Grant Writing Training

Here's Derek's commentary on our two days of grant writing training this week:

Yesterday, Veronica and I completed two days of grant training for a State agency in Sacramento.  It was lots of fun.  I’ve delivered grant writing training in the past on my own, but I haven’t ever teamed up to deliver it.  I think the participants benefitted a lot from having two grant writers giving hints and ideas from their experiences.

As we navigated through our daily agenda, I was reminded of how much there is to learn about grant writing and how much of it is learned by doing (and making mistakes) if you don’t have a good teacher and mentor.  I’d like to believe that Veronica and I helped these folks move along the road to becoming highly competent grant writers, but I know that some of what we said probably went in one ear and out the other simply for lack of experience and ability to put the information into context.  Hopefully they took good notes and the stuff they didn’t completely understand will become clear as they begin to write grants.

People holding jobs with the state often get a bad rap so let me just say that the fifty or so people whom we trained were on time, on task, and they were enthusiastic learners.  Not only that, the people who organized the training were competent, available, and welcoming.  It was refreshing and hopeful to see that there are so many quality people working in state government.

My boss and I gave a comprehensive 1-day overview of grant writing.  At the end of each day, participants could see that there is a lot more to know - and there is - so maybe we will be brought back for a second round of training.

Some companies make grant writing training a dry topic but we have ways to spice it up which are so good, so innovative, and so darned special that if I share them here our competitors will steal them from us (you’ll have to attend to find out – no industrial spying allowed either).  We were thankful to receive many positive comments on our evaluations so we’re pretty confident our methods worked.  All in all, we spent a fun couple of days with a bunch of great people: what more can we ask for!?

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Including Data Analysis in Your Grant Evaluation Section

I know, I know.  Data analysis is not everyone's favorite topic, but it's a topic you can't ignore if you want to be successful with grant writing.  Not only do you need to be able to analyze your data appropriately to accurately and effectively describe your need for the project in the needs section, but you also need to describe how you will analyze data as part of your evaluation plan.

I have read many grant evaluation plans. Most do a decent job of describing what data will be collected and how/when it will be collected.  The majority also discuss how the data will be used for program improvement purposes.  But when it comes to talking about how the data will be analyzed (one of the scoring criteria in most government grants, and many private ones, too), that's when most grant writers fall apart.

There isn't enough time here to discuss all of the detail you need to know regarding data analysis (hmmm....do I sense a series coming on?), but let's start with three basic concepts in analyzing the data that you should address.

Data Collection - Like I said, most people cover this pretty well in their evaluation plans.  You need to include what data you will be collecting, how you will collect it, when you will collect it, and who will collect it.  If new instruments (surveys, etc.) are going to be developed, you'll need to describe that process, too. Think through the whole process from developing or acquiring the instruments through getting the data into your computer for analysis.  Yes, I did say, "into your computer for analysis."  The days of tallying surveys by hand on paper are over.  Accept it.

Descriptive Statistics - This is a fancy way of saying that you'll use the data to describe something.  Descriptive statistics include frequency counts, percentages, means, etc. You'll use descriptive statistics to describe the population you served.  You'll use them to describe your basic outcome data (survey results, etc.).  Of course, whenever possible, you should disaggregate your descriptive statistics by important subgroups to make sure you painting an accurate picture. Most of the time, descriptive statistics are all you need for a basic program evaluation, but not always.....

Inferential Statistics - O.k., here's where we separate the men from the boys....or the women from the girls...or the real evaluators from the pretenders. Inferential statistics are used to help you make judgements about the data beyond what can be said by looking at the descriptive data alone. Inferential statistics help you determine the statistical significance of the changes you see (the likelihood that the changes occurred as a result of your treatment, rather than by chance).  They help you predict things, too. If you ever studied anything beyond descriptive statistics in school, you entered the world of inferential statistics.  It's a scary place for some, but it's the only place to go if you really want to show causation (that your program really made a difference), and isn't that what evaluation is all about?

If you need a refresher course on research methods, the Research Menthods Knowledge Base is a great place to start.

The GrantGoddess.com Program Evaluation Resources page has some links to interesting articles on data collection and analysis, as well as a link to two free webinars we have posted on evaluation basics.

Another Blog Your Should Read

I probably spend more time than I should scouring the Internet for resources and useful information. There are many blogs and websites out there that don't provide much useful information or, if they do, you have to pay to get it. Every now and then I come across some great resources that are useful and free. I'll be sharing them from time to time, so keep checking back.

The first blog I want to share with you is 79 Grant Writing Resources. The blog gives some excellent grant writing and grant seeking tips, as well as links to resources on a variety grant related topics. You'll also find some good warnings about little known tricks and errors to avoid.

Check it out. You will definitely learn something you didn't know before.