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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New Federal Grant Opportunities

The federal government, under the auspices of The Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance, has announced three new grant opportunities. These new grants are announced in the form of a "Funding Opportunity Announcement" for the Pathways to Responsible Fatherhood Grants program.

The programs are well-funded with $52,000,000 available for a Fatherhood program, $57,000,000 for a Marriage program, and $6,000,000 for an ex-prisoner Father's program.

Links to each of the programs are provided below:
Pathways to Responsible Fatherhood Grants Program
Community-Centered Healthy Marriage and Relationship (CCHMR) Grants Program
Community-Centered Responsible Fatherhood Ex-Prisoner Reentry Pilot Project


Call us if you need help writing a grant for one of these opportunities. (530) 669-3600.

Where is Grant Writing Perfection?

I’m agonizing over a grant narrative.  It isn’t perfect yet.  I’m missing a key piece of data from the client.  There are a couple of sections that can be tightened up. The deadline is coming and it’s not perfect yet. I always have trouble decided when to put it to rest.

There are some big truths about grant writing I’ve learned through years of practice.

1.      Writing is never finished.

2.      You and your client rarely prioritize the grant in the same way.

3.      The further removed a partner is from the writing, the harder it is to get what you need from them.

4.      You must stop revising at some point at edit carefully.

5.      When a section of narrative is hard to tighten up (make crystal-clear and comprehensible) a graphic might help accomplish that.

Perfection in your written narrative is something you aren’t going to achieve.  You do though want to be perfectly accurate, perfectly edited, and perfectly on time!  You’ll always agonize as you send it that there was a section you could have improved upon.  There will always be that unhelpful partner that sends you a letter of support the day after the grant was due.

We all learn to live with a little imperfection in the world and grant writing is no different.

Related Posts:
Grant Writing is No Mystery
Grant Writing is like Lasagna

A Grant Writer's Favorite Things

Grant writers can be hard to get to know because we spend so much time writing. I’ve put together a short list of favorite things that may help you understand us a little better. Please feel free to add to this list in the comments!


One Grant Writer’s favorite things:

1. The last page

2. Stamping original on the finished proposal

3. A Fed Ex tracking number

4. Clicking “submit”

5. Discovering the perfect quote in the literature

6. Tables of content

7. Unlimited appendices

8. Limited appendices

9. A new ink cartridge

10. An approval letter

11. A new RFP

12. An organized client

13. A completed checklist

14. A jam-free photocopy machine

15. A client who knows more about pdf’s than fax machines

I haven’t put these to a “Sound of Music” melody yet; but it’s in the works, as is the hiking clothing made from window coverings. (I’m finding that venetian blinds make scratchy shorts.)

Other posts you may enjoy:
Waxing Poetic About Grant Writing
Grant Writing is No Mystery
 
Photo Credit - alfonso diaz

Top Ten Reasons Why Your Grant Wasn't Funded: Part II

This is a continuation of my previous post in which I outlined the first five reasons your grant may not have been funded.  So let's jump right into it shall we?

6. You ran out of time and did a poor job on your budget narrative where you could have added deeper detail on the computers you wanted. (Details, details, details, that’s where the devil is.)


7. Your evaluation plan was shallow – you should have asked the consultant you plan to use to develop that section with you. (Tradition wisdom among mountain climbers is that 90% of the falls happen in the last 10% of the climb when people think they’re done and relax.)

8. You missed a webinar in which the funder gave explicit information necessary to be competitive – but it wasn’t a mandatory webinar. (Remember that the grant maker holds all the cards and may choose to show one when you least expect it.)

9. Your grant was submitted in the same geographic region as one from a more favorably fundable demographic group. (You can’t control for this but you can do the best job possible to demonstrate your client’s needs.)

10. Your grant lacked adequate research citations – perhaps too narrow in scope, out-dated, or authored by researchers whom one, or more, of your readers do not subscribe to. (Convene some experts, spend some time on the phone with one, spend some time in the stacks, whatever it takes to base your program on a solid foundation.)

Grant funding is difficult to obtain and when you throw in the human factor you’ll sometimes get a less-than-satisfactory result for a reason you can’t discern, or which in the reader comments seems prejudicial and unfair. That’s just the way the ball bounces. The best you can do is write a proposal that you are confident about, the rest is up to the readers who score your narrative.

Posts like this one:
 
What is a Grant Competition?
Grant Writing Rejection

Top Ten Reasons Why Your Grant Wasn’t Funded: Part I

There are lots of possible reasons why a grant isn’t funded. Obvious ones are things like missing the deadline (I want no scuses Lucy), the funder ran out of money (recessions hit everyone), the dog ate your application (bad dog), etc. There are also subtle reasons and here are ten I’ve taken from my experience scoring grants and reviewing reader comments.

1. Your grant was reviewed by somebody from another state who has a grudge against your state. (Personally, I would never fund anything for Hawaii, they’re blessed with 360 degrees of beaches and 365 days of sun, what else do they need? Joking, joking, stop throwing coconuts.)

2. Your grant was reviewed by someone with a strong bias in favor of a particular methodology – and you didn’t use it in your program design. (In the old days you could get caught in the old Apple-PC debate!)

3. Your grant was reviewed by someone unfamiliar with the field you’re writing for – and you did not explain your program adequately for them to understand it. (The project director for agriculture in northern Iowa might be called in to read early childhood education grants.)

4. Your grant was the last to be reviewed by a frustrated triad of fractious – and unemployed – PhD’s competing to prove they’re qualified to serve on your dissertation committee. (Mail order PhD’s are particularly fractious and tend to stuff their computer bags with continental breakfast snails and Splenda® packets)

5. Your grant lacked the detail necessary to tie all the parts together – things like numbering the tables, figures, and graphics then providing a table for these elements. (Or you used too much of all of these things and did not explain your program in enough detail in narrative.)

Five more later...
 
Posts like this one:
Ten Quick and Easy Ways to Make Any Grant Application Better
Getting Past the What to the How

3 Ways Non-Profits Build Trust with Grant Makers

There are literally tens of thousands of prospective foundations to sift through as you seek non-profit grant funding. Each foundation has its own timeline, guidelines, and fields of interest. All foundations have one thing in common, they look for evidence that your organization is trustworthy before giving you a grant.

New non-profits may find it hard to get their foot in the door with a foundation. Here are three key things to pay attention to that will increase your chance of building trust with foundations so you can secure grant funding:

1) Build it – Build a solid base of local support before seeking grants. I define support as donors, volunteers, and partner organizations.
2) Account for it - Establish an accounting system that would make a CPA proud and then conduct an annual audit to prove it’s as good as you think it is. If you can prove you are trustworthy with small amounts of money, someone might trust you with larger sums.
3) Prove it – By this I mean collect evidence - hard data and anecdotal – to show your programs are working and are appreciated.

If you serve undernourished sea turtles then keep records on how many turtles you take care of this year. A variety of data may be collected such as how many you turned away (if any) for lack of support or how many survive and return to the sea. Ask for written statements from volunteers, take a survey of the community, work with local marine organizations, talk to the media about what you do, join the local Chamber of Commerce, take pictures, and post videos online. Find a volunteer who is a scrap booking enthusiast and let them run wild. You goal is to build a portfolio of evidence that you’re active and effective. Don’t forget to put all this evidence online!

Finding grants for a non-profit organization is a lot easier when you can validate the impact of your programs and prove you are skillful in managing them.

Related Posts:

How is Your Organization's Governance Equilibrium?
Assessing Results: Are You a Quant or a Qualit?

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

Four Grant Writing Ethical No-No's

There are actually many ethical issues involved in grant writing, many more than I expected when I first began my journey as a professional grant writer. Here are four of the most common ethical issues you need to avoid if you are a professional grant writer:

1. Lying in a proposal.  I have to admit that I have always assumed that everyone would know that lying in a grant proposal is ethically wrong, but you'd be surprised how many times I have heard people try to justify it. Don't try to exaggerate your need for the grant or include program activities that you don't intend on implementing. Just tell the truth.
2. Reusing narrative written for another client. It's very tempting, especially when you're overworked and tired, to just lift some narrative that you wrote for another client for the same grant last year to put in someone else's narrative this year. Don't do it.  If you get caught (especially by a reader scoring the grant), you risk not being funded, but it's just plain wrong anyway. If you are being paid for original narrative, write original narrative.  If you can't think of another way to say what you need to say, don't take the job.
3. Poaching funding sources.  I heard this horror story when I met with a local non-profit administrator last week. A private funding source had invited the non-profit to submit a proposal.  This particular funding source does not accept unsolicited proposals.  The non-profit asked its grant writer (an outside consultant) to write a proposal to this funding source.  The grant writer wrote a proposal and submitted it. A couple of weeks later, the non-profit administrator got a phone call from the funding source saying that the grant writer had actually submitted several proposals - the one the funding source had requested as well as proposals on behalf of several other organizations the grant writer worked with.  None of these other proposals were part of the solicitation.  The grant writer had just taken it on herself to try to squeeze in some of her other clients in competition with the client making the original request.  I'm sure she assumed they would not know or find out.  To make matters worse, the representative from the funding source told the non-profit administrator that of the several proposals submitted by that grant writer, the weakest one from from the original agency requesting the work. The non-profit organization that originally asked the grant writer to submit the proposal was ultimately not funded.
4. Telling a client that they can pay for grant writing services out of the grant when they can't. There is some debate in the field about whether charging a contingency fee for grant writing services is ethical or not.  Some people insist that contingency fees are unethical, but then call it a "bonus" for getting funded and call that ethical. The real issue, though, is not whether or not it's a contingency fee, but where that fee comes from. If you tell someone they can pay the fee out of the grant when they can't, you have essentially lied to them. Very few funding sources allow you to pay for grant writing services out of a grant itself (there are, however, some that do). 

The bottom line is that integrity matters. Trying to cut ethical corners may seem like a profitable decision at the time, but in the end it is not the way to build a successful grant writing career.

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The Detail Dilemma of Grant Writing

There are many things that make grant writing a challenging endeavor.  One of those things is something I call the "detail dilemma." Knowing how much detail to include about your need, your project design, your activities and your evaluation is not always obvious.  In fact, it is one of the things that new grant writers struggle with most.

On the one hand, you need to provide enough detail to make your plans perfectly clear to the readers and to thoroughly address the scoring criteria.  On the other hand, you usually also have a page limit pressing against you and keeping you from providing as much detail as you might like to include.

It makes it worse when the guidance from the funding source is nebulous.  I participated in a webinar this morning during which a funder was providing guidance for a grant due next week.  This one has no page limitation for the narrative (a very rare situation), and lots of terms like "describe thoroughly" and "provide detail about" in the RFP.  When asked for some guidance, the funder's representative simply replied, "Well, don't write too much, and be succinct, but you need to describe your plan thoroughly and provide enough detail so the readers will feel comfortable about how you addressed the scoring criteria."

Leave it to the government to provide a non-answer to a perfectly legitimate question. Sometimes you just want to yell, "Can't you give me a straight answer?"

So, what do you do?

Here's the advice I give to others (and the advice I try to follow myself):

1. Assume that your reader knows nothing about your organization and what you do.  You need to provide enough detail for someone who knows nothing about you to understand a) who you are, b) what you are planning to do, and c) how you plan to do it.
2. Provide more detail in sections that will gain you higher points. Remember, it's a numbers game.  It's a subjective numbers game, but a numbers game nonetheless.
3. Provide more detail in the first several pages, regardless of how many points are allocated for the first section.  The first few pages that the readers see set the tone for their attitude for your whole proposal.  You need to start off strong sounding competent and like you have thought it all through.
4. If you have no page limitation, or if you have more room left than you have already used, ask yourself, "What additional details I can provide that would help the readers select this project over another?"  Then add to your narrative accordingly.
5. Read through your proposal to make sure it is focused on the scoring criteria.  Sometimes, writers fill their proposals with information they think is interesting, but that has little to do with what the funder wants to know.  I call this extra stuff "grant noise". Keep the grant noise to a minimum.  Focus on what the funder is asking and choose a simple project design. Sometimes pulling out all the "noise" helps you see where you need to add detail.
6. Give your proposal to someone who has not been involved in the development of the project, and ask their opinion.  If there is anything that they think is unclear, add more detail to clarify the point.  This is definitely a time to "check your ego at the door."  Even if you think you said it clearly, if your friendly reader needed more explanation, the funder's readers probably will,  too.

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Want more grant writing tips?  Try 101 Tips for Aspiring Grant Writers and consider taking an online grant writing seminar or course through the Online Learning Center.

Grant Research Includes Reading a Grant Sample

“Nothing succeeds like success” is an old proverb, but it applies well to grant writing today. Grant writers who want to be successful know what is wanted by the grant maker and one great way to do that is to read a grant sample of proposals that were successful in previous competitions.

Now you might be saying to yourself “Whoa! You’re talking about plagiarism," and I’ll say y’all are wrong about that. I’m talking about reading for the purpose of research only, certainly NEVER copying or creating derivative works.

Reading a grant sample is no different than serving as a reader on a grant scoring team. You learn a lot about how to write a successful grant proposal by reading the work of other successful grant writers.

Here are some of the key things you should look for when you are reading a grant sample.

1. Program structure including who is served, what kind of services, how much service was deemed acceptable, etc.
2. What kind of organization got the money, public, private, non-profit?
3. Who was the target audience? Is there a preference for a certain demographic, geographic area, or municipal size?
4. What is in the budget? What will the funder actually pay for and what are the relative amounts in terms of budget categories?

Of course there is a lot more to look for including use of language, use of graphics, and use of charts and tables. Remember that successful proposals were those that the readers liked and recommended for funding. That’s the group you want to be in the next round of funding!

Creative Resources and Research offers grant samples that our staff has collected for various competitions at http://grantsample.com/. We also offer some of our own successful proposals there (with identifying information about the client agency redacted).

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Also check out http://grantoutline.com/!

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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Get Your Free E-Book - 12 Secrets of Successful Grant Writers

I am about publish a 20+ page e-book titled, 12 Secrets of Successful Grant Writers. I will be sending it our electronically on Friday, April 23rd. There are THREE ways you can get it FREE on that day:

1. Become a fan of my new Grant Goddess Facebook Page. The Grant Goddess page will focus on sharing news about electronic grant writing resources. On Friday, 4/23, I'll send a link to the e-book download page to all fans of the Grant Goddess page on that day.
2. Sign up to receive our electronic newsletter (e-zine). Go to http://grantgoddess.com/ezine.html and enter your email address to sign up. All subscribers will be sent the e-book link on 4/23. By the way, the e-zine is currently published once a month, but we'll be moving to twice a month soon. Don't worry. You won't be flooded with email and I don't use that list for any purpose other than the e-zine.
3. Buy a copy of 101 Tips for Aspiring Grant Writers through my website. Go to http://grantgoddess.com/101-grant-tips-book.html to place your order. Ordering through Amazon doesn't count for this offer because I won't know who you are or where to send the e-book link.

You don't have to do all three of these to get the e-book, just any ONE will do. Of course, if you would like to do more than one, that would be great!

Also, please share this opportunity with anyone else you know who may be interested.

Remember, the e-book will be sent out on 4/23 to anyone who has accomplished any one of the three actions mentioned here by that date.

An abridged, audio version (CD) of 12 Secrets of Successful Grant Writers is available for purchase in our online store.

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Visit GrantGoddess.com to get grant writing tips and resources!

101 Tips for Aspiring Grant Writers

Yes, it's finally here!  You can now pre-order a copy of 101 Tips for Aspiring Grant Writers. This 169-page book by Veronica Robbins is divided into 13 chapters, and is designed to walk you through the preparation of a grant application from start to finish.

If you pre-order between now and April 22, 2010 you can get the book for only $8.95 (that's $4.00 off the $14.95 cover price). All pre-orders will ship around April 23, 2010.

The chapters included in 101 Tips for Aspiring Grant Writers are:

• General Grant Writing Tips
• Expressing Your Need for the Grant
• Goals and Objectives
• Program Design
• Management Plan
• Personnel
• Evaluation
• Budget
• Editing
• Formatting
• Assembly and Mailing
• Ethics
• Finding Grants

Extra bonus!  Anyone who pre-orders by April 15, 2010 will receive an autographed copy of the book, signed by the author!

Time Management Tips for Grant Writers

Effective time management is one of the most valuable skills a grant writer can have. Grant writers live under the constant ticking of the deadline clock, and our progress is often impeded or supported by factors (a.k.a. other people) over whom we have no (or very little) control. Learning to manage time in the grant writing process can make the difference between success or failure of a proposal and, by extension, between success and failure of a grant writing career.

Here are some tips for time management:

• Develop a time line for the project.  It can be very helpful to take the time to write out a time line for the project, including tentative deadlines for yourself for various stages of the process. The more people there are involved in the process, the more important a time line becomes.
• Front load the time line. Get as much accomplished as you possibly can during the first week or two of the time line.  That's the time to gather as much data as possible. Sketch out the big ideas.  Do any research you need to do. Get a solid outline constructed. This pre-writing period is one of the most important, so don't skimp on it.
• Make a list of data and information you'll need from others to complete the project.  Share the list with those who can help you. It doesn't have to be a complete list, and things will definitely pop up during the process, but remember that others can't read your mind.  If you need something from them, put it in writing.
• Get the budget sketched out early and finalize it as soon as possible.  It is much easier and quicker to write a complete draft of the narrative when the budget has been finalized.  It also prevents having to go back into the narrative to adjust activities that you thought you were going to be able to fund, but that you couldn't fit into the budget.
• If you get stuck on the narrative, take a break and work on something else.  The budget narrative, forms, or appendices are good choices.
• Develop a prepared guide for writing good letters of support (including some samples) in advance that you can give to project partners at the beginning of the process. Get people started thinking about letters at the first planning meeting. As soon as your design components are clear to you, put a summary in writing and distribute it to your partners so they can get effective letters of support started. Feel free to refer folks to our blog post on Writing Good Letters of Support or our free webinar on Writing Good Letters of Support for Grants.
• Assign someone the responsibility of collecting letters of support and signatures. If at all possible, this should not be you.  Not only do you need to focus on writing, but the process of collecting letters is extremely time consuming. If it has to be you, dedicate an hour a day, from day 1, to the task so it doesn't get put off until the very end.
• Get the first draft done as soon as possible.  Remember it's a draft, so it doesn't have to be complete.  It doesn't have to have all of the data inserted. The sooner you get the first draft done, the more confident you will feel, and the easier it will be to see what information and data you are really missing, if any.
• Schedule your time line so you are completely finished with the narrative at least three days before the deadline.  If you end up with less time at the end, your proofreading process will be rushed and the likelihood of errors making it through to the final draft goes up dramatically.
• Remember that the back end of the process always takes longer than you expect.  I'm talking about proofreading, reviewing the draft to ensure that the narrative matches the letters of support, finalizing the budget and budget narrative (including double- and triple-checking your numbers), and assembling the appendices. Plan for this. Do as much of it in the pre-writing phase as possible.
• Get plenty of rest and eat right.  While this may not seem like a time management tip, it really is. Research has demonstrated that people are less effective when they are tired. Working late into the evening will not be as productive as the morning hours when you are well rested.  All grant writers have experienced late nights, and sometimes they can't be avoided, but you should avoid them when you can (unless, of course, you are one of those folks who works best at night). From the 10th hour of work onward, your effectiveness declines rapidly.
• Once you have developed a process that works well for you, stick to it. I'm not talking about superstition and sticking to a process because you think it makes you lucky, but developing a set of processes and procedures that are smooth and effective.  If you write many grants each year, having a standardized process will allow you to focus less on the process and more on the writing - and that will pay off for you.

Do you have any time management tips that have worked well for you? Please, share them!

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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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