Category Archives: grant writing

Grant Writing is Part Fiction

In the broadest terms, grant writing is like fiction writing because the grant writer describes a future state that results from delivery of grant services. The details of how the grant will unfold are fictional, based on the best facts at hand, sound planning and demonstrated competence of the organization. In this post, I compare the key parts of a fiction story to key features of a grant narrative.

Fiction Writing	Grant Writing
The Main Character The main character is the one who has to solve the conflict of the story. A main character has a history that gives depth and makes the characters present actions logical. The main character needs to experience some form change that causes them to grow. It is not necessary to describe as much history about the supporting characters as the main character. A supporting character may support the resolution of the conflict while others may be the cause of the problem.	The Applicant The applicant is the main character and must be described. The writer must detail the history, strengths, accomplishments, plans, etc. The conflict in a grant narrative is the need that has caused the submission of the grant in the first place. The grant is designed to resolve the needs(conflict) presented. The supporting characters in a grant application are the partners, major donors, etc. The amount of description to include for each partner depends on their involvement in the grant design. Another type of supporting character in a grant application is the recipients of services who may also grow, change or benefit from the services that the grant provides. It could be people, the environment, or an organization that benefits from the grant services. A grant typically produces changes and/or growth in the application organization that relates to its history and mission in a logical way.
Character Building A fictional character must be defined for the reader. A character must be described thoroughly so it produces a clear picture in the reader’s mind. Many times in fiction a more unique each character makes the story a lot more interesting.	Building the Program Design Character development is similar to development of the project design in grant writing. The project design needs to be defined, shaped, and described so clearly that the grant reader can “see” the end product with absolute clarity and conviction. Uniqueness can be helpful in grant writing too, but only if it builds the funder’s commitment to giving you the grant. If the uniqueness of your project just makes it unbelievable, you’re in trouble.
Dialogue	Grants do not have dialogue. This is a key point of departure between the two writing genres.
Detail Details greatly enhance fiction but using too much detail can ruin a story by bogging down the flow of the action.	Detail While too much detail may ruin a fictional story, detail can only help a grant narrative; in fact, getting enough detail into a grant narrative is the most difficult challenge a grant writer faces. Detail is crucial to the credibility of your narrative.

Grant Writing is No Mystery

Grant Writing, Fact or Fiction?

Photo Credit –

Julia Freeman-Woolpert

Published by Creative Resources & Research http://grantgoddess.com

Has the Golden Age of Education Grant Writing Passed?

I started writing grants in about 1995 during what I have come to think of as the Golden Age of education grant writing. Government grants were used as a positive way to spark and spread new ideas and solutions. I became, and remain, a huge proponent of grants as an effective vehicle to fund educational change.

A prime example of how education grants were used in the Golden Age was bilingual education. Bilingual grants spurred innovation as practitioners were given funding to experiment and seek the best ways to implement bilingual programs. The government looked to the field to discover the best way to ensure immigrant children succeeded, and concomitantly, to teach a second language to both English and non-English speakers. Bilingual education got plowed under by the politics of language and immigration; in the end, success was irrelevant and all the funds were redistributed.

Slowly but surely over the past 16 years, the number of grants from the federal and state level for all educational programs dwindled as government leaders consolidated centralized control, in the form of standards which remain the organizing dictum for budgeting in education. In the absence of innovation, standards have gone largely unchallenged as the preeminent organizing philosophy (a topic for another post).

The Golden Age of grants passed into the Lead Age of entitlements in which money is redistributed at pennies per student to be consumed by the ravenous starving dogs that are general fund budgets (woof). In this new age, grants to fund innovation are superfluous and replaced by entitlements and a few grants to pay for implementation of “approved”, “research-based” solutions.

I’m eager for an educational grant renaissance that will revive an entrepreneurial style of leadership; one that sparks innovation and change. The answers to educational issues can be discovered but it requires that we trust practitioners to plan and take risks based on their experience on the front line.

Ten Summer Grant Writing Chores

Here are just ten of the scores of things you might want to use your summer months to accomplish. Since summer tends to be a bit of a lull in the grant writing year, here are a few things I try to accomplish to make the best possible use of the time:

Now is the time to clean off that desk – Yes, get the shredder and the recycle bin and plow through those stacks of grant narrative revisions you don’t need, those research documents you need to file away for next year, and those bazillion dog-eared post its stuck to everything.
Clean out your email In-Box – You may be pushing the memory limits on your mail provider anyway and let’s face it, you only need so many forwarded emails in there with PowerPoint presentations of waterfalls, kittens, and guys falling off stuff.
Clean out your e-files like your documents file which I can imagine has tons (digital tons) of loose documents that you made up in a hurry and then didn’t have time to file away in their proper location, or maybe there wasn’t even a file folder created!
Send out thank you/wish you a great summer cards and/or email to all your clients, previous clients, and anyone who might be a future client. Give them a heads up of any upcoming grant opportunities you’re aware of.
Write some blog posts and queue them up to post automatically for the rest of the summer, one less thing to think about for the summer months if you take a little time to do it.
Review your client list and note their priorities for the coming year then use the list to match their needs to potential grant opportunities. There may be some prep that can be done with them or you may be able to lock in a contract for writing in advance.
Visit local agencies and organizations you don’t have relationships to meet people face to face. Just call and if you can get an appointment, you’re in. Do a little research on them and bring them a few examples of grants they might be interested in. Bring your marketing material and don’t forget your business card and your smile!
Participate in training opportunities and networking events to expand your network.
Fine tune your online presence. Are you using social media to your advantage? Are you positioned as an expert in grant writing online? It might be time to freshen up your web site.
Review the results of the past year. Review readers’ comments and if you don’t have copies, contact your clients to see if they have them and just forgot to send them along. If you had some unsuccessful proposals, see if the grants that were funded have been posted by the funding agency and read them.

Now’s the time to refresh, reorganize, recharge, and renew, there’s a long winter of grant writing ahead of us all so a smart grant writer will use the slower summer months wisely!

The Importance of Being Earnest

Public people take public falls for being dishonest. Congressman Weiner’s fall from grace this week is the latest in a long string of prominent people who’ve been caught acting in a destructive way that has damaged their reputations, careers, and families.

Grant Writers may not be public people per say, but often a grant writer is contracted by a public (government) or a public benefit agency (non-profit). A grant writer charged with writing a narrative is usually given facts and figures to write the narrative by the client. Sometimes those facts won’t present the organization in the best light to the funder. Even so, it is vital to the writer’s reputation to write honestly, even if the grant narrative suffers from the truth. There’s nothing wrong with “planting the flowers on the client’s side of the street” but a professional grant writer always does so in a way that keeps their integrity intact.

Here’s the plain truth. Telling lies in a narrative will be exposed. There are times when the client does not read the narrative carefully before the grant is submitted. But, the client and usually one or more of the client’s board members and stakeholders read the grant carefully as notice of funding is received.

It does not matter that a grant is funded or not, the client and constituency will want to know how to begin implementing, or why it wasn’t funded. If the writer wrote a narrative that is inaccurate, exaggerated, or fraudulent, the grant writer might as well have Tweeted pictures of himself or herself in their skivvies; the lies are about to be discovered and everyone is going to be upset.

Honesty is the best policy in grant writing as in everything else. A grant writer who writes dishonestly will ruin their reputation. Their fall from grace may not be quite as public as Congressman Weiner’s humiliation this week, but their career will be equally damaged.

By Xochitl Peña of Mydesert.com

Photo Credit – Lorenzo González

Published by Creative Resources & Research http://grantgoddess.com

Good Grant Writing Blurs the Lines between Fact and Fiction

On Sunday I attended an elegant house-warming and BBQ in the wine country with a friend. During the party, I had an interesting conversation with a patent attorney.

We started our conversation with the customary pleasantries and the standard introductory question between guys, “So what do you do?” Rightly or wrongly, it’s how guys break the ice until we retire when we ask things like, “What’s your handicap? Or who did your hip replacement?” But I digress.

We – the lawyer and I – talked about styles of writing in both of our professions. I drew from our discussion that writing a patent application is not unlike applying for a grant. This man’s assessment of grant writing is that the two kinds of writing are quite similar.

I explained that grant writing is a mixture of writing about factual information and fictional writing (kind of Orwell-style futuristic fiction). Grant writing describes a future state to be created with grant funds.

He explained to me that this is similar to what he must produce when writing a patent application. In addition to the technical aspects of the patent, he must describe the future benefits and functions of this yet-to-be produced widget, a future state based on the present facts.

Grant writers must be skillful in describing the future state. My advice to aspiring grant writers about how to achieve this unique style of writing, which would, perhaps, similarly edify aspiring patent attorneys, is this;

1) Spend time with your client to adequately understand the future state desired,

Your imagination may produce sparkling fictional narrative, but if your client seeks a rocket to Mars and you write a grant sending him to Venus, you’ll have written an unachievable or undesired program.

2) Write about this future state in a positive, can-do manner, with sufficient detail to make it a believable narrative,

Good fiction delivers the reader into a created world where they willingly suspend disbelief and buy in to the feasibility of the program design. Your grant narrative must deliver the program design in a way that the reader never stops nodding in agreement.

3) Ground your optimistic description of the future state on the facts at hand.

The best fiction is grounded in facts that blur the lines between what’s real and what’s possible. The moment you force your reader to stop and ask themselves whether you’re proposing something plausible, you’re sunk.

My conversation with the attorney made me curious about how similar the writing styles actually are, or whether he was being over-generous in his assessment. I’ll conduct a search with Google this week to see if I can find a patent application to read. I suspect that if the style and level of difficulty are similar that, based the extravagance of his new vacation home, the main difference is to be found in our invoice for services.

Grant Writing Contracts

Every grant writer needs to have a contract format. Most of us are not lawyers so here are some basics parts needed in a legally enforceable contract.

Disclaimer – this was not written by a lawyer and is not intended as “legal advice.” Readers may use this information to develop a contract format but do so at their own risk. It’s wise to consult with an attorney when you develop a legal contract for your grant writing business.

All that being said; I developed my own contract and never consulted a lawyer until I needed to force a deadbeat former client to pay me for a grant I wrote for them (and which was fully funded too!). My self-devised contract held enough validity to force the deadbeat to pay – of course I lost the portion of that fee the lawyer charged me but I was vindicated.

Freelance grant writers should use a contract that has the three enforceable components: (1) offer and acceptance; (2) legal intent; and, (3) consideration. At the most basic level, a contract is binds two or more parties in an agreement to perform acts specified within the language of the contract in exchange for something of value.

Offer and Acceptance (This is the heart of “The Deal”)

All contracts involve an offer by one party and an acceptance of the offer by the other party. The offer is detailed in the contract and the other party can sign the contract in acceptance of the terms or not.

A grant writer offers services in exchange for money and the client may choose to sign the contract or not.

Intent of the Contract

The grant writer and their client must enter into the agreement with the intent of binding themselves to the terms of the contract. Signing the contract is evidence of the intent so never even start to write a grant for anyone unless you have a signed contract.

Contractual Consideration

Contracts must include a consideration (a recompense or payment, as for work done; compensation – dictionary.com) of value in order to be legally binding. This means that both the grant writer and the client must receive something of value from binding themselves to the contract. Grant writers are only likely to enter a contract in which the consideration is money. But the client enters into the contract for a different type of consideration, and that is the promise to perform grant writing work. A grant writer who enters into a contract and fails to complete and submit the grant is in danger of being sued for failure to perform.

Parties to the Contract

The grant writer and the client who is to sign the contract must be legally able to participate in the deal. This means that the signatory for the client agency must be legally authorized to enter into a contract for that agency. In a school district, the people with authorization to bind the agency to a contract are only those who are authorized in an approved action of the Board of Directors. If the person who signs is not legally authorized to sign, then you probably have an unenforceable contract (ask an attorney).

Before You Enter a Contract

Sometimes a client has a standard contract format they prefer to use. Read any contract carefully including the fine print. If you are unable to understand all the language, consult with an attorney before you bind yourself to it.

If you want another opinion, ask another grant writer.

Grants Mean Change

It’s important to understand that grants mean change and that there is a predictable process to change within an organization. I learned when I was in a leadership position that it’s difficult to change a light bulb without stepping on someone’s toes so major changes require determined effort and planning.

There are many models for change process but the one I like best is an inverted bell curve with highs on both sides and a low in the middle. In this model, people enter into the change process on a high with “uninformed optimism.” This is akin to the kind of the high you feel when your grant is funded. WOOHOO! We just won a million dollar grant! But wait, as Forest Gump would say about getting a lot of money, it’s merely “One less thang.”

There are a bunch of other “thangs” still in play, like all the reasons you needed the funding. All the needs are still there, just as real and ever more pressing. Only now you’re expected to solve them, you have to put staff and processes in place to do that. It’s a lot of work.

Realizing that getting the grant doesn’t solve the needs is when people in the change process enter into the “informed pessimism” stage where all the difficulties involved in making the change emerge. There are a plethora of challenges including new staff who need training, integrating new programs and staff with existing ones, etc. New staff in a new program tend to get overwhelmed and need a lot of direction for a while. Plus, they’re people so they need to be supervised, and list could go on and on…

Then as things get sorted out a little bit the bell curve usually takes an upswing. Optimism returns little by little as problems are sorted out, needs are being met, services are delivered, positive feedback and data are encouraging, the change becomes incorporated into the organization.

In planning a grant program, consider these important aspects of the change process:

Does the model fit your agency culture?
Do you have the right people for the work?
Do you have a plan for giving clear roles and responsibilities to everyone involved?
Are you prepared to give proper authority to those involved to ensure performance?
Prepare a plan to help existing employees adapt and grow with guidance.
Prepare a communication plan that encourages input and keeps people informed.

About the time you sort out all the change a grant creates, it is probably nearing the end of its funding cycle. When a funding cycle ends, you may need to seek other funding, reduce the program scope, or phase out the program entirely. Change is a natural cycle that grants create for an organization. Boards and leadership need to understand how to lead a change process in order to successfully manage grants.

Other posts you’ll enjoy:
One Grantee’s Rocky Road of Grant Implementation
Evaluating When a Grant is Right for Your Organization

Image Credit – Ehsan Namavar

Published by Creative Resources & Research http://grantgoddess.com

Positive Thinking in a Changing Grant World

One of the key attributes our clients seek in a grant writer is a positive attitude. Agencies and managers who seek grants customarily do so out of a desire to expand their programs. They willingly take on more work to positively impact more clients and to spread the influence of their services. About 99% of the people I’ve written grants for are optimistic, mission-driven, and highly dedicated.

These economic times are challenging many people to remain positive in the face of cutbacks, loss of personnel, and reduced budgets. Not everyone can remain positive in the face of change; yet, the only constant in today’s grant and non-profit world is change.

We’re being impacted by forces beyond our control, so do as Poet Laureate Maya Angelou advised, “…if you can’t change it, change your attitude.”

Grant writers must be prepared for change and embrace it with a positive attitude. Here are five ways to be positive when in the midst of change:

Validate the positive people you work with.
Encourage positive statements when you hear them.
Stay out of drama whenever possible.
Self-monitor your own language and avoid joining negative conversations.
Smile…don’t react or respond to negativity, turn it around.

The new economic reality requires grant writers to be flexible and adaptable to change. Staying positive throughout change is vital to a successful grant writing career.

When times are tough, Grant writers need to remember that you have strong skill sets and talents that may be marketable across a variety of industries. Only grant writers who have the ability to embrace change positively will thrive over time.

Clients seek to work with positive, adaptable grant writers who can move and flow with the constantly changing business realities of the grant world. If you are a skilled and talented person who thinks positively while adapting your skills and talents to any situation, you’ll do well as a grant writer!

Even a Grant Writer Needs a Break!

I am enjoying my coffee and my Al Stewart station on Pandora, it’s a nice little interlude in the day. This blog is about the importance of taking breaks since that’s what is on my mind at the moment.

If I were diagnosed as a type, I’d be in the “Type A” category. Taking a break is a hard thing to do sometimes as the clutter of the unfinished work and looming deadlines up in my mind. For me, paying too much attention to those piles can become stifling, even paralyzing.

The piles and the pending can become tyrannical haunts that invade my time away from work when I should be relaxing. They can fly darkly through my dreams and interrupt my activities.

A freelance grant writer lives with uncertainty. There is uncertainty about where the next
client is, whether a grant will be funded, when a client will send that overdue
check I desperately need to deposit.

In good times, it’s easier for me to take a break because I’m not so worried about business. In these troubled economic times, my breaks are less carefree. I remind myself that much of what happens in business is beyond my control. I am responsible to do what is sensible, professional, and reasonable.

These days I take shorter breaks like sipping my coffee, or trekking out on my daily walk. Each day as I walk, I remind myself to look upward at the sky, to breathe deeply of the fresh air, and to appreciate my ability and opportunity to walk about freely.

Relaxing on a break requires me to clear away the clutter of the job (and sometimes the news). Perhaps it is surprising that the sidewalk outside my office is not strewn each afternoon with discarded papers, bills, and phone messages.

Other posts you may enjoy:
Is Grant Writing Keeping You Up at Night?
Writers Must Know Their Limits

Published by Creative Resources & Research http://grantgoddess.com

Where is Grant Writing Perfection?

I’m agonizing over a grant narrative. It isn’t perfect yet. I’m missing a key piece of data from the client. There are a couple of sections that can be tightened up. The deadline is coming and it’s not perfect yet. I always have trouble decided when to put it to rest.

There are some big truths about grant writing I’ve learned through years of practice.

1. Writing is never finished.

2. You and your client rarely prioritize the grant in the same way.

3. The further removed a partner is from the writing, the harder it is to get what you need from them.

4. You must stop revising at some point at edit carefully.

5. When a section of narrative is hard to tighten up (make crystal-clear and comprehensible) a graphic might help accomplish that.

Perfection in your written narrative is something you aren’t going to achieve. You do though want to be perfectly accurate, perfectly edited, and perfectly on time! You’ll always agonize as you send it that there was a section you could have improved upon. There will always be that unhelpful partner that sends you a letter of support the day after the grant was due.

We all learn to live with a little imperfection in the world and grant writing is no different.

Published by Creative Resources & Research http://grantgoddess.com

The Grant Goddess Speaks

Grant writing wisdom from experience and success

Category Archives: grant writing

Grant Writing is Part Fiction

Has the Golden Age of Education Grant Writing Passed?

Ten Summer Grant Writing Chores

The Importance of Being Earnest

By Xochitl Peña of Mydesert.com

Good Grant Writing Blurs the Lines between Fact and Fiction

Grant Writing Contracts

Grants Mean Change

Positive Thinking in a Changing Grant World

Even a Grant Writer Needs a Break!

Where is Grant Writing Perfection?