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

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Photo Credit – Zsolt Zatrok Dr.

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

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.

Grant Writing Mission: Demonstrate the Effect of Your Cause!

Lack of success in grant writing to foundations usually means that the applicant is trying to convince a grant maker that the agency’s cause IS the grant maker’s desired effect. In other words, a good cause isn’t enough, grant makers expect the cause to have an effect on their field of interest.  Many times the cause an applicant is promoting has no direct impact on the field of interest; there may a sliver of attachment but slivers of impact don’t generate grant money.

The correct approach is exactly the opposite. The convincing grant is the one that presents a cause that makes a grant maker say “BINGO, BULL’S-EYE, that cause has DIRECT IMPACT on my field of interest!” There must be clearly a demonstrable connection between the cause and the effect (on the field of interest).

Ways to improve your chances of securing grant funding:

1. Be absolutely clear about what your cause is. You must know what fields of interest your cause directly impacts. Your mission must inspire that “AHA! DIRECT IMPACT!” moment for the grant maker. Remember, round pegs in round holes and square pegs in square ones.

2. Validate the effect of your cause.  It does not matter if your cause is innovative or common the effect must be demonstrated.

3. Try to get in front of as many people as possible to talk about your cause. Expect to answer a lot of tough questions. Use these meetings to learn and to fine tune your arguments.  Use them to explore all possible linkages to the fields of interest your cause serves.

4. Rally people to your cause. Collaborate and give up some control! Don’t be afraid to reach out to potential partners. Don’t be afraid to bring in powerful Board members. Don’t be afraid to share the vision with others. Many organizations fail to thrive because there is a leader who climbs up on their philanthropic high horse and rides off without the constituents, the Board members, or even the staff! Feed your cause by sharing it and being inclusive; you’ll only starve it if you hold it by the throat.

Grants are given to agencies with a worthy cause that can demonstrate DIRECT IMPACT within a field of interest.  Agency leadership must be clear on what the cause is, who to include, what the impact is/could be, and where the likely funding sources are.

Related Posts:
Taking Your Grant research Beyoind the RFA
Grant Writing – Don’t Chase the Money
Photo Credit – Asif Akbar

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

Grant Writing Mission: Demonstrate the Effect of Your Cause!

Lack of success in grant writing to foundations usually means that the applicant is trying to convince a grant maker that the agency’s cause IS the grant maker’s desired effect. In other words, a good cause isn’t enough, grant makers expect the cause to have an effect on their field of interest.  Many times the cause an applicant is promoting has no direct impact on the field of interest; there may a sliver of attachment but slivers of impact don’t generate grant money.

The correct approach is exactly the opposite. The convincing grant is the one that presents a cause that makes a grant maker say “BINGO, BULL’S-EYE, that cause has DIRECT IMPACT on my field of interest!” There must be clearly a demonstrable connection between the cause and the effect (on the field of interest).

Ways to improve your chances of securing grant funding:

1. Be absolutely clear about what your cause is. You must know what fields of interest your cause directly impacts. Your mission must inspire that “AHA! DIRECT IMPACT!” moment for the grant maker. Remember, round pegs in round holes and square pegs in square ones.

2. Validate the effect of your cause.  It does not matter if your cause is innovative or common the effect must be demonstrated.

3. Try to get in front of as many people as possible to talk about your cause. Expect to answer a lot of tough questions. Use these meetings to learn and to fine tune your arguments.  Use them to explore all possible linkages to the fields of interest your cause serves.

4. Rally people to your cause. Collaborate and give up some control! Don’t be afraid to reach out to potential partners. Don’t be afraid to bring in powerful Board members. Don’t be afraid to share the vision with others. Many organizations fail to thrive because there is a leader who climbs up on their philanthropic high horse and rides off without the constituents, the Board members, or even the staff! Feed your cause by sharing it and being inclusive; you’ll only starve it if you hold it by the throat.

Grants are given to agencies with a worthy cause that can demonstrate DIRECT IMPACT within a field of interest.  Agency leadership must be clear on what the cause is, who to include, what the impact is/could be, and where the likely funding sources are.

Related Posts:
Taking Your Grant research Beyoind the RFA
Grant Writing – Don’t Chase the Money
Photo Credit – Asif Akbar

5 MORE Mistakes that Can Lose Millions of Dollars in Grant Applications

As we learned yesterday, the level of competition for grant writers is intense and the economy is making grant funding ever more competitive. Yesterday I discussed five key mistakes that must be avoided to win grant funding. Five more key mistakes to avoid are discussed below. Keep these in mind as you prepare for the 2011 grant writing season.

Mistake 6 – Improper formatting can lower your score. It hardly needs to be said that a grant writer must follow the FRP guidelines to the letter. If formatting requirements do not specify “no condensed font” it does not mean using a condensed font is a good space-saving idea. It isn’t. You’re only going to make the readers angry who are trying to score your grant. A grant writer’s first priority should always be to make the readers’ jobs easy. Condensed fonts only make reading a lot harder. Never submit a 32 page proposal when the limit is 30 pages. If you are so foolish – some may say bold – as to do this, one of two things will happen and they’re both bad. Either the proposal will be thrown in the trash – or – the excess pages will be torn off and thrown away leaving your proposal short of critical information and thereby lowering your score.

Mistake 7 – Making the readers’ job harder. No grant ever lost points for including a table of contents when one wasn’t specifically requested. A table of contents helps a reader jump around your grant easily to find something when they want to. You’ll make the reader’s job easier if you include a TOC and make certain that it follows the RFP outline.  Other ways to make the readers’ job of scoring a grant easier are to used the exact headings for each section that are used in the Request For Proposals (RFP), follow the exact organization of the RFP, include only what is required, and make all graphics black and white-friendly.
Mistake 8 – Poor editing can kill a proposal. It is hard to take a writer seriously when their making lots of mistakes in they’re writing an grammer is very awful and maybe its even simply wrong altogether and it could be making your job of reading a peace of narrative harder than it has to be because then yer gonna get scord reel lo and you don’t want that to happen do you?

Mistake 9 – Failing to explain graphics and tables in narrative form can leave readers confused. Have you ever looked at a piece of artwork that for all the world looks like a collection of empty tissue boxes stacked oddly with a spotlight on them. But the friend you’re with likes it and it makes you wonder what they might have been smoking in college? Often when we’re creating a visual image of something or creating a table of figures, it makes sense to the creator but others need a little help to understand it. Always include a brief description of the image or table to help the reader understand what it means and why it is significant to their understanding of the proposal.

Mistake 10 – A late application is a dead application. Some grants have postmarked deadlines, some have “on my desk” deadlines, and others have online submission time deadlines. If you miss any of these your grant won’t get scored at all, even if you wrote the finest proposal since Aristotle and your agency is more deserving of assistance than Mother Theresa.

You may be asking yourself after the last two days of morbid blogging about making mistakes whether you are brave enough to submit a grant application? Why of course you are! Now you know about ten key mistakes to avoid, so you’ll only have to guess about the other ten.  Maybe you’re already thinking to yourself, “Hey, they forgot about #13!” Please feel free to comment about other key mistakes we all need to avoid.

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

5 MORE Mistakes that Can Lose Millions of Dollars in Grant Applications

As we learned yesterday, the level of competition for grant writers is intense and the economy is making grant funding ever more competitive. Yesterday I discussed five key mistakes that must be avoided to win grant funding. Five more key mistakes to avoid are discussed below. Keep these in mind as you prepare for the 2011 grant writing season.

Mistake 6 – Improper formatting can lower your score. It hardly needs to be said that a grant writer must follow the FRP guidelines to the letter. If formatting requirements do not specify “no condensed font” it does not mean using a condensed font is a good space-saving idea. It isn’t. You’re only going to make the readers angry who are trying to score your grant. A grant writer’s first priority should always be to make the readers’ jobs easy. Condensed fonts only make reading a lot harder. Never submit a 32 page proposal when the limit is 30 pages. If you are so foolish – some may say bold – as to do this, one of two things will happen and they’re both bad. Either the proposal will be thrown in the trash – or – the excess pages will be torn off and thrown away leaving your proposal short of critical information and thereby lowering your score.

Mistake 7 – Making the readers’ job harder. No grant ever lost points for including a table of contents when one wasn’t specifically requested. A table of contents helps a reader jump around your grant easily to find something when they want to. You’ll make the reader’s job easier if you include a TOC and make certain that it follows the RFP outline.  Other ways to make the readers’ job of scoring a grant easier are to used the exact headings for each section that are used in the Request For Proposals (RFP), follow the exact organization of the RFP, include only what is required, and make all graphics black and white-friendly.
Mistake 8 – Poor editing can kill a proposal. It is hard to take a writer seriously when their making lots of mistakes in they’re writing an grammer is very awful and maybe its even simply wrong altogether and it could be making your job of reading a peace of narrative harder than it has to be because then yer gonna get scord reel lo and you don’t want that to happen do you?

Mistake 9 – Failing to explain graphics and tables in narrative form can leave readers confused. Have you ever looked at a piece of artwork that for all the world looks like a collection of empty tissue boxes stacked oddly with a spotlight on them. But the friend you’re with likes it and it makes you wonder what they might have been smoking in college? Often when we’re creating a visual image of something or creating a table of figures, it makes sense to the creator but others need a little help to understand it. Always include a brief description of the image or table to help the reader understand what it means and why it is significant to their understanding of the proposal.

Mistake 10 – A late application is a dead application. Some grants have postmarked deadlines, some have “on my desk” deadlines, and others have online submission time deadlines. If you miss any of these your grant won’t get scored at all, even if you wrote the finest proposal since Aristotle and your agency is more deserving of assistance than Mother Theresa.

You may be asking yourself after the last two days of morbid blogging about making mistakes whether you are brave enough to submit a grant application? Why of course you are! Now you know about ten key mistakes to avoid, so you’ll only have to guess about the other ten.  Maybe you’re already thinking to yourself, “Hey, they forgot about #13!” Please feel free to comment about other key mistakes we all need to avoid.

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