Category Archives: grant writer

Is Grant Writing Keeping You Up at Night?

The deadline is coming, it’s less than 36 hours away. Your narrative is coming along, but you aren’t confident about it yet. You haven’t received all of the signature pages and letters of support from the client and grant partners. Forget about the budget narrative, you haven’t even  gone there yet.  You’re worried and tired so your anxiety level is peaking.

Veteran grant writers know these feelings well. There are times when a grant comes together so smoothly it feels effortless. Then, there are the grants that feel as though they will never come together. Tough grants cause high anxiety that grows over the period of development as the pieces of the proposal seem to defy gravity or force of will.

A veteran grant writer has fewer of these experiences than a novice. Through experience we learn to sidestep some potential problems. But much of what goes into a grant proposal such as signature pages, letters of commitment, MOU’s, budget figures come from people and/or organizations outside of the grant writer’s control. Depending on others can be problematic for lots of reasons: People are busy; People are flawed; People forget things; People lose things; People do not always read emails from others who ask them to do things.

When the anxiety of an approaching deadline strikes, it’s wise to take some concrete steps to place the responsibility where it belongs and refocus on what you can directly impact.

1. Carry out a campaign of direct, polite, yet redundant, communication to unresponsive people using a variety of media (phone calls, emails, text messages, Skype phone calls, etc) and personal visits if needed.

2. Stick to your checklist and complete all the items you have control over.

3. Document your efforts to collect missing information.

4. Keep a folder of all emails related to the project, a folder of all memos, and a folder of all documents developed.

A grant writer is a ring master as well as the main performer in the proposal development circus. Striking a good balance between the two roles is important if you’re going to get any sleep.

Related Posts:
Time Management Tips for Grant Writers
Good Grant Writers are like Wedding Planners
Stress Relief through Laughter
 
Photo Credit – Nara Vieira da Silva Osga

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

Avoid Grant Application Mistakes using Replacement Piles

Working alone on grants created anxiety that I would leave something out when assembling a complex grant application. Nobody was there to double check my work so I needed a way to minimize the possibility that I’d forget a required piece of a grant.  Relying on memory or luck to get everything put together was not an option, I needed a system.

Experienced grant writers know that deadline day can be a bit frenetic, especially if you’re writing multiple proposals. The blizzard of paper and the press of time can cause high anxiety and the possibility to overlook some crucial detail is always lurking in the back of your mind. Many things can go wrong that you can’t avoid but assembling a complete application does not have to be one of them.

To solve my problem and reduce last minute anxiety, I created s simple system I’ve called a replacement pile. The replacement pile is a just a stack of scratch paper on which I’ve written in bold, colored marker – in capital letters spanning the blank side of each page – the titles of every piece of what will be a completed grant application. A separate page is used for each section, form, etc.; hence, there will be one for the abstract, one for the table of contents, one for the narrative, and so on.

After I’ve created the replacement pile I place a copy of the Request for Proposals (RFP) checklist on top of it which I will use as my fail-safe double-check-off process to ensure that the replacement pile, once fully replaced, contains everything that the grant maker is requiring in the application. I also put a copy of the transmittal instructions on top of the pile so on the last day I am not paging through the RFP to find them, as Forest Gump so famously said, “One less thang.”

The way I use the replacement pile is simple. As a piece of the grant is completed, or as forms signed by the client are received, I pull the paper with the title of that component out of the pile and insert the finished piece of the grant. When all the scrap papers are replaced the pile the grant is ready to duplicate. Before going to the copier, I page through this original grant application using the RFP check list as a final review to ensure it is complete.

After photocopying the grant, I look through each duplicate copy to make sure that the demon copy machine didn’t suck two pages through as one and secretly sabotage my duplicate copies (copy machines can be cold and stealthy saboteurs). Since I almost always add consecutive numbering to each page in my grants (unless forbidden in the RFP) I just have to page through the completed copies to ensure there are no numbers missing.

My deceptively simple replacement piles force me to follow a process that has helped me avoid ever having a grant rejected for lack of required components.  Maybe the system will work for you too!

Related Posts:
 
5 Mistakes that can Cost Lose Millions of Dollars in Grant Applications
 
Tips for Preparing Grants with Short Deadlines
 
Success is in the Details
 
 

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

Avoid Grant Application Mistakes using Replacement Piles

Working alone on grants created anxiety that I would leave something out when assembling a complex grant application. Nobody was there to double check my work so I needed a way to minimize the possibility that I’d forget a required piece of a grant.  Relying on memory or luck to get everything put together was not an option, I needed a system.

Experienced grant writers know that deadline day can be a bit frenetic, especially if you’re writing multiple proposals. The blizzard of paper and the press of time can cause high anxiety and the possibility to overlook some crucial detail is always lurking in the back of your mind. Many things can go wrong that you can’t avoid but assembling a complete application does not have to be one of them.

To solve my problem and reduce last minute anxiety, I created s simple system I’ve called a replacement pile. The replacement pile is a just a stack of scratch paper on which I’ve written in bold, colored marker – in capital letters spanning the blank side of each page – the titles of every piece of what will be a completed grant application. A separate page is used for each section, form, etc.; hence, there will be one for the abstract, one for the table of contents, one for the narrative, and so on.

After I’ve created the replacement pile I place a copy of the Request for Proposals (RFP) checklist on top of it which I will use as my fail-safe double-check-off process to ensure that the replacement pile, once fully replaced, contains everything that the grant maker is requiring in the application. I also put a copy of the transmittal instructions on top of the pile so on the last day I am not paging through the RFP to find them, as Forest Gump so famously said, “One less thang.”

The way I use the replacement pile is simple. As a piece of the grant is completed, or as forms signed by the client are received, I pull the paper with the title of that component out of the pile and insert the finished piece of the grant. When all the scrap papers are replaced the pile the grant is ready to duplicate. Before going to the copier, I page through this original grant application using the RFP check list as a final review to ensure it is complete.

After photocopying the grant, I look through each duplicate copy to make sure that the demon copy machine didn’t suck two pages through as one and secretly sabotage my duplicate copies (copy machines can be cold and stealthy saboteurs). Since I almost always add consecutive numbering to each page in my grants (unless forbidden in the RFP) I just have to page through the completed copies to ensure there are no numbers missing.

My deceptively simple replacement piles force me to follow a process that has helped me avoid ever having a grant rejected for lack of required components.  Maybe the system will work for you too!

Related Posts:
 
5 Mistakes that can Cost Lose Millions of Dollars in Grant Applications
 
Tips for Preparing Grants with Short Deadlines
 
Success is in the Details
 
 

Ten Quick and Easy Ways to Make Any Grant Application Better

A professional grant writer pays attention to detail. Grant scorers can testify that there is a big difference between a professional’s grant application and one that is thrown together by an amateur or a committee. My experience reading grants confirms that a professional’s grant is a whole lot easier to score.  I appreciate that about professional grant writers when I am scoring grants.

Your already know that your job as a professional grant writer is to get your client funded. Accomplishing this goal requires that your grant makes the job of person scoring it easier. You can help ease the scoring of your grant by paying attention to details.

Here are a few suggestions that will improve your grant applications. Some of these suggestions are easier than others but all of them are easier than making a call to your client to tell them a grant was rejected.

1. Create a logic model for the grant program before starting to write the narrative. Include as an attachment if allowable.
2. Create a table of contents that follows the key narrative headings, required forms, and all other mandatory components described in the RFP. Do this even if it is not required.
3. Add consecutive pagination throughout unless the Request for Proposals (RFP) includes directions about pagination.
4. Ask someone to review your narrative who is not involved in the writing.
5. Use the scoring rubric included in the RFP to grade your narrative.
6. List objective numbers in a column beside each item in your budget.
7. Add explanatory text for each graphic, chart, and table.
8. Add an introductory paragraph that “sets the table” for the reader before jumping into the RFP outlined narrative.
9. Add a detailed management plan for both the grant and a separate one for the evaluation. If there’s no room for these in the body of the narrative, add them as attachments if allowable.
10. Use proper formatting for all citations.

Your grant applications will be more competitive if you do these ten things. It may not seem easy to add steps to the grant development process, but my goal in writing this is to make it easier for you to get funded. Good luck with your proposal!

Related Posts:

Top Five Mistakes of Novice Grant Writers

How Can You be a Better Grant Writer? Part I

How Can You be a Better Grant Writer Part II

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

Ten Quick and Easy Ways to Make Any Grant Application Better

A professional grant writer pays attention to detail. Grant scorers can testify that there is a big difference between a professional’s grant application and one that is thrown together by an amateur or a committee. My experience reading grants confirms that a professional’s grant is a whole lot easier to score.  I appreciate that about professional grant writers when I am scoring grants.

Your already know that your job as a professional grant writer is to get your client funded. Accomplishing this goal requires that your grant makes the job of person scoring it easier. You can help ease the scoring of your grant by paying attention to details.

Here are a few suggestions that will improve your grant applications. Some of these suggestions are easier than others but all of them are easier than making a call to your client to tell them a grant was rejected.

1. Create a logic model for the grant program before starting to write the narrative. Include as an attachment if allowable.
2. Create a table of contents that follows the key narrative headings, required forms, and all other mandatory components described in the RFP. Do this even if it is not required.
3. Add consecutive pagination throughout unless the Request for Proposals (RFP) includes directions about pagination.
4. Ask someone to review your narrative who is not involved in the writing.
5. Use the scoring rubric included in the RFP to grade your narrative.
6. List objective numbers in a column beside each item in your budget.
7. Add explanatory text for each graphic, chart, and table.
8. Add an introductory paragraph that “sets the table” for the reader before jumping into the RFP outlined narrative.
9. Add a detailed management plan for both the grant and a separate one for the evaluation. If there’s no room for these in the body of the narrative, add them as attachments if allowable.
10. Use proper formatting for all citations.

Your grant applications will be more competitive if you do these ten things. It may not seem easy to add steps to the grant development process, but my goal in writing this is to make it easier for you to get funded. Good luck with your proposal!

Related Posts:

Top Five Mistakes of Novice Grant Writers

How Can You be a Better Grant Writer? Part I

How Can You be a Better Grant Writer Part II

Writing is Regal

“Content is King” may be an over-used term among techies but maybe you’ve never heard it. It refers to the fact that content – written and more recently video – is the primary driver of online traffic. This fact makes having quality content important. It’s more important than design, keywords, or graphics; all of that stuff ranks lower on the list.

Content being King gives me hope that while many parts of the Internet are increasingly automated by clever programming, there is still a place for me. I can write, and so long as content is on the throne, I have access.

Some days it is difficult to write anything at all. On those days I feel dried out on my topic of grant writing. That’s when I write about related topics like writing for the Internet or how to find a good chair for grant writing or about how darned sexy I feel (that’s right grant writers can be sexy too).

Scott Stratten, author of “Un-marketing” said in his keynote at the Blog World Expo Conference in Las Vegas last year that blog content has to be GREAT and if you aren’t writing GREAT content to just stop or slow down and write less. Scott asserted that nobody has ever read a really bad blog post and said, “That was terrible, but it was keyword rich.” Scott’s a funny guy, he’s Canadian and they’re a funny bunch (I know this from family experience).

When I run into a dry spell, I’ll sit down and just start writing. I know it sounds odd, a Canadian sort of thing like cheese whiz on toast or caribou coats, but it works for me. These narratives usually start out with something like, “I don’t know what to write today so I went for a walk…then I met a homeless guy who asked me for money and I told him I didn’t have any but he said, ‘That’s OK brother’, gave me a fist bump, and smiled before he walked away.”

I can get a lot of narrative out of that single interaction if I think about it just a little bit. I could write about thankfulness, homelessness, gratitude, acceptance, human interaction, living without technology, the economy, health, safety on the streets. That single interaction could be turned into any number of short blog posts reflecting on this man, his circumstances and my interaction with him. All of a sudden my blockage is gone and I am writing merrily away wishing I had more time to cover all the possible topics.

I try to remember another thing that Scott Stratten said – and perhaps it isn’t original, but I heard him say it first so it will be fixed in my mind as his from now on – “If you are your own authentic self, you have no competition.” Nice, I can live with that. Writing from my inner self is freeing in a way that helps me break out of the doldrums whenever I find myself there.

I like the idea of my content as King of the Internet, even if it’s read by a few, not millions.

Completely unrelated blog posts:

Bless His Cotton Socks

Ten Things Baseball Can Teach You About Grant Writing

Federal Grant Resources at Grant Goddess.com

Photo Credit – Zsolt Zatrok Dr.

Writing is Regal

“Content is King” may be an over-used term among techies but maybe you’ve never heard it. It refers to the fact that content – written and more recently video – is the primary driver of online traffic. This fact makes having quality content important. It’s more important than design, keywords, or graphics; all of that stuff ranks lower on the list.

Content being King gives me hope that while many parts of the Internet are increasingly automated by clever programming, there is still a place for me. I can write, and so long as content is on the throne, I have access.

Some days it is difficult to write anything at all. On those days I feel dried out on my topic of grant writing. That’s when I write about related topics like writing for the Internet or how to find a good chair for grant writing or about how darned sexy I feel (that’s right grant writers can be sexy too).

Scott Stratten, author of “Un-marketing” said in his keynote at the Blog World Expo Conference in Las Vegas last year that blog content has to be GREAT and if you aren’t writing GREAT content to just stop or slow down and write less. Scott asserted that nobody has ever read a really bad blog post and said, “That was terrible, but it was keyword rich.” Scott’s a funny guy, he’s Canadian and they’re a funny bunch (I know this from family experience).

When I run into a dry spell, I’ll sit down and just start writing. I know it sounds odd, a Canadian sort of thing like cheese whiz on toast or caribou coats, but it works for me. These narratives usually start out with something like, “I don’t know what to write today so I went for a walk…then I met a homeless guy who asked me for money and I told him I didn’t have any but he said, ‘That’s OK brother’, gave me a fist bump, and smiled before he walked away.”

I can get a lot of narrative out of that single interaction if I think about it just a little bit. I could write about thankfulness, homelessness, gratitude, acceptance, human interaction, living without technology, the economy, health, safety on the streets. That single interaction could be turned into any number of short blog posts reflecting on this man, his circumstances and my interaction with him. All of a sudden my blockage is gone and I am writing merrily away wishing I had more time to cover all the possible topics.

I try to remember another thing that Scott Stratten said – and perhaps it isn’t original, but I heard him say it first so it will be fixed in my mind as his from now on – “If you are your own authentic self, you have no competition.” Nice, I can live with that. Writing from my inner self is freeing in a way that helps me break out of the doldrums whenever I find myself there.

I like the idea of my content as King of the Internet, even if it’s read by a few, not millions.

Completely unrelated blog posts:

Bless His Cotton Socks

Ten Things Baseball Can Teach You About Grant Writing

Federal Grant Resources at Grant Goddess.com

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Photo Credit – Zsolt Zatrok Dr.

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

Does Your Grant Writer Cost Too Much?

The cost of a grant writer seems to be one of the biggest issues involved in the decision to hire a professional grant writer. Many people look at the amount of the check they write to the grant writer and assume that is all they need to consider. But it’s more complex than that.

A $2,000 grant writer costs you way too much if you don’t get the grant, and a $10,000 grant writer is well worth the expense if she brings you $1,000,000 or more.

In short, if you don’t factor in success rate, you’re just guessing.

I have heard people say that they were going to go with a much less experienced grant writer on a large federal project because that person was less expensive than the much more experienced writer. Whenever I hear that, I just want to shake my head. You need to think of the fees you pay to a grant writer as an investment.  It’s about the return you get on that investment. Period.  I don’t care how nice he is or how much you enjoy playing golf with him.  If he can’t show you the money, he’s a bad investment.

Also, if you work with someone on multiple projects, you should compare the total fees you paid to the total amount she helped you acquire. That will help you determine the true cost and benefit of the grant writer.

Try not to look at the less significant intermediary issues, and keep your eye on your bottom line.

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Related post:

How Much Is Writing Your Own Grants Costing You?

Does Your Grant Writer Cost Too Much?

The cost of a grant writer seems to be one of the biggest issues involved in the decision to hire a professional grant writer. Many people look at the amount of the check they write to the grant writer and assume that is all they need to consider. But it’s more complex than that.

A $2,000 grant writer costs you way too much if you don’t get the grant, and a $10,000 grant writer is well worth the expense if she brings you $1,000,000 or more.

In short, if you don’t factor in success rate, you’re just guessing.

I have heard people say that they were going to go with a much less experienced grant writer on a large federal project because that person was less expensive than the much more experienced writer. Whenever I hear that, I just want to shake my head. You need to think of the fees you pay to a grant writer as an investment.  It’s about the return you get on that investment. Period.  I don’t care how nice he is or how much you enjoy playing golf with him.  If he can’t show you the money, he’s a bad investment.

Also, if you work with someone on multiple projects, you should compare the total fees you paid to the total amount she helped you acquire. That will help you determine the true cost and benefit of the grant writer.

Try not to look at the less significant intermediary issues, and keep your eye on your bottom line.

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Related post:

How Much Is Writing Your Own Grants Costing You?

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

How Much Is Writing Your Own Grants Costing You?

Some costs are easy to calculate.  You look at the price tag on something, and it’s pretty clear. However, most people calculate cost only in terms of the cost of having something, rather than the cost of not having it.  For example, depending on the time of year, you may think that the cost of fresh fruit is pretty high, and that might lead to choose not to buy it. Sometimes, though, you’ll think about the cost to your health of not having that fruit. When you weigh that cost against the dollar cost you have a more accurate picture of the real costs and you can make a more informed decision.

The same thing is true in the world of grant writing. People see the costs associated with hiring a professional grant writer and some decide it’s definitely a worthwhile expense (the smart ones) while others decide that it’s just too much and they’d rather do it themselves.

So, can you afford to hire a grant writer?  Before you answer that question, you need to ask yourself another very important question:  How much will writing your grant yourself really cost you?

First, consider the value of your time. Your time is definitely worth something.  If you’ll be writing the grant proposal during your work hours, you can apply your hourly or daily rate.  If you’ll be working on it beyond work  hours during your personal time, you’ll need to assign a value to that time also.  What is an hour of time with your children worth to you? We’re talking about opportunity cost here. If you’re working on the grant, you’re giving up time that could have been spent on something else. Everything is a trade off.

Next, you’ll need to calculate the value of the time of anyone who will be assisting you – administrative assistants, accounting clerks, collaborative partners, etc. Their time counts, too

Then, figure out how many hours the project will take you to complete. This is not easy task.  I can tell you for certain that it will take you more time than you expect.  So, once you have calculated the number of hours you expect to spend, add 30%.

When you multiple the number of hours by the hourly rate, you’ll have an estimate of the cost, in dollars, of writing your own grant.  At this point, most people realize that hiring a professional grant writer is definitely worth it, but we haven’t even come to the most expensive part of the equation.

If you are successful with your grant application, the expense will seem worth it, right?  But if you are not successful, your decision to do it yourself will have cost you not only the time involved in preparing the proposal, but the amount of the grant award itself.

The truth is that professional grant writers who write grants for a living (as opposed to those who do it as a side job or as a hobby) have a much higher success rate than the average, so your chances of actually getting the grant are higher when you use a real professional than if you do it yourself.  That risk vs. success factor should also be calculated into your decision.

The next time you think that hiring a professional grant writer is too expensive, ask yourself how much doing it yourself will really cost you.

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Related Posts:

Grant Writing Training at Taco Bell?

Gauging the Success of a Proposal Writer

Grant Writing is a Team Sport

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Get a free e-book on Non-Profit Grant Writing to help you with your work.

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