Gadsden Independent School District (GISD) in rural New Mexico sought alternative funding sources to meet student needs in the areas of early childhood education, special education, at-risk programs, and partnership programs with communities and local colleges. Although this school district has been granted funds for many of its projects, unforeseen problems have emerged, including hidden costs and teachers perceiving special projects as additions to teaching loads. This indicates the need to establish a policy and procedure plan before grants or requests for funds are written. Drawing on GISD's experiences, this paper discusses: (1) reasons for seeking alternative funds; (2) current social issues and subject areas for which funding is available; (3) the funding search process, including the need to train district staff and administrators as proposal writers or create statewide networks of proposal writers; (4) developing a district or statewide grant writing procedure for optimizing school district planning and projections while meeting funding obligations and controlling hidden costs; (5) community partnership and team building; (6) building a grant writing team and writing the proposal; and (7) incorporating current social issue programs into regular education curriculum by meeting basic competencies, not increasing teaching loads. (LP)