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

Ten Tips for Grant Writing Success

Learning about grant writing in one blog post is a little like learning about an iceberg from seeing what's above the water line. This article just shows you part of what’s above the surface, the rest is deeper and there's a whole lot more to it. I encourage you to search our blog articles and look at our web site resources to learn more. I write whatever feels right at the moment, and this Friday afternoon, writing a simple post about ten tips feels perfect. Here goes:

1. Learn to write short, declarative sentences;
2. Correctly target your proposal to the right source;
3. Follow guidelines and restrictions scrupulously;
4. Create a writing outline;
5. Collaborate with your client on program design;
6. Write objectives that measurably impact the needs identified;
7.  Keep formatting simple and uncluttered;
8. Use the services of an editor;
9. Budget line items should never surprise the reader;
10. Check the proposal for completeness against a checklist.

Veronica put 101 tips into her book and some of these are probably repeats because they’re each so fundamental to grant development.

Success in grant writing does not happen by accident. Grants are successful because someone can write well, follow directions, and translate a lot of discussion and data into an actionable plan.

If you want to learn more about grant writing, polish and perfect your skills, we can help you do that with our online courses. We also give grant writing seminars on site for groups and we’d love to work with your agency when you need to train staff to write proposals.

Other articles you may enjoy:

14 Tips to Stay Off the Naughty List

Grant Writing - Five Last Minute Things to Check

Photo Credit - jacob gerritsen

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