Your organization is under assault. United Way contributions are dropping. Donations have slowed to a trickle. Your endowment has taken a beating in the stock market. You need help; you need to write some grants.

If you haven’t written a grant before, you’ll need a mentor to teach you the skills. In the Karate Kid movies, the kid is getting beaten up – feeling victimized by his lack of ability to fight back. In the original movie, the kid turns to a mentor named Myagi who makes him do seemingly unrelated stuff to learn the skills he needs to defend himself.

Just as the Karate Kid needed to learn the fundamentals of martial arts, you need specific skills to be a good grant writer too. You need a mentor who insists that you put the wax on and take the wax off in the right way. You need someone to tell you what’s important and how to do it right. You need to practice those skills until they are ingrained in your writing, until they become habits.

A writing mentor isn’t there to baby you. He or she is there to support you in developing good habits that make you a success. A weak teacher allows bad habits to form leading to failure and frustration and maybe even getting beaten up further.

Find a grant writing mentor, persevere, learn, grow, strengthen your skills, and develop good grant writing habits. You’ll find success and your organization will benefit.  Who knows, you may find a whole new career!

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