3 Tips for Shrinking Expectations Canyon

Expectations Canyon is that place between a grant writer's expectations for how a project should progress and a client's idea of how a project should progress. Sometimes is as big as the Grand Canyon and other times it's as small as the little holding pond across town from my house, but it's always there. The smaller that gap is, the easier the project will go.

Organizations that hire a grant writer usually have the mistaken belief that they have hired someone to do it all so they don't have to do any more work, which is not the case at all. Grant writers often hold the mistaken belief that every client will assume responsibility for the project and stay involved, providing all the information and support necessary. Can you see the canyon now?

Here are some tips for minimizing the gap:

 Make sure that all roles and responsibilities are in writing.  Don't assume that just because you talked about something that anyone will remember it, especially if it gives them a task.

 Include a timeline in your responsibilities document.  Some tasks can't be completed until other have been completed first. You'll save a lot of time if these are identified right away.

Communicate often.  Even if everything is going well, make sure you touch base frequently to review exactly where you both are on the responsibility list.

If you follow these simple tips, Expectations Canyon will shrink to a manageable size and you'll be walking together toward success.

Communication Matters

We're installing some new phone lines at the office.  Actually, we're switching out a bunch of expensive ones for some less expensive analog lines.  Yes, some people are really going back to analog.

Anyway, I started the process last April., and here we are today - 8 months later - with a technician here hooking things up. Hopefully, everything will work properly. Normally, I would assume hat it would, but not this time.  Why?  Because communication has been so bad.

The different technicians only know about their piece of the project and they come from different companies.  The only person who apparently is supposed to know the whole project is a project coordinator who is conveniently unreachable today, the day when everything was supposed to be coming together.

Each technician asks me questions and I have no answers.  Has XYZ happened yet? I don't know. Who's bringing and installing the modem?  I have no clue.

I'm frustrated. Very frustrated.

It hit me a moment ago, though, that I have experienced this exact same feeling before. I have something to accomplish.  It's my responsibility. No one is going to do it for me. But I don't have all the information I need to make it happen.

This is exactly the same frustration I feel in my grant writing world when a client hasn't given me the information I need to complete their proposal. I want to do my job.  I really want to complete my task so I can move on to other things, but I'm stuck. I'm stuck waiting for someone else to do their job. They may not think it's that important, but it's important to me.  It's the one thing standing between me and success.

The lesson from this for me is that communication really does matter. When someone else needs information from me, I need to be mindful of that and respond accordingly.

We're all connected in many ways. Information flows between and among us and when it's flowing, things are good.  When it stops flowing, someone can't do their job and it's frustrating.

Let's all do our part to keep it flowing.

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Steps to Recovery

I'm not referring to another 12-step treatment program. No, I'm talking about the steps to recovering from a multi-grant deadline. Those deadlines are exhausting. Long hours, too much stress, not enough sleep - it can ruin even the best attitude.

I had one of those deadlines recently.  It left me exhausted and definitely in need of recovery.  Here are my steps for multi-grant recovery:

Step 1:  Walk away - Don't clean up your desk. Don't start the next project right away.  Just walk away.  Give yourself the time and space you'll need to recover.

Step 2: Reassess your health - If you haven't been eating well, start eating well.  Drink some water. Get some exercise.  You have probably been chained to your desk.  You need to move a bit, but first.....

Step 3: Get some sleep  - Remember what uninterrupted sleep is? Do you remember your last full night of sleep?  It was about a month ago, most likely.

Step 4: Reintroduce yourself to your family.  If they don't recognize you, don't be alarmed.  That is perfectly normal. As soon as you recapture control of the TV remote, it will come back to them.

Step 5: If you can, don't even think about work for a day or two (or more) - Give yourself a complete rest. Your brain has been working harder than any other part of you.  A full rest means giving yourself a break from thinking about grant stuff.

Step 6: Do something that you really enjoy.  If you like to read trashy romance novels, do it.  If you like to shop, go for it (within reason, of course). Give yourself the gift of time just for you since you gave up so much of your time recently to your work.

The point here is that some recovery is really necessary after an intense project. Remember, your career is a marathon, not a sprint.

What do you do to recovery after an intense deadline?

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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.

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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Get samples of successful grant proposals at Grantsamples.net.

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.

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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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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A Story About Letters of Support

I was working on a grant for a client recently, and the grant called for the inclusion of some letters of support. As we were discussing it, the client asked if I would provide a template that her project partners could simply put on their letterhead and sign. I said, no, because templates are a bad idea. Rather than demonstrate collaboration and support they are actually a demonstration of the opposite.

Think about it.  If you really supported someone's effort, would you show it by signing a form letter that was exactly the same as 20 others or would you write one that spoke to your personal reasons for suporting the person?

Instead of providing a template, I developed some guidelines (in writing, of course) for the partners to follow when developing their letters.  It explained the purpose of the letters and what information should go in each of three paragraphs.  It also gave some examples of potential contributions to the project that they might not think about.

I've used similar guides in the past and the result was excellent letters of support.

Several times during the planning process,however, the client would ask me about a template. I repeated my response and provided yet another copy of the guidelines.

As the deadline approached, the letters started pouring in and they were.....identical. Instead of following my instructions, the client chose to have someone in her organization develop a template and distribute it to the partners.

Not only was it a template, but it was a bad template.  It did not include the specific information that the RFP said should be in each letter.  Apparently, the client didn't even read the guidelines because that information was all there.  We had even talked it through at one point early in the process, but that information apparently was lost as the process continued.

The client was paying a lot of money for an experienced and successful grant writer to write the proposal and guide her organization through the process, but she chose to ignore the advice they paid for. As a result, their application package ended up being substantially weaker than if they had followed the directions. They tried to save everyone some time, and the cost of that effort may be that they don't get the grant.

I guess that makes it a pretty expensive template.

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Here's more information on writing good letters of support.

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Passionate Grant Writing

I spend a lot of time focusing on technical details and teaching people how to develop technically correct and persuasive proposals. Those are important. But so is passion.

I read a proposal recently that was technically correct and it had all the right pieces, but I felt nothing. While the statistics showed great need for the grant, it didn't feel like there was a need.

Some of you may be thinking, "It's not about emotion, silly. Just give the facts and tell your story."

I disagree.  As long as there are human readers making decisions about the proposal, emotions play a role.

Here are the suggestions I make for putting enough passion in your proposal:

1. The first page should be perfect. First impressions matter. Not only should the first page of the narrative be error-free, but it should convey something about your organization that goes beyond the numbers and makes the readers fans of your work. The readers should leave that first page already liking you.
2. Tell your story like you care. If I were to ask you to tell me about the strengths and needs of your organization, I'm sure you would have plenty to say.  More importantly, I would get a definite feel for how your organization impacts the community and how important the services are. The readers should have no doubt that you care.
3. Use descriptive language. Think about this sentence: "We will initiate a foot-stomping, in-the-media-spotlight, no-holds-barred cage match with poverty, racism, lack of opportunity, under-education, and a cycle of disenfranchisement among good people who just want a leg up to help their kids rise up." Okay, maybe it's a bit over the top, but it definitely conveys some passion, doesn't it? It also tells you something about the applicant, doesn't it? It gives you a definite image to think about, too. Maybe you won't go this far, but consider this sentence my personal effort to slap you out of the boring, lock-step grant language that you are probably used to seeing and using. That brings me to the next point.....
4. Expand your use of language. You can't communicate the passion of a zealot using the language of an accountant. I have nothing against accountants, of course, but most would have trouble really expressing the pain of homelessness given the language they typically use. Think about how you would describe your need and your plans to a good friend, to a potential donor, to a newspaper reporter, to a potential employee. Make notes on the words and phrases you use.  Ask others who encounter your services to describe them.  Note the words and phrases they use, too.  Then use some of them.
5. Read. The best way to expand your language is to read. I always advise people to read grant proposals and I'll continue to make that recommendation, but remember that there are good examples and bad examples. You should be reading many other things, too. The more diverse your reading is, the more diverse your language will be. And here's a hint you probably haven't considered.  If you're having trouble writing with passion, read some books about passion and romance. Don't focus on the plot or even the vocabulary, but on how the author builds the sense of passion and desire. I'm not saying that your grants should be written like romance novels, but that there is something we can learn from all genres. Finally.....
6. Show some restraint.  Some people have trouble adding life to their writing, but others add too much. Too much flowery writing is simply annoying, and you know you should not annoy the readers. Expressing passion and commitment isn't about throwing out emotional phrases. It's much more nuanced than that. It's about conveying a mood, a feeling. There is such a thing as "too much."

Writing with passion is an advanced grant writing skill. It goes far beyond technical correctness and addressing all of the scoring criteria, but it can make the difference between success and failure.

What are your thoughts about writing with passion?

First Grant of the Season

I just finished writing my first grant of the "season."  It was a 55-page proposal for an excellent program. I loved the client.  I loved the idea.

But writing it was like pulling teeth for me.

It happens to me every year.  There is something about that first big grant of the season that is a struggle for me. It must be something about the creative part of my brain that works part-time when it's not grant time.  When it's time for it to get back to full-time work (or more than full-time work), it drags its feet, whines, and rebels against all my attempts to impose any intellectual discipline.

Yes, it feels like my mind has a mind of its own.

After that first one, it's under my control again and the next grant goes well, as does the next one, and the next one, and so on until the end of the grant season.

Frankly, I don't know why it's so difficult, because I always win and end up with an excellent proposal.

I am the Grant Goddess, after all.  ;-)

When Is It Time to Let a Client Go?

If you're like me, you want to think that you can help everybody.  The truth, of course, is that you can't. That is true in life, and it's true in the world of grant writing and program evaluation, too.

I recently let a long time client go.  At the same time, I released about $70,000 in income they would have provided over the next year and half.

Why?

Because it was the right thing to do.

The bottom line is that when the relationship isn't helping the client anymore and it's making you crazy, it's time to step back. I reached that point with this client.

My contacts for the organization were not taking any of my suggestions (which is their prerogative, of course) and they were making really poor decisions that were not good for anyone, especially the youth served by that organization. There was so much infighting and backstabbing and lying within their organization that nothing got done and no one knew who to trust.

After working with them for 8 years in various capacities, I spent the last two years focused on my role with them and just trying to stay alive.

Just trying to stay alive.....seriously.  My health suffered. I wasn't sleeping. I had convinced myself that to walk away meant failure, and I just don't do failure. So I was banging my head against the wall until I realized that my work with them wasn't helping anyone.

Since they were ignoring my reports and advice, not letting me do my job (everyone's an expert, ya know), and I was literally sick from all the stress, it made no sense to continue the relationship.

Sure, that was a lot of money to walk away from, and it made me nervous, but money was not a good enough reason to stay. Money should never be the main reason for taking or keeping a consulting job.  It's about making a difference.  If you are not making a difference, what's the point?

Walking away wasn't easy.  I knew there would be gossip and speculation about what happened, and there was. I knew professional ethics wouldn't let me speak about the detail of what happened, and I didn't - even when I heard untrue rumors floating around. I also knew that there were some very bad things going on related to youth that I would not be able to even attempt to remedy if I walked away, but I had to. That was the really hard part.

So I walked away. What happened?  My health has improved dramatically.  I'm sleeping well again. I have time now to take on new clients who want to work with me, so I'm developing new relationships and my work is fun again and more fulfilling.

Oh yeah....and these new clients have just about replaced the income I lost from the old one, and it only took a couple of months. So my biggest fear - losing the income - was just a boogieman that couldn't survive in the light of reality.

The client hired another firm to handle the work.  Maybe that will work out really well for them.

Maybe the change I made will end up being better for everyone in the long run.

I learned a valuable lesson from this experience - walking away from a client when it's not good for anyone is not a failure. It's an opportunity to grow. Sometimes it's the only right thing to do.

Give Them What They Want

Do you know what grant readers want more than anything else?

They want to be convinced that you have a significant need, that you have a great plan to meet that need, and that you are capable of implementing that idea.  Yes, they want to be convinced. So, give them what they want.

I read a non-funded grant proposal written by someone else recently (the agency came to me for this year's submittal, hoping I'll be more successful). As I read the proposal, I noticed numerous technical problems with it like poorly written objectives, lack of baseline data, not much research documenting the effectiveness of the model (required), and a few other things. It was easy to see why it wasn't funded as it didn't effectively address all of the scoring criteria. All of those things are easy to fix.  They are the things we teach in Grant Writing 101: The Basics.

But that's not all that was wrong with it. It simply didn't make a convincing case.  It wasn't persuasive at all.  Even if all of the technical elements had been in place, I wouldn't want to fund that proposal.

Remember, grant readers are people and scoring guides are more subjective than you'd think.  If a reader really likes a proposal and wants to fund it, he can find a way if you have at least attempted to address all the criteria.  On the other hand, there are hundreds of ways a reader can nickle and dime a proposal's score when he doesn't want to fund it.

Of course, you know that I think you should nail the scoring criteria and make a compelling case for your project. Don't make the mistake of thinking that technical prowess is all that is needed.

Convince the readers that your idea is fabulous.

That's what they want.

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Get unlimited access to successful grant proposal samples at GrantSample.com

Plagiarism is a Big Deal

It pains me to say this, but college students aren't the only folks who plagiarize.  Grant writers do it, too. I know someone who plagiarized more than a few times by lifting my writing and putting it into grants she was "writing."

Practically speaking, every time she plagiarized from a grant that I had written, she committed fraud and she harmed my reputation.  Clients don't like it when they think they are paying for original work and they learn that they are getting a product that has been cut and pasted from someone else's document.

The worst part was that she didn't think it was a big deal.

But it is a big deal.

Plagiarism is fraud.

If someone made a widget and someone else stole that widget and then passed it off as his/her own, it would be clear to everyone that a theft had occurred. Theft of ideas and written work (even small portions of written work without proper attribution) is just as damaging, particularly to those of us who earn out living with our thoughts and writing.

Plagiarism.org has some good information what does and does not constitute plagiarism and how it can be prevented.

After the Deadline

All you want to do after a deadline is collapse, think about nothing, and catch up on some of the sleep you lost over the previous week, but before you check out completely there are a few things you should do.

1. Take a few moments to reflect on what went well and what didn't go so well.  Is there anything you need to change for next time? Evaluate your own work and the overall process. Take notes so you can review your thoughts as you start the next project.  As tempting as it is to wait and do this another day, don't.  You'll forget some of the detail of what happened and you may end up repeating your mistakes.
2. Prepare a copy of the final document, as submitted, for your client or others in the organization. Someone is eager to see a copy of the final product.  It will be easier to pull it together and transmit it now than it will be later. Prepare both final PDF copies and hard copies.
3. Gather up your notes and research materials.  Ideally, you'll organize and file them right away, but at least pull them all together in a pile that you can deal with later.  Otherwise, you may lose some of the things you really want to save as they get shuffled aside randomly when you start the next project.
4. Prepare your next To Do list.  Time is valuable.  If you don't leave your desk or office until you have developed a list of what you'll be doing next, it will be easier for you to hit the ground running when you come back refreshed.

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The Grant Goddess' Favorite Posts

I always get reflective as we approach the end the calendar year. As part of that, I spent a little time looking back at some of the older posts on The Grant Goddess Speaks... and I found some pretty great tips and posts in the archives.  Some of them are so good that they deserve another shot at the light of day. So I decided to pull some out for your enjoyment.

Some of these are on the list because they have great advice.  Others are here because they are cute and funny. Regardless of why they made this list, they are among my favorites (in no particular order). Consider this list a special gift!

Enjoy!

If They Made a Movie About Grant Writing Consultants. . . 

Are You the Bear or the Salmon?

14 Tips to Stay Off The Naughty List

Disadvantaged by Expectations

The 12 Days of Christmas for Grant Writers 

Deadlines Are Like Burritos

The Detail Dilemma of Grant Writing

Grant Writer or Grant Valet?

The Difference Between a Gift and a Grant

Gifts and grants are completely different animals, yet they are often treated the same. Unfortunately, those who treat them the same usually end up in trouble.

A gift is just what you would expect it to be - a sum of money or a resource that is given to your organization with nothing expected in return or very little expected in return.  Most cash donations from private individuals fall into this category. Sometimes a donor may request that a gift be earmarked for a particular purpose (i.e., building fund, youth programs, etc.), and sometimes a donor may request a certain type of recognition or publicity (i.e., naming rights, public recognition, etc.), but that's about it.

A grant, on the other hand, comes with a contract and a set of expectations. A sum of money or a resource is given to you with the expectation that it will be used in a particular way, and appropriate performance is expected.  If you don't perform, the grantor (if it is a governmental agency) can take the money back. There are usually rules you are expected to follow as you implement the proposal that was funded.

Also, in most cases, a grantor expects that something measurable will change as a result of the money or resource you are given. Gift givers often don't expect change, but they are support the organization as it currently is (operational support).

Of course, there are some exceptions to the distinction I've just made, but the general rule is pretty clear.

Many organizations write grant proposals without understanding the difference, and then they are shocked at all of the :"strings" that come with the grant, even when those expectations were clearly delineated in the instructions before they applied. Part of the decision about whether or not to apply for a grant requires that you look into the future when that grant is funded and determine if you are actually willing to perform as expected.

If not, the grant you're looking at may not be the one for you.

Related Posts:

The Worst Reasons for NOT Writing a Grant

5 Mistakes That Can Lose Millions of Dollars in Grant Applications

If you need some successful grant proposal samples to help you along, visit GrantSample.com

Writing is My Fascination

Excellent writing fascinates me because it is so powerful. I believe that writers are born. But even born writers must be trained. I was a writer from a young age. I made comic books for my brother, and I told him stories at night about my stuffed animals to make him laugh.

My training has mostly been outside the classroom. I was educated in California where grammar wasn’t taught. It was considered an unnecessary encumbrance to the creative process. I drive my editors insane.

“Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.” Ernest Hemingway

I write a lot. I write almost all the time. I write on the bus. I write at the coffee shop. I write at home. I write for a living.

When I am not writing, I am usually reading. I read on a Kindle, a smart phone, and an HP Netbook. I also have shelves of books I haven’t time to read yet. But the collection grows because I can’t help collecting interesting titles.

“Read everything--trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out.” William Faulkner

The written word is no less magic for me within a grant proposal than it is within a fictional book about goblins and faeries. Description and beautiful arrangement of words, phrases, and sentences stands out when you read it no matter what it’s about. There is a flow to excellent writing that is simply wonderful. Achieving that flow is mastery. Every once in a while I’ll write something that comes close to achieving the flow. But it’s hard work and I don’t do achieve that level as often as I aspire to do.

“Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you're doomed.” Ray Bradbury

Writing a fine narrative is hard work that requires hours of revising, polishing, and editing. There’s no way around the work, there are no shortcuts.

“God sells us all things at the price of the labor.” Leonardo da Vinci 

Related Posts:

The Accidental Grant Writer

Grant Writing Training at Taco Bell?

Bless His Cotton Socks

The Golden Age of Grant Writing

I started writing grants back in the mid 90’s and it was a time I fondly think of as the “Golden Age” of grant writing. The government was using grants to experiment with new programs and do social and educational research. There was a lot of money out there. And there were a lot of clients.

A headline came to me via email this morning about proposed budget cuts to educational programs (STEM Ed. Among Cuts Sought in Draft House Budget Plan).  The article made me nostalgic for the Golden Age. I see bad news in that headline on several levels but on a business level, it's another cut to the business I love, grant writing.

During the Golden Age, money was flowing and the streets were paved with gold. I grabbed the proverbial brass ring and launched into a full time grant writing job at a private company leaving the cushy, secure and boring existence of public employment.

I was suddenly working 60 hours a day. I was crushed with work. I was drinking from a fire hose. This went on for about a decade. I had no trouble getting contracts. I never marketed my services beyond handing out a business card (which I often forgot to carry).

Today, I spend part of my time writing copy for marketing. I’m pretty sure I stink at it. Oh, I have good ideas (I think) and I make cool graphics (I think), but the truth is that I am not an advertising Madman. Nonetheless, marketing is now an ongoing conversation here in the office. But I would much rather write grants full time. I know there's supposed to be an ROI to Marketing, however, it never feels like it's worth it. What happened to the fire hose?

The Golden Age of grant writing ended for social and educational programs for several reasons:

• After two decades of research (80’s and 90’s), the government “owns” the answers to all the important questions, it now knows “what works”. Grants encouraging innovation are no longer necessary. The focus of grants now is to implement everything they “discovered” during the Golden Age. Applicants these days are expected to implement “research-based” programs and “proven models" regardless of the lack of wisdom in forcing square pegs into round holes;

• The economy collapsed. Money shrank back from “the street” on all levels. The faucets got turned off in the private sector, the nonprofit sector, and the government sector. Everyone suffered and is still, grants are no different. The Golden Age ended in 2008;

• The market became flooded with “grant writers”. When I started, it was hard to find a grant writer so there was a gap in the market. I filled it. Today there’s a grant writer under every rock and some of them slithered in there and are none too ethical. You’ll read about these in the newspapers from time-to-time. It is also harder today to ferret out who is a good grant writer and who should be writing marketing copy. That’s because everyone’s success rate post-Golden Age has taken a hit. Fewer grants and more applicants means fewer applications are successful, it’s not calculus. Even a stellar writer can find his/her success rates falling. Success today is more dependent than ever before on having clients with the right need and the right demographic, geographic, and organizational profile.

I am still young (ish) and hoping to be around for the next Golden Age. It’s coming because the people are not too certain that the government really has the answers. That realization, I hope, encourages a new round of research to spur innovation and new ideas. Even if the “old” ideas worked back in the 80’s and 90’s, conditions continue to change, demographics shift, knowledge evolves, proclivities of the younger generation are not what they were in the 80’s. Learning styles, resources, technology and social needs evolve over time.

I hope that the melt-down of “No Child Left Behind” and the ever-diversifying demographics of the country are evidence that the next generation of researchers, teachers, social workers, and the like need grant funding to seek new answers. Bring on that next Golden Age, I need some relief from marketing.

Other posts you may enjoy:

What is a Grant Writer?

A Review of "Do the Work" by Steven Pressfield

Photo Credit - Macin Smolinski

Script Writing vs. Grant Writing

I attended a script writing seminar recently in Los Angeles. I went because I wanted to see what writers from another genre talk about and I glad I attended. It was fascinating and thrilling to be with a group of authors. Grant writers tend to be reclusive folks and don’t tend to flock together. One of the authors presenting on one of the three panels quipped, “You probably became writers to get away from people, but I hate to tell you, being a script writer means you’ll have to work with people all the time.”

Two things occurred to me when I heard her say that.  First, that I love writing because it is solitary. I enjoy being alone and it’s probably why I enjoy the solitude of the mountains so much. I do my best writing when I am not bothered by people making demands on me. I write best when my mind is uncluttered, with the TV off, the phone silenced, and no event to prepare myself to attend.

The second thing that occurred to me is that I used to have a naive solitary vision of what a grant writer does, sits blissfully writing brilliant narratives in a cedar-paneled alcove perched overlooking the ocean. Ahhh… well, we’re allowed our little fantasies, right?

Alas, reality intruded on my vision, just like script writers, there is a lot of interaction with people during the grant process.  You must talk to people to obtain a contract. You must engage with people to plan, sometimes a lot of people. You must engage with people to review and revise the proposal. The end of the process leaves you alone again, grinding out the final proposal; but it’s a brief interlude, and actually only a prelude to starting the process all over again. Before the glow of submittal leaves your rosy cheeks, you are right back into meeting with people again!

Don’t get me wrong, I am not misanthropic. I enjoy people’s company and seek it out when I want it. But there is something magical for me in the solitary writing process that is necessary and wonderful at the same time. Passing time within the written word, within the conceptualization and the phrasing brings joy to me that non-writers can’t understand, especially people who thrive on conversation the way I thrive on composition.

A comical statement by another author at the seminar stuck in my mind, “If you want to be a script writer and you didn’t come from a dysfunctional family, I feel sorry for you.” By this she meant that a dysfunctional background gives a writer knowledge that is useful for producing fictional narratives, because they’re always written around solving a problem. Dysfunctional families have lots of problems to solve.

I think the benefits of dysfunctional experience applies to grant writing. Grants are often written to solve a problem too; but instead of coming from a dysfunctional family, a grant writer benefits if they have worked in a dysfunctional organization. I have that in spades (one public organization I worked for went bankrupt [for the record, I was not the cause]). I’ve seen every aspect of organizational management done wrong, so it’s easier for me to envision a better way and describe it in my narratives.

I was pleased to learn at the seminar that my background blesses me in both genres (don’t worry, I am not telling tales out of school, my family won’t argue the point). Perhaps I am destined to write a script one day: who knows where a writer’s path will lead?

If You Liked This Post, You Will Enjoy:
Grant Writing is No Mystery
Grant Writing: Fact or Fiction?

(For the Record - Consultant Derek Link authored this post, so the Grant Goddess' family should neither remove her from their Christmas shopping list nor "unfriend" her on Facebook.)

Photo Credit - Craig Purdum