Two Great Opportunities for Grant Writing Resources Are Slipping Away

Two big opportunities are coming to an end in the next few days, so I thought I'd send out an announcement so you can take advantage of them before it's too late.

First, the opportunity to become a member at GrantGoddess.com for the early-bird membership rate of $9.99 per month (or $99.99 per year) ends on Monday.  Beginning June 1st, the membership price will go up to $19.99 per month (or $199.99 per year).  It's a bargain at the regular rate, but why miss this great chance to lock in the reduced pri9ce forever?

Members get unlimited access to articles, webinars, videos, and other resources on grant writing, grant seeking, program evaluation, and non-profit development. This summer, we'll be offering our first, full-blown online grant writing course, and members will get the first chance at registration and a dramatically decreased registration fee.  Go to the member information page to get more information and to sign up before June 1st.

As if that's not enough, if you become a member between today and 11:59 p.m. on May 31st, I'll also give you a FREE copy of my book, 101 Tips for Aspiring Grant Writers!  If you live within the United States, I'll pay for shipping, too!

And here's another opportunity --- If you go to our Grant Goddess Facebook page and click on the "Like" button at the top of the page by midnight tonight (5/28), you'll have a chance to win of TEN free books I'll be giving away! Tomorrow morning, I'll be randomly selecting 10 friends/fans from that page and contacting them to send them a free 101 Tips for Aspiring Grant Writers book!  If they live in the U.S., shipping will be free, too.

Our Grant Goddess Facebook page focuses on electronic and multimedia resources for grant writing.  We post grant tips, sources, inspiration, and other interesting tidbits. It's 100% free and it's focused on providing information, not selling anything.

So, act now to take advantage of these two great opportunities before they slip away forever.

So THIS is Going Paperless? Really?

I just had a giggle-fit reading the small print in a federal grant Request for Proposals (RFP) when I got to the part about the Paperwork Reduction Act and the government's estimate of how many hours it should take to complete this grant application.  Clearly, whoever wrote this little ditty of a paragraph that has been pasted into thousands of federal RFPs over the years has never written a federal grant.

This one says that it should only take 40 hours to put this application together. I spend more than 40 hours just chasing down the information and doing the research I need to do to start writing.  I wonder if the developers of the recent Investing in Innovation (i3) grants considered the hours it would take to thoroughly read through the over 450 pages of RFP, FAQs and other guidance in their time estimate. I wonder how many trees gave their lives for that innovative program?

Then I look around my office at the piles of paper, and as I wonder how a person could actually figure out how many trees died in this "paper saving endeavor," I think "Paperwork Reduction Act?"  Seriously?

Don't get me wrong.  I'm all for preserving the environment and conserving paper, but I really think we use more paper since the world has started going paperless.

Think about it.  The information age and the ease of sending information over the internet means that more and more resources are available.  And even though most of those come in electronic form, what do most of us do with all of the PDFs?  Print them.

Why? So we can take them with us to read later.

Isn't that what all these mobile devices (iPhone, Netbook, Laptop, iPad, Kindle) are for? Yes, but the screen is too small or it's too hard to browse through the document electronically, or looking at a screen all day and all night hurts my eyes...or...or....or....

Sure, we get fewer bank statements in the mail, but I actually get more junk mail.  In fact, I get five times as more junk mail because now I get more paper junk mail that comes in the mail as well as all the email spam. The email spam isn't paper, but it's just as annoying.

There are more paper inserts in newspapers, too, even though fewer people are subscribing to them.  Maybe local advertisers can afford more inserts since overall circulation is down.

I am amused when I read that the inserts are made out of recycled paper because I know I'm just going to put them directly into the recycle bin without looking through them so they can get recycled and an advertiser can make more inserts that I won't read, and so on, and so on, and so on..  It seems to me that we could save a bunch of effort by just not printing them at all.  Why don't we make those advertisements paperless?

If the government is really so concerned about going paperless, why won't the IRS do it?  The IRS is actually generating more paperwork than before, and everything I get from the IRS comes with pages of useless gobbledygook.  We are supposed to file electronically so they have less paper to deal with, but why won't they return the favor?

At this moment, I really want to go back to the pre-paperless era.  I would have less paperwork to deal with than I do now.

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Like a Penny Looking for Change....

The first instructor in my Masters program was a hysterically curmudgeonly character. In our first class, he described his many years of dealing with troublesome people. He detailed how these “people” caused for him a string of ailments from spastic colon to heart attack. He had developed a wonderful vernacular for leadership that could have filled a third or fourth volume of “The Portable Curmudgeon.”


My grouchy professor shared these gems with us:

1. “Get your loving at home” – He wasn’t talking about “wide stances” in airport stalls or flying off to South America to some concubine. HEAVENS NO! (although it would certainly apply) He was referring to the fact that we had to be OK with people not appreciating us when we took a stand, when we said “no,” and when we said “yes.”
2. “Like a penny looking for change” – Which simply referred to someone who was clueless about where they were, what they wanted, or how to go about getting it.
3. “People you supervise are going to take out unresolved issues with their fathers (or mothers for women) on you” – So whenever I got a particularly undeserved and nasty response from someone to a decision, an evaluation, or anything else I did, it helped me to think about it that way, “What did your parents do to you?”
4. “When you’re getting run out of town, get out front and present you’re leading a parade.” – Now this he admitted was Abraham Lincoln’s statement but he put it to good use and reminded us that as leaders we could run afoul of the politics of the situation and to be aware of our surroundings.
5. “Don’t pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.” - Another great quote borrowed from someone else. In other words, make friends of the media. Today it should be something like, “Don’t pick a fight with someone who buys bandwidth by the terabyte.”

I wish I had video tapes of our classes, or at the very least my notes from the class so I didn’t lose any of his sayings. Unfortunately, these 20-plus years later, I don’t even remember his name; but, his amazing crusty personality stuck with me, as did many of his quips and barbs. His cranky sayings spring to mind at times when I run into people with an unresolved daddy complex, or are an aimless and wandering penny.

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You might also enjoy Bless His Cotton Socks, another post by Derek.

Don't forget to check out GrantGoddess.com for grant writing tips and grant sources.

Distinguish Implementation Objectives from Outcome Objectives

Writing good objectives for your grant can be a challenge.   This post is about distinguishing between implementation objectives and outcome objectives. You can also check out Five Tips for Writing Good Grant Objectives.

Implementation objectives define your targets for implementing the program (e.g., Fifty program participants will be enrolled by June 30, 2010, 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. The achievement of an outcome objective proves that the program works. While implementation objectives are good, outcome objectives guide the true measures of your effectiveness. Generally speaking, funding sources are most interested in your outcome objectives, and when an RFA refers to "Goals and Objectives," it is referring to goals and outcome objectives.
Implementation objectives can also be used, but only when you clearly distinguish them from outcome objectives. Occasionally, a funding source will specifically ask you to list your implementation objectives. In that case, of course, you should follow the directions and provide the requested information, but typically implementation information is provided in the design section of the proposal.

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This is Tip 35 from 101 Tips for Aspiring Grant Writers.  Check out the book to see all 101 Tips!

Grant Writing Rejection

Grant writing rejection can be hard to take. Nonprofit consultant and grant writing expert, Derek Link, provides some tips on what you should do if your grant is rejected.

One reason that grant writers can fail is by taking on too many low percentage grants that are unlikely to be funded. Selecting grants to write is a delicate thing because as a grant writer you get so many requests from unqualified applicants.


It would be easy to take on lots of contracts from clients you know don’t have a prayer of getting funded, but then your reputation is nothing but a house of cards. Unless you want to move from state to state on an annual basis where nobody knows how unsuccessful you were the year prior, success is important!

Your reputation as a grant writer relies primarily on one thing - getting grants funded. Be prepared for rejection from time to time, because not every grant can be funded; not even the best written ones. Grant rejection is hard to take when you’ve written what you believe to be a good narrative. Getting rejected means doing some damage control with the client as well as preparing for resubmission when the opportunity arises.
Here are some ideas about what to do when your grant is rejected:

1. Always ask for the readers' comments. Funding agencies don’t always have the staff to provide these so often your request will be denied. If you do get them, study them carefully and try not to focus on the things that the readers obviously missed. I’ve heard grant writers get all wound up about some reader missing something that cost them points. OK, it happens and it stinks, but move on to why did they miss it? Was it in the wrong section? Maybe it needed to be repeated, bolded, underlined. On the rewrite, make sure that point is easier to find and repeated so even the slowest reader can find it.
2. If you find that the readers really missed the mark on your proposal, then file a challenge and detail the reasons you think that the readers got it wrong. There has to be a truly egregious error for a negative funding decision to be reversed. Remember, they’ve probably already sent out the notices to all the people who were successful so it’s unlikely they are going to eat crow and reorganize the whole field to fund your proposal. But it can happen, so sometimes it’s worth a challenge. If it's a federal grant, your appeal needs to demonstrate that a standard other than the approved scoring criteria was applied.  That is nearly impossible to demonstrate.
3. If you can’t get readers’ comments then it’s a good idea to request copies of some of the winning proposals so you can compare them to what you submitted. Write down the reasons you think that the proposal was rejected and keep it on file for the following submission. It’s better to do it right after you learn why you weren’t funded.
4. If you planned with a collaborative that meets regularly, discuss the rejected proposal with them to talk about why it wasn’t funded and whether the group is capable and willing to make changes in the proposal design so it is more likely to be funded the next time around.

It’s a terrible experience to have to give a client disappointing news about a grant being rejected. Your clients put a lot of faith in your writing abilities and failure hurts your reputation as a “grant magician.” A failed grant in the early stages of a client relationship can ruin your relationship with them. Be wise about which grants you write and try to steer clear of lower percentage competitions with a client until you’ve had some success and demonstrated your competence. Once your relationship has been established, and your abilities are enshrined in the annals of their annual report, then you can survive a few rejections here and there.

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Grant Writing is Like a Symphony

I have a colleague who likes to equate grant writing with all sorts of things like peanut butter, sausage, donautes and the like, but I think grant writing is more like a symphony.

There are many different parts to a grant and each of those parts on its own can be very complex, yet all of the parts come together to make a whole that is truly much greater than the sum of all its parts.

In the composition of a symphony, how you put the pieces together makes the difference between noise and music, and between a piece of music that is simply o.k. and one that is inspirational. Sure, the technical aspects of putting it all together are important. In a grant application, if you don't connect all of the parts (needs connected to goals and objectives, which need to be connected to project design, and so on), you'll end up with a product that looks like noise, and it probably won't be funded.

In a truly great symphony, the composer goes beyond the technical aspect of composition and creates art. The same is true for grant writing.  A highly skilled and successful grant writer will move beyond the technical aspects of the writing and the composition of the grant and will use those to create a work of art - a grant application that speaks to the reader, demonstrates commitment, and inspires the reader to take action (the right kind of action - recommending the proposal for funding).

The next time you write a grant, create a symphony.

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Take a look at our YouTube video on Pulling All the Parts of Your Grant Together.

Get grant writing tips in the palm of your hand.  Try the Grant Tips iPhone app!

Want even more tips? Try our new book, 101 Tips for Aspiring Grant Writers.

Visit our Grant Writing Resources page for links to a plethora of great grant writing resources.

Focus on Your Mission for Grant Writing Success

Non-profit consultant and grant writing expert, Derek Link, shares some important thoughts on how focus on your mission can lead to grant writing success:

Sometimes when I need to write a blog post, I’ll sit there in front of the blank screen, and unfortunately, my mind is as blank as the screen. So I just start to write, as I am now, waiting for a spark of inspiration. Just like some well-intentioned non-profits, I just want to “do” something, I haven’t a clue what it is yet.

Chasing the money isn’t an effective way to achieve your vision. Your grant seeking should be driven instead by the mission of your organization. Your mission is the “what we DO.” A mission should be laser-like and specific, and it has to lead logically to your vision.

People sometimes call me and say, “We want grants but don’t know how to write them, can you do that for us?” I say, “I’d be happy to help you. What do you need grants for?”

This is where the conversation can bog down. The client responds generally, “Oh, you know, we work with kids and we do recycling, so…well… grants for just about anything to do with kids or the environment would work. I’ve heard there’s lots of grants out there for kids and environmental projects.”

I revise my question, “What is it you want to do?” If the response is still vague then I know they are just chasing money. It is sad to me that the truest answer for many struggling nonprofit organizations that call me is, “We need grants to fix a budget problem. And, we don’t really care what the money is for, we can do anything so long as we get the money.”

The clear, specific mission is vital in grant making for these key reasons:

1. It focuses your grant searching.
2. It defines who will (and won’t) fund you.
3. It is convincing because it logically leads to your declared vision.
4. Your full commitment to it inspires confidence in your ask.

If your mission is, "we want to improve the environment", then how can you convince a grant maker interested in reducing pesticide use that your recycling program deserves funding? Unfortunately, you probably can’t, because there is a mismatch in your missions. So if your mission is wide angled, like the environment, or youth, or senior citizens, you need to focus it down to what you are actually doing or want to do to help in those areas before you look for grants or you’re going to waste a lot of valuable time chasing money that’s not available to you.

Using a wide angle lens is not the way to find grants. It’s only a starting place to define your mission. Zoom in, then zoom in some more, and then get the magnifying glass out.

Grant seeking is a little like comparing the grooves on two keys (missions) to make sure they’ll fit the same lock; if one little groove is out of place, the key simply won’t unlock the funding for you.

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Want more information on how defining your mission can help you acquire grant funding?  Become a member of GrantGoddess.com and visit the Non-Profit Dream Center for step-by-step detailed assistance!

Control or Collaboration? You Can't Have It Both Ways

I'm working with a client on a grant writing process for a project that is due in about 2 weeks. I am accustomed to working with multiple project partners in a collabortaive planning and program development process, but I have also worked with clients who had more of a "top down" approach through which an administrator or small group of administrators developed a program design, made the decsions, and passed their decisions on to me.

However, this grant process is a bit different because the client is trying to use both approaches.  Well, they are trying to walk through a collaborative planning process, while doing their own planning behind the scenes and trying to steer the collaborative planning process in the direction they want. Sure, I have seen this before, but usually the faux "collaborative" process is not nearly as extensive as this one is.

As you might expect, people who think they are participating in a real collaborative process are beginning to bristle at the not-so-subtle control being wielded by those at the top.

What does this mean for the grant writing process?  It will be slow.  It will be contentious at times.  It certainly is not the best way to plan a program.

Real collaboration has many benefits beyond being able to write that you went through a collaborative process.  It helps leverage community resources and it builds relationships that will pay off far into the future.

Short circuiting the process so you can maintain some extra control is really not worth it in the long run.  In fact, your collaborative partners would be grateful if you were upfront about your intentions at the beginning.  If the collaborative process is not going to be real, they have better things to do, just like you do.

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Related Posts:


Trust the Grant Writing Process


When Partnerships Go Bad

The Importance of Respect When Working Collaboratively with Others

Visit GrantGoddess.com for more grant writing help!

Preparing for the Grant Writing Process

Here's some advice from non-profit consultant and grant writing expert, Derek Link, on preparing for the grant writing process and staying focused while you work on your grant:

It is entirely possible that as you read this that you are either taking a break from writing a grant, or that you are seeking inspiration as you prepare to write one. In either case, you are probably experiencing the anticipation of mental engagement with a narrative that becomes a consuming process throughout the narrative creation.

The grant writing process is mentally challenging so it’s wise to prepare yourself before you write and to think ahead about your writing process.

Here are some things I do that may be helpful for you to consider:

1. Get enough sleep. You won’t get more quality writing done by staying up later.
2. Eat the right foods. If you’re hungry or spaced out on Twinkies, your narrative may go off track.
3. Take your normal exercise. Sitting and writing is hard on the body and if you get uncomfortable, it’s harder to write well.
4. Set up a low distraction, comfortable place to write. No unneeded electronics, no kids chirping for snacks; it’s time to isolate and focus. Use good lighting and acomfortable chair. Have some snacks and beverages at the ready.
5. Be organized before writing. Nothing is worse than getting into a rhythm on a narrative only to come to a screeching halt because some key piece wasn’t anticipated and is missing and since it is Saturday as you write, there’s no way to get it ‘til Monday.
6. Set a realistic goal for the day. Know how much you want to complete of the narrative so you feel good about your writing. Finishing the narrative should only be your goal once. ( OK, maybe twice)!
7. Go somewhere else to read your drafts. Two things I like to do with my drafts after I print one out to review: a) I like to go somewhere else to read it like a coffee shop or outdoors in summer, and b) I like to read it out loud to myself since I often get too close to the narrative to hear it in my head after a while.

Remember the dog in the animated cartoon “Up” that is introducing himself and suddenly a squirrel distracts him? Well you don’t need too many squirrels in your day to take you off-task while writing. Getting ready to write requires that you plan ahead to minimize distractions as much as possible, life happens but the squirrels can sometimes be kept at bay.

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Related Posts:
 
Time Management Tips for Grant Writers
 
Form a Grant Planning Committee
 
Facing the Blank Page
 
Relax....and Tell Your Story
 
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Tune Out the Noise in Your Grant Proposal

Do you remember how difficult it could be sometimes to tune in to a radio station? A tiny move of the tuning nob could bring static.  Another tiny move could bring in two stations talking over each other and a little static, too. Finally, you get it just right and you hear the station you wanted as clear as a bell. (I realize that there may be some very young ones among you who have come of age in an era of iPods and Pandora who don't know what I'm talking about, but go with it for a moment, ok?)

I have been working on a grant application this week (as usual), and I have a great client who has been doing some fantastic things.  This client is extremely bright and she sees connections between everything.  When she describes what she wants to do through the new grant, she can't help but connect it to all sorts of other activities and programs that are already going on.  This integration of webs of services and partnerships is one of the hallmarks of a skilled program administrator, but it makes for messy grant writing.

Don't get me wrong.  It's very important in a grant narrative to connect new and existing services, to show the organization's capacity for implementing programs of the size and scope of the one in the grant, and to use previous examples of success to demonstrate the likelihood of success of the new project. However, it's also critical to describe what you plan to do as clearly as possible with as little "noise" as possible.

The simpler the program design, the easier it is to describe it clearly in writing. The more complex the design, the more potential there is for "static," and the higher the likelihood that the readers will start to read other things into the proposal that are not really there and to impose their experiences and biases over your writing (that's the other radio station you hear that's infringing on your favorite song).

Your job as a grant writer is to keep it as simple as possible for the reader. Draw connections to other programs and services, but not so much that your message (your program design) becomes less clear.

Remember, the grant readers don't know your organization or your fabulous program. Those little extra pieces of information about related programs and services that are only partially explained bring into your mind a full picture of integrated services.  To the reader, they only spark questions.....and static.

Do yourself a favor.....keep your program design simple and clean, and clear as a bell.

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Related Posts:

Five Tips for Writing Good Grant Objectives

Five Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Grant Objectives

Relax......And Tell Your Story

A Fool and His Grant Are Soon Parted - Follow the Instructions

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Bless His Cotton Socks

Every culture has its own polite way of saying, “He’s an idiot.” In South Africa, a friend of mine who grew up there will say “Bless his cotton socks." In the Southern U.S., I’ve heard the common, “Bless his heart.” In California, we tend to use the somewhat lukewarm, “He meant well.”


These sayings are used at the end of sentences like, “Joe fell off the top step of the ladder again, bless his heart," or “Judy is wearing that peacock-feathered hat again, bless her heart.” In grant writing there’s a little different set of applications for these sayings. Here are a few:

1. “Mortimer thought the budget would be easy to put together so he waited until 8AM on the deadline date to start. Bless his heart.”
2. “Jackie skimmed the RFA and missed the fact that there had to be an evaluation section. Bless her heart.”
3. “George figured a one page letter of commitment wasn’t a big deal for the partners so he didn’t ask request them until a week before the deadline. Bless his cotton socks.”
4. “Fernando wanted to save paper so he reduced the font to size ten in all the tables when the RFA required a size 12, but he meant well.”
5. “Wynona put 20 computers in the project budget but didn’t describe how she’d use them in the narrative. Bless her heart.”

While we use these sayings to accommodate the humanity of our follies, finding them at the end of a sentence in a grant writing process is generally very bad news. Don’t invite someone to bless your cotton socks as a grant writer!

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This post was written by Derek Link, non-profit consultant and expert grant writer.

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Want grant tips? Visit GrantGoddess.com!

The Anti-Creativity Checklist for Non-Profit Leaders

Lisbeth Cort, author of the blog, "Nonprofit Execs on the Edge" shared this excellent video for leaders about 14 things you should never say!!!

It's an Anti-Creativity Checklist....



My Anti-Creativity Checklist from Youngme Moon on Vimeo.


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Vsit GrantGoddess.com for mroe advice for non-profit leaders.

Federal Grant Selection Processes: Random or Fair?

I thoroughly understand that federal grant makers want applicants to be concise in their writing.  I also understand that having page limitations and formatting requirements helps to level the playing field so everyone is bound by similar restrictions.

Over the years I have witnessed formatting requirements and page limitations become more and more restrictive in an effort to prevent an unfair advantage to those who are more skilled at the manipulation of text through MS Word and other word processing programs.

The problem is that these restrictions have now reached the point of being so ridiculous that while the playing field may be level, it has become nearly impossible in some competitions to provide enough information to help the readers make a truly informed choice. Yes, the playing field is level now....we all have the same opportunity to be randomly chosen, almost by chance, because we cant really differentiate ourselves anymore.

Don't misunderstand.  There is still a clear line of differentiation between good grant narratives and poor ones. But that's not where the problem lies.  In today's competitive grant environment, when all of the funded grants in a competition will score at least 96 out of 100 points (anything above 90 - 92 would be considered excellent), a single point can make the difference between success and failure. If there are 100 proposals that can be considered excellent, and only 50 are being funded, it's critical to give readers enough information to fairly differentiate between those proposals.  Without enough that information, it's like a lottery. Sure, there is a "process" for selection, but that process yields the same result as if the the funded proposals had been selected by chance from among the high quality applications.

I'm working on a grant now that has a 25 page limit (double-spaced) for the narrative. In that 25 pages, we are asked to "thoroughly address" 7 scoring criteria and 22 sub-criteria. The bottom line is that some will completely fail at the task; however, there will be hundreds of proposals that score well (over 94), but the page limitation is so restrictive that no one will be able to thoroughly address all the criteria.

So it's a crap shoot. If you get lenient readers who really like your core ideas, you're in.  If you get very detail oriented readers who focus on the detail rather than the big picture, you're done.

And all it will take is a single point to make the difference.

If you're funded, you'll get the money (which is great!), as well as the praise of your colleagues for your grant writing skills.  If you're not funded, you'll spend time trying to figure out what you did wrong, when in reality your proposal might have been better than some that were funded.

This is a way to select applicants to fund, but is it the best way?

If applicants were allowed to just say what they need to say in response to the scoring criteria, readers would actually have enough information to make an informed decision.  There could be suggested page limitations,and savvy writers would know that submitting too much is not in your best interest because you'll just lose the readers' attention. That would really force applicants to think carefully about their proposals.

In the current competition I'm working on, there will be millions of dollars worth of professional time invested in the grant preparation process.  Most of that investment will be taxpayer money because public agencies (school districts) are competing for this grant. The sad part is that most of that investment will be wasted because the majority of the grants that are submitted will not be funded.  All of those hours could have been spent helping kids.

If this kind of speculative investment must be made to compete for funding, at least make it a fair process and give the readers enough information to make an informed choice.Otherwise, just save all the time and money that folks spend on proposal preparation and just flip a coin.

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