Good Grant Writers are Like Wedding Planners

Non-Profit consultant and grant writer, Derek Link, shares some thoughts on deadlines:

Deadlines are stressful and that’s what a wedding date is for a wedding planner. Each grant also comes with a deadline date and that makes grant writing stressful for the writer and his staff. Many grant applications are complicated documents that necessitate great attention to detail in order to produce a cohesive proposal. Paying attention to detail under the pressure of a deadline is hard! A good grant writer must also be a good organizer, sort of like a wedding planner, without the cake.

Here are a few glitches that can and do come up all in alignment with Murphy’s Law which says if things can go wrong, they will go wrong, and at the worst possible time.

1. Online submissions are always subject to the vagaries of the Internet, the website host, your internal network, your computer, your software, and power failures. A crash in any of these can cause you to miss a deadline.

2. Paper submissions are subject to internal network problems, computer problems, software problems, copier problems like running out of ink or hideous accordion-folded, roller-munching paper jams.

3. Any kind of submission can be impacted by key staff getting sick, faulty review of application docs that suddenly become clear at the last moment, lack of expertise with software or online submission programs, failure of the applicant to register for the online system in time to be approved and receive access, and even – dare I say it – clients who neglect to get key documents signed and returned until the day of the deadline.

In the end it’s crucial that the deadline is met because a tardy grant is a dead grant. It is important to know where the potential pitfalls are in advance, especially if you are motivated by the adrenaline-laced rush of procrastination. Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby in the Procrastinator’s Success Kit said, “A perfect method for adding drama to life is to wait until the deadline looms large.”

Grant drama is as inevitable as wedding drama so be sure you know where the pitfalls are and then put contingency plans in place.

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Do you know about the awesome resources available to you through the GrantGoddess.com Member Site?

What Schools and Non-Profits Can Learn from Business About Achieving Goals

I met with the executive director of a local non-profit organization last week. His organization has been grant dependent for years and has a very, very small private donor base. He knows they need to increase communications with the community and build the donor base, but there just isn’t time.  The staff is busy providing services. There is no fund development plan, and every time he starts to move forward with private fund development, he makes progress for a while, and then gets distracted by another grant deadline or yet another administrative fire to put out.

I’ve hear this story so many times that I wish I had a dollar for each time I heard it.  I’d have a nice retirement account built up. I’ve heard the flip side, too….folks are so busy with private fundraising, donor courting, and program services that they have no time to write grants.

Running several businesses has taught me a few things (often as a result of mistakes I’ve made, but learning is learning, right?), and one of those things is that there is truth in the phrase, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

Here’s the lesson for schools and non-profits that successful businesses do automatically:

  • Set a measurable performance target.  What do you want to accomplish? Increase your donor base?  By how much?  By when? Raise funds through multiple sources to support a youth program?  How much? By when?  You get the point. You may need to set multiple targets, but don’t set too many. You won’t be able to maintain focus if you have more than 3-5 goals. If there is one target that is really important, stick to that one.
  • Devise a strategy to meet your target. The problem with most schools and non-profits is that they have been able to continue functioning for years regardless of not meeting outcome targets, so they are not very good at devising realistic and effective strategies for meeting outcomes. Businesses close down if they consistently fail to meet performance targets.  So, devise your strategy as if your job and/or your agency depended on it.  Get some expert advice. Enlist your entire staff.
  • Develop short term and long term action plans to implement your strategy. Assign responsibilities and timelines. This is the list of activities that must be completed to fully implement your strategy. Be very specific.
  • Develop short term benchmarks to make sure you stay on track. Don’t just set an annual goal and wait until the end of the year to see if you met it or not. You simply must set interim benchmarks to determine if you’re making progress so you can modify your strategy, if necessary.
  • Use your action plans to drive your monthly, weekly, and daily activities. This is the action part.  Make no mistake – if you are not doing something just about every day to get you closer to your goal, you probably won’t meet it, and you’ll be scratching your head at the end of the year as you make more excuses.
  • Stay focused. Not only do you have to stay focused, but you have to keep your staff focused.  You need to monitor your part of the action plan, as well as the components of the plan for which your staff are responsible.
  • Review your progress frequently. Take time at least monthly to see where you are with the implementation of the plan. Progress updates on the plan should be a standing item on every staff meeting agenda.  It’s your job as a leader to keep the staff focused and to demonstrate the importance of assessing progress and changing course, if necessary. If you never talk about the target and the plan, don’t be surprised when they quit working toward it.

 This really is how successful folks get from point A (the current situation) to point B (wherever they want to go).  Learn from this and jump on the success bandwagon.

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

What Schools and Non-Profits Can Learn from Business About Achieving Goals

I met with the executive director of a local non-profit organization last week. His organization has been grant dependent for years and has a very, very small private donor base. He knows they need to increase communications with the community and build the donor base, but there just isn’t time.  The staff is busy providing services. There is no fund development plan, and every time he starts to move forward with private fund development, he makes progress for a while, and then gets distracted by another grant deadline or yet another administrative fire to put out.

I’ve hear this story so many times that I wish I had a dollar for each time I heard it.  I’d have a nice retirement account built up. I’ve heard the flip side, too….folks are so busy with private fundraising, donor courting, and program services that they have no time to write grants.

Running several businesses has taught me a few things (often as a result of mistakes I’ve made, but learning is learning, right?), and one of those things is that there is truth in the phrase, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

Here’s the lesson for schools and non-profits that successful businesses do automatically:

  • Set a measurable performance target.  What do you want to accomplish? Increase your donor base?  By how much?  By when? Raise funds through multiple sources to support a youth program?  How much? By when?  You get the point. You may need to set multiple targets, but don’t set too many. You won’t be able to maintain focus if you have more than 3-5 goals. If there is one target that is really important, stick to that one.
  • Devise a strategy to meet your target. The problem with most schools and non-profits is that they have been able to continue functioning for years regardless of not meeting outcome targets, so they are not very good at devising realistic and effective strategies for meeting outcomes. Businesses close down if they consistently fail to meet performance targets.  So, devise your strategy as if your job and/or your agency depended on it.  Get some expert advice. Enlist your entire staff.
  • Develop short term and long term action plans to implement your strategy. Assign responsibilities and timelines. This is the list of activities that must be completed to fully implement your strategy. Be very specific.
  • Develop short term benchmarks to make sure you stay on track. Don’t just set an annual goal and wait until the end of the year to see if you met it or not. You simply must set interim benchmarks to determine if you’re making progress so you can modify your strategy, if necessary.
  • Use your action plans to drive your monthly, weekly, and daily activities. This is the action part.  Make no mistake – if you are not doing something just about every day to get you closer to your goal, you probably won’t meet it, and you’ll be scratching your head at the end of the year as you make more excuses.
  • Stay focused. Not only do you have to stay focused, but you have to keep your staff focused.  You need to monitor your part of the action plan, as well as the components of the plan for which your staff are responsible.
  • Review your progress frequently. Take time at least monthly to see where you are with the implementation of the plan. Progress updates on the plan should be a standing item on every staff meeting agenda.  It’s your job as a leader to keep the staff focused and to demonstrate the importance of assessing progress and changing course, if necessary. If you never talk about the target and the plan, don’t be surprised when they quit working toward it.

 This really is how successful folks get from point A (the current situation) to point B (wherever they want to go).  Learn from this and jump on the success bandwagon.

Grant Writing Tools You Can Use

Every now and then we like to post about the amazing grant writing tools we have to help you be successful.  Most are totally FREE.  Those that aren’t free are very inexpensive. Please feel free to share these tools with your friends and colleagues. Grant writers need all the help they can get.

New Text Message Tips. This is really new for us.  We’re sending out grant writing tips and grant sources via text message. There are four different groups you can join – you can join them all or juts the one or two that interest you the most. The tips are totally free, but if you don’t have an unlimited text plan with your mobile provider, standard text message rates apply. We’re sending out 2-3 messages per week for each group, so you won’t be inundated with texts and we do not sell third party advertising so you won’t be flooded with ads, either. Here’s how you sign up:

  • Text GRANTS to 313131 for grant writing tips.
  • Text EDGRANTS to 313131 for grant sources relating to education.
  • Text KIDGRANTS to 313131 for grant sources for youth programs.
  • Text NONPROFIT to 313131 for non-profit development and fund raising tips.

Free online webinars. Right now, we offer free recorded webinars on the following grant writing topics:

  • Top 10 Tips for Grant Wsriting
  • Collaborating with School Districts on Grants
  • Writing Good Letters of Support
  • Grant Research: The Basics
  • Effective Grant Research

In addition to these topics, we have other webinars on various program evaluation and non-profit development topics.  All are between 20 and 40 minutes long (most are about 30 minutes) and all are available for viewing on demand.


BlogTalk Radio Tips from the Grant Goddess.  Every Friday at 3:00 p.m. (Pacific) we air our 30 minute  online radio show, Tips from the Grant Goddess, on BlogTalkRadio. If you miss the live show, you can listen to the recordings on demand at any time. There are currently over 35 shows archived for listening at your leisure.  Some of the many grant writing topics covered in these shows include:

  • The Art and the Science of Grant Writing
  • Tips for Effective Collaboration
  • Budget Development
  • Writing Good Letters of Support
  • Grant Writing: The Basics
  • Grant Seeking
  • Developing a Logic Model
  • Selecting Evidence-Based Programs and Practices

Grant Writing Resources Page. This page has quite a selection of great FREE grant writing resources and tools, including articles and links to other sites with good grant writing resources.

Past Blog Posts. Take some time to go back through the archive of blog posts here.The posts you find are different than the articles we put on the Grant Writing Resources Page. With the exception of news posts, most of our posts are about grant writing tips and techniques that you can still use long after they were initially published.

Grant Tips iPhone App. We took the time to put together an iPhone application with 101+ grant tips to help you succeed with your grant writing.  Currently, the app is available for 99 cents in the App Store. You can get more information here. Pretty soon, the FREE version of the app (Grant Tips Lite) will be available.  It will have only 50 tips, rather than over a hundred, but the other features will all be the same. Stay tuned for more information as we release the new app.

Membership at GrantGoddess.com. Everything I’ve told you about so far has been free (or very inexpensive). A membership at GrantGoddess.com costs only $9.95/month (or you can save some money and get an annual membership for $99/year). On the member site, you’ll have access to the largest collection of grant seeking, grant writing, program evaluation, and non-profit development resources available on the web! The content is not duplicated from the free site; it’s all developed just for members. We launched the member site in January 2010 and it’s growing every day.  But here’s the rub — the early bird rate of $9.95/mo is only good until the end of May.  On June 1, the price will go up to $19.95/month.  Lock in your lower membership rate now!

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

Grant Writing Tools You Can Use

Every now and then we like to post about the amazing grant writing tools we have to help you be successful.  Most are totally FREE.  Those that aren’t free are very inexpensive. Please feel free to share these tools with your friends and colleagues. Grant writers need all the help they can get.

New Text Message Tips. This is really new for us.  We’re sending out grant writing tips and grant sources via text message. There are four different groups you can join – you can join them all or juts the one or two that interest you the most. The tips are totally free, but if you don’t have an unlimited text plan with your mobile provider, standard text message rates apply. We’re sending out 2-3 messages per week for each group, so you won’t be inundated with texts and we do not sell third party advertising so you won’t be flooded with ads, either. Here’s how you sign up:

  • Text GRANTS to 313131 for grant writing tips.
  • Text EDGRANTS to 313131 for grant sources relating to education.
  • Text KIDGRANTS to 313131 for grant sources for youth programs.
  • Text NONPROFIT to 313131 for non-profit development and fund raising tips.

Free online webinars. Right now, we offer free recorded webinars on the following grant writing topics:

  • Top 10 Tips for Grant Wsriting
  • Collaborating with School Districts on Grants
  • Writing Good Letters of Support
  • Grant Research: The Basics
  • Effective Grant Research

In addition to these topics, we have other webinars on various program evaluation and non-profit development topics.  All are between 20 and 40 minutes long (most are about 30 minutes) and all are available for viewing on demand.


BlogTalk Radio Tips from the Grant Goddess.  Every Friday at 3:00 p.m. (Pacific) we air our 30 minute  online radio show, Tips from the Grant Goddess, on BlogTalkRadio. If you miss the live show, you can listen to the recordings on demand at any time. There are currently over 35 shows archived for listening at your leisure.  Some of the many grant writing topics covered in these shows include:

  • The Art and the Science of Grant Writing
  • Tips for Effective Collaboration
  • Budget Development
  • Writing Good Letters of Support
  • Grant Writing: The Basics
  • Grant Seeking
  • Developing a Logic Model
  • Selecting Evidence-Based Programs and Practices

Grant Writing Resources Page. This page has quite a selection of great FREE grant writing resources and tools, including articles and links to other sites with good grant writing resources.

Past Blog Posts. Take some time to go back through the archive of blog posts here.The posts you find are different than the articles we put on the Grant Writing Resources Page. With the exception of news posts, most of our posts are about grant writing tips and techniques that you can still use long after they were initially published.

Grant Tips iPhone App. We took the time to put together an iPhone application with 101+ grant tips to help you succeed with your grant writing.  Currently, the app is available for 99 cents in the App Store. You can get more information here. Pretty soon, the FREE version of the app (Grant Tips Lite) will be available.  It will have only 50 tips, rather than over a hundred, but the other features will all be the same. Stay tuned for more information as we release the new app.

Membership at GrantGoddess.com. Everything I’ve told you about so far has been free (or very inexpensive). A membership at GrantGoddess.com costs only $9.95/month (or you can save some money and get an annual membership for $99/year). On the member site, you’ll have access to the largest collection of grant seeking, grant writing, program evaluation, and non-profit development resources available on the web! The content is not duplicated from the free site; it’s all developed just for members. We launched the member site in January 2010 and it’s growing every day.  But here’s the rub — the early bird rate of $9.95/mo is only good until the end of May.  On June 1, the price will go up to $19.95/month.  Lock in your lower membership rate now!

Five Tips for Writing Good Grant Objectives

Writing good grant objectives is not rocket science, but I have seen it trip up more than a few writers. Think of your objectives as the cornerstone of your project design.  They are linked to your needs and your solutions, and they play a prominent role in the evaluation section. It is definitely worth the time to make them as strong as possible.  Here are a few tips to help you out:

  1. Make your objectives SMART. That stands for Specific, Measurable Achievable, Realistic (I’ve also heard Relevant used here, but I prefer Realistic) and Time-bound. 
  2. Use measures that are available to you. Unless there are specific measures that are required by the funding source, write your objective with measurement tools that you have available at your site.  While you should use existing assessments whenever possible, this might be the opportunity to add new assessments you have been considering using anyway. Just be careful not to commit yourself and the organization to the implementation of a new battery of assessments in addition to the implementation of a new program.
  3. Make sure each objective has all its parts. The most effective outcome objectives are written as standard behavioral objectives.  Each should have four parts:
    1. What will be measured?
    2. When will it be measured?
    3. How much growth do you expect?
    4. How will you know that the objective has been achieved?
  4. Distinguish implementation objectives from outcome objectives. Implementation objectives define your targets for implementing the program (e.g., Fifty program participants will be enrolled by June 30, 2011, as measured by intake records.) and outcome objectives define your ultimate achievement targets (e.g., Forty students will complete the program each year, as measured by achievement of a passing score on the XYZ exam.). Think of it this way: the achievement of an implementation objective proves that you are implementing the program (doing what you said you would do).  The achievement of outcome objective proves that the program works.
  5. Review the formal evaluation requirements of the funding source before finalizing your objectives. Since you will be required to demonstrate the degree to which you have achieved your objectives and you will be required to provide specific data to the funding source as part of a national, state, or organizational (if you have a private funding source) evaluation, it makes sense to try to tailor your objectives to the data that will be required for the formal evaluation.  Not only does this streamline your planning and help with implementation, it also demonstrates your understanding of the needs and requirements of the funding source.

———————————–

For more grant writing tips, check out the Grant Writing Resources at GrantGoddess.com or download our Grant Tips iPhone App.  You can also text the word GRANTS to 313131 to receive grant writing tips 2-3 per week on your mobile phone (Tips are free, but standard text message rates from your mobile carrier may apply if you don’t have an unlimited text plan.).

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

Five Tips for Writing Good Grant Objectives

Writing good grant objectives is not rocket science, but I have seen it trip up more than a few writers. Think of your objectives as the cornerstone of your project design.  They are linked to your needs and your solutions, and they play a prominent role in the evaluation section. It is definitely worth the time to make them as strong as possible.  Here are a few tips to help you out:

  1. Make your objectives SMART. That stands for Specific, Measurable Achievable, Realistic (I’ve also heard Relevant used here, but I prefer Realistic) and Time-bound. 
  2. Use measures that are available to you. Unless there are specific measures that are required by the funding source, write your objective with measurement tools that you have available at your site.  While you should use existing assessments whenever possible, this might be the opportunity to add new assessments you have been considering using anyway. Just be careful not to commit yourself and the organization to the implementation of a new battery of assessments in addition to the implementation of a new program.
  3. Make sure each objective has all its parts. The most effective outcome objectives are written as standard behavioral objectives.  Each should have four parts:
    1. What will be measured?
    2. When will it be measured?
    3. How much growth do you expect?
    4. How will you know that the objective has been achieved?
  4. Distinguish implementation objectives from outcome objectives. Implementation objectives define your targets for implementing the program (e.g., Fifty program participants will be enrolled by June 30, 2011, as measured by intake records.) and outcome objectives define your ultimate achievement targets (e.g., Forty students will complete the program each year, as measured by achievement of a passing score on the XYZ exam.). Think of it this way: the achievement of an implementation objective proves that you are implementing the program (doing what you said you would do).  The achievement of outcome objective proves that the program works.
  5. Review the formal evaluation requirements of the funding source before finalizing your objectives. Since you will be required to demonstrate the degree to which you have achieved your objectives and you will be required to provide specific data to the funding source as part of a national, state, or organizational (if you have a private funding source) evaluation, it makes sense to try to tailor your objectives to the data that will be required for the formal evaluation.  Not only does this streamline your planning and help with implementation, it also demonstrates your understanding of the needs and requirements of the funding source.

———————————–

For more grant writing tips, check out the Grant Writing Resources at GrantGoddess.com or download our Grant Tips iPhone App.  You can also text the word GRANTS to 313131 to receive grant writing tips 2-3 per week on your mobile phone (Tips are free, but standard text message rates from your mobile carrier may apply if you don’t have an unlimited text plan.).

Is Grant Writing Success Really Just About Luck?

As a successful grant writer, I’ve actually had people say to me, “Wow! You sure are lucky!”  My first thought is, “Gee, that luck sure did take a lot of work!”

I’ll admit it.  There is a certain amount of luck in the formula of grant success, if you define luck as the impact of factors over which you have no control.  There are many things you can’t control in the process. You can’t control the readers.  You can’t control if your readers are well informed about your field or not.  You can’t control if your readers are tired, alert, happy, sad, cranky, or enthusiastic when they read and score your proposal.

In spite of that, there are many things you can control. The better your proposal, the more likely you are to be “lucky.” And a better proposal is all about skill and hard work. The more you refine your skill, the less vulnerable you are to luck.

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

Is Grant Writing Success Really Just About Luck?

As a successful grant writer, I’ve actually had people say to me, “Wow! You sure are lucky!”  My first thought is, “Gee, that luck sure did take a lot of work!”

I’ll admit it.  There is a certain amount of luck in the formula of grant success, if you define luck as the impact of factors over which you have no control.  There are many things you can’t control in the process. You can’t control the readers.  You can’t control if your readers are well informed about your field or not.  You can’t control if your readers are tired, alert, happy, sad, cranky, or enthusiastic when they read and score your proposal.

In spite of that, there are many things you can control. The better your proposal, the more likely you are to be “lucky.” And a better proposal is all about skill and hard work. The more you refine your skill, the less vulnerable you are to luck.

An Unusual Grant Scenario

I was hired recently by an organization to write a grant for a program they developed over a year ago. They applied for this same grant last year, but they were not successful.  The design section scored very well, but the needs section, management plan, and evaluation section did not score well.  In fact, those sections were scored very poorly.

My interest was piqued as I reviewed the readers’ comments.  Why?  Because this was an unusual scenario.

The most typical scenario when a grant is not funded is to see high scores for need, low scores for evaluation, and moderate scores for design.  Why is this?

Most applicants score high on need because they know their needs well. They have gathered their data and they really know why they want and need the grant.  Most applicants score low on evaluation because most people don’t know much about evaluation. It’s like the grant world’s second cousin.  Everybody knows there is an important connection to it, but not many have taken the time to really get to know it.

Scoring well on design, but poorly on everything else means that they know what they want to do, but they are unclear on why (needs section) and how (management plan). Or maybe they are clear on those things but they don’t know how to express it well.  In reality, it doesn’t matter.  If you can’t make it clear to the readers, you won’t be funded.

The good news is that I can help these folks.  They have an excellent, clear view of what they want to do.  They really do know how to do it; they just need help with expressing it in writing.  A needs section is easy to write if there’s a lot of available data (and there is).  As for evaluation, I’m a professional evaluator as well as a grant writer (did you know that?) so we’ll nail the evaluation section.

The lesson from this unusual grant scenario is that you must pay attention to all sections of your grant proposal.  All pieces of the puzzle need to fit together well. That requires attention to all sections separately, as well as to the way they connect to each other.

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