existing Intake

Mechanism: a policy change that needs no money. The county's public health nurses who visit older adults at home agree to add one question to their intake form: "Does every bedroom have a working carbon monoxide alarm close by, and what date does it show?" Homes answering no or not sure are referred to the nearest fire department. The ten-foot placement mirrors Minnesota law (Minn. Stat. § 299F.51).

Evidence: a letter from the county's public health director confirming the form change.

Element 5: A Small Replacement Fund

Mechanism: a partner pays for a defined item. A local civic club has pledged $1,500 a year for three years after the grant, enough for about 45 alarms at current prices, to replace alarms that fail early or are found missing during fire department checks.

Evidence: a pledge letter stating the amount and term.

Honest limit: the fund covers early failures, not the 2037 to 2038 wave, which would need a new source.

Why These Mechanisms Rather Than Others

Each continuing element rests on work a partner already does or on an object that needs no upkeep. A review of sustainability research found that a practice's fit with the organizations expected to carry it, and its adaptation to their routines, repeatedly appear among the conditions tied to continuation (Shelton et al., 2018). The plan therefore asks fire departments and public health nurses to add a task to visits they already make, rather than to adopt a new program.

Summary

Table 1

Continuing Elements, Mechanisms and Evidence

Letters and the supply specification are attached as appendices to the full proposal.

References

Requirements for carbon monoxide alarms, Minn. Stat. § 299F.51 (2025).

Scheirer, M. A., & Dearing, J. W. (2011). An agenda for research on the sustainability of public health programs. American Journal of Public Health, 101(11), 2059-2067. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2011.300193

Shelton, R. C., Cooper, B. R., & Stirman, S. W. (2018). The sustainability of evidence-based interventions and practices in public health and health care. Annual Review of Public Health, 39, 55-76. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-040617-014731

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. (n.d.). Carbon monoxide questions and answers. https://www.cpsc.gov/Safety-Education/Safety-Education-Centers/Carbon-Monoxide-Information-Center/Carbon-Monoxide-Questions-and-Answers