Mom Central Announces Grant Winners

You’ve seen the tweets. You have most likely read some of the blog posts as well. Perhaps you have been asked for a vote or two or ten. After almost three months, the Mom Central Grant recipients were recently announced. The Blogger Grant Program awarded $2,000 stipends to 5 lucky bloggers whose visions and level of need were judged to be the most deserving. Details on how the Grant process worked were outline in the related ShePosts article: Bloggers Vie For Mom Central’s Blogger Grant Program.

The Mom Central Grant had over 650 submissions, that pulled in over 32,000 votes.  Those were then narrowed down to 45 finalists, and finally 5 winners were chosen.  ShePosts caught up with each winner to find out their thoughts on winning, what they intended to do with the grant and what their secrets were for garnering support behind their ideas. 

Cristi Comes from Ellie Adorn didn’t even know about the contest until a couple days before voting started. She quickly submitted an entry. Then she asked Facebook friends, Facebook followers and Twitter followers just about every day to vote. “The support was incredible”, she says. Cristi will be getting some graphic design help for her blog, advertising and plans to attend a conference. “I do this because I am passionate about mental health and difficult mom issues. I started my blog in honor of a dear friend who died by suicide in 2010 and another in 2005. I truly hope this site continues to help people and make them feel less alone in their struggles.”

Jessica Nunemaker of little Indiana, who touts herself as a Social Media Cupcake & Writer, says about entering the contest: “There are moments when it would be easier to do nothing, to say that there is no way that you can win, that there are too many other people who all want the same thing, and who am I? I’m passionate about little Indiana and decided it would be far worse to try and lose than to do nothing at all! I felt like I owed it to myself and my readers to give it a go (and boy am I glad I did!).” Since little Indiana is big on community, Jessica will be using the grant to add in a mapping function and build a better Indiana Events and Festivals Calendar.

Christy Ellingsworth of the Daily Dish felt that the contest itself was a community-builder for her blog.  “The Mom Central grant program gave voice to many people, not only my readers, but friends and family, allowing them to connect to me in a much deeper and more meaningful way, becoming in essence my cheerleading section.” Christy will be upgrading The Daily Dish site to include easily printable recipes and complete nutritional information, a splashier, more photo-centric layout, and the ability for users to join the site to share recipes and build community. She also plans to self-publishing a cookbook of original recipes and purchase a CSA share in a local, organic farm for the 2011 season.

Rachel Lister of Busy Mommy Media shares “we were really fortunate because the Busy Mommy Media community did most of the promotion for the grant without being asked. All of our writers played a huge role in getting the word out and there were some amazing moms who came back day after day to put their vote in. We’ve offered paid writing positions at Busy Mommy Media almost from the beginning but as we’ve built up the site we haven’t been able to pay our writers what they deserve to be paid. We’ll be giving all of our current writers an immediate raise and creating new writing positions to bring more mom writers on board.”

Tricia Fandrey of Night Owl Mama entered the contest in hopes of winning so she could make it to my very 1st Blogher this year. “It all still seems so surreal. I used every means of social network I knew how. I tweet daily. I shared on Facebook and begged. I messaged many of my family members and friends on Facebook. I blogged and asked for votes often. Many wonderful blogging friends also asked for votes for me among their followers and my mom emailed everyone she knew weekly.” She will be using the grant to get to Blogher’ 11, and also hopes to purchase a new video camera.

Congratulations Ladies!