Keeping an Open Mind

 
I have had substantive conversations this week with three different potential new clients. They are all very different than any organization we have worked for in the past and they all need something from us that is slightly different than we have done in the past.

Five years ago, I might not have spoken with any of these folks because I was completely booked with clients who fit into the unique niche we had at the time.  Recently, though, we made a conscious decision to expand our reach a bit and to try some different things.  The economy had a small role in that decision, but it was mostly about the fact that I had burnout nipping at my heels and I was going to implode if I had to keep doing the same thing in the same way for another 20 years. I think some of you may be able to understand exactly what I’m talking about.

So, I’ve been saying ‘yes’ to conversations that I wouldn’t have had before. Guess what has happened?  I’ve been having some extraordinary conversations with some extraordinary people who do extraordinary things.  And I can help them.

Keeping an open mind has opened a door to a completely new level of experience and business for us, and it has re-lit some of that fire that has been dampened by years of routine.

All I had to do was listen.

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

Teaching People to Fish

We’re in the process of changing all sorts of things these days. The website will soon have a new, fresh look. Our online grant writing courses will soon have a whole new look and feel.Within a couple of weeks, we’ll be offering webinars to help you with specific grants you may be writing. We’ll also be expanding our review and critique services, with a focus on helping you become a better grant writer rather than doing it for you.

Why the changes?  Well, it has recently become apparent to me that I won’t be here forever. I know that most of you probably knew that, but I was surprised. My health is fine, by the way.  This was more of an existential awareness. So, I’ve decided that instead of focusing on giving away fish (or selling fish) I’d rather teach people to fish. But I’m not talking about fish. I’m talking about grant writing.

Keep an eye out for the new changes to start rolling out, and if you have any ideas, please share them.

Fishing anyone?

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

The Power of Subheadings

You have organized your proposal according to the scoring criteria as the RFP has required or suggested, but you find that you still have large blocks of text and you fear that some of your key points may be lost. There are several ways to highlight your key points.  You can use bold or italics. You can use text boxes or other graphics (if the formatting guidelines allow them). You can also use subheadings.

Subheadings are great way to highlight key points and develop more structure in the proposal. They also allow you to break up the text, which makes it easier to read. And remember, making it easier to read means that the readers will like you. That’s a very good thing.

You can create subheadings for the sub-criteria in the scoring guidelines (and you should), but you can also add subheadings that target your key ideas or the core elements of your program design.

Subheadings – simple, but powerful.

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Read more tips like this in 101 Tips for Aspiring Grant Writers.

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

Grant Writers Are Not Magicians

Good grant writers can make a lot happen, but we’re not magicians. I’m surprised  at how often I’ve been asked to step far beyond the grant writer role and work miracles within an organization. Here’s a partial list of the things I’ve been asked to do:

  • Make up a program design when none exists.
  • Use language to make it look like an organization has been collaborating with other organizations for a long time when, in fact, it hasn’t.
  • Write letters of support for partners to sign that “say what we need them to say,” rather than what the partner really plans on doing.
  • Write about how the program will be integrated with other programs in the agency when the agency hasn’t told me anything about other programs or how they plan to integrate them.
  • Make up in-kind contributions.
  • Put a budget together with no information about actual personnel costs or fringe benefits.
  • “Fudge” needs data to exaggerate the agency’s need for the grant.
  • Read through thousands of pages of back up information with the expectation that I’ll then have all I need to write a grant for the organization.
  • Take one grant application and “re-purpose” it for other grants at no additional charge because “it’s basically the same thing.”

Some of these things are unethical. Some are fraudulent. Others are just unrealistic.

Yes, I am the Grant Goddess, and yes, I can make miracles happen.

But that doesn’t mean I should, or that I should be expected to in every circumstance.

Have you been asked to do anything unreasonable in your grant writing journey?

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

6 Things to Do After the Grant Has Been Submitted

After a grant application has been submitted, it’s tempting to just walk away from the project and relax. You’ve been dealing with intense stress for weeks and you finally crossed the finish line. You deserve a break, right?

Right.

But first there are some things you should take care of right away….

  1. Debrief the process.  Go through the entire process from start to finish and make notes about what went well and what didn’t go so well. For those things that didn’t go as well as you had hoped, what could you have done differently? What will you do differently next time? The longer you wait to do this, the more details you’ll forget and less valuable the activity will be.
  2. Send a final copy of the full proposal to your client or Executive Director. As excited as you are to have the project finished, they are just as excited to see the final product. Making them wait until Monday could make them a little anxious, so just do it now.
  3. Confirm online submittal. If you submitted the grant online, be sure that you don’t walk away from the project until confirmation has been received.
  4. Fax signature pages to the funder, if required. Some grants require online submittal, but then you have to fax in signed signature pages within 3 days.  Don’t wait.  Do it right away. It’s easy to forget about this when you have mentally moved on to another project.
  5. Gather up all documents related to the project and put them in one place.  This can be a separate pile on your desk to deal with later, if you’d like, or you can go through the process of filing everything away.  The point is that you don’t want to leave your back-up materials scattered all over the place. If you’re like most of us, you’ll be starting your next project right away (or you have several going on at the time) and cleaning one up before you walk away from it will help you be more efficient as you move on to the others.
  6. Send thank you notes or email to the people who helped you with the process. This is important. I prefer to send a handwritten note when I can, but a heartfelt email is better than nothing. Acknowledging the help and support of others will ensure that you’ll get their help the next time you need it. Oh, and it’s also just the right thing to do.

Now you can take that well-deserved break.

What other things you do immediately after deadline?

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