Grant Writing

An Exercise in Patience and Details

When I started writing this blog about a year ago, my goal was to post once a week because that’s what is recommended to attract and sustain a good readership. Several months later, life got very busy, and from a place of compassion I would give to any dear friend, I lowered my expectations to posting at least once a month. That was a manageable goal until recently (as post-free February can attest). This situation is not for lack of writing or even lack of love for writing. I’ve been writing a lot these days. Grant writing season is here, and completing applications for funding to make the nonprofit wheels move forward for another year or two has dominated my writing brainpower and hours. This is an ideal time, while the exercise is fresh on my mind, to talk about the endeavor of authoring persuasive essays for resources.

I remember the very first grant application I wrote. This was for federal funding awarded in a competitive process. I had neither grant writing experience nor training, so I simply read through the request for proposals and did what it said to do. I was thrilled when our organization was one of the successful applicants to receive an award. Looking back now, I imagine reviewers found the proposed after-school program for a rural community and the relatively tiny budget needed to make it possible quite appealing.

A couple months later, our small organization contracted with a consultant to deliver grant writing training to our board and staff. To kick off the workshop, the consultant asked each participant to share what they knew about grant writing. When my turn came, I said, “I think it’s important to follow the instructions.” Much to my astonishment and delight, the trainer responded, “Yes, that’s all you have to do and sums up everything I have to share at today’s training.” I share these anecdotes to illustrate that anybody willing to invest time and attention can prepare a successful grant application.

In the years since acquiring funding for the after-school program and participating in the grant writing workshop, I have accumulated a great deal more experience writing a variety of grants. Here are some of my tips:

• Carefully read the request for applications. You need to know whether your organization is eligible to apply, whether you can fulfill the requirements, how much information you need to submit in your proposal, and whether you can meet the deadline for submission.

• Be realistic about your return on investment. Many solicitations for funding are labor intensive and highly competitive. Choose grant opportunities that are manageable for you as a grant writer, fit well with what your organization can deliver, and offer your nonprofit a reasonable chance of being selected. Very few people have all the time in the world and a heart so immune to discouragement that they can afford to practice the art of preparing requests for funding that are declined.

• Avoid mission creep. For resource-strapped nonprofits, the temptation can be strong to propose a new project that is similar to but different from current activities. However, a lot of grants provide insufficient resources to complete deliverables. Being underfunded for a new project detracts from existing work.

• Give yourself plenty of time to prepare your application. Often the process will take longer than anticipated, so the sooner you begin drafting your proposal, the better off you’ll be. Register with the online grant system(s) needed for application submission immediately; a few of these can be quite involved and may require multiple approval steps that take weeks to complete. Sometimes solicitations for funding require letters of support, memoranda of understanding, and other materials that involve external entities, and you can avoid a crisis for you and your colleagues by requesting documents early in the process with plenty of time to spare.

• Be prepared for a literary obstacle course. The items in the drop-down lists may not fit your organization. The questions might demonstrate the funder is used to working with agencies that have structures that are completely different than yours. Last but not least, you will have to answer essay-worthy questions about the serious issues facing our communities and how your organization is going to address them in a ridiculously miniscule number of characters or words. Before you draft your responses, figure out if the number of characters includes spaces. Also, count on the character-limited text boxes in the online application to imprecisely calculate the characters in your responses so you will have to shave off a bit more of your answers to make it all work. Be concise yet somehow also be compelling.

• Sometimes organizations like to take a team approach to grant writing. This can work if one person is coordinating the effort with a proactive timeline of clearly defined tasks, due dates, and the individual responsible for each task. The coordinator needs to be good at monitoring progress, with friendly check-ins and effective follow-ups, so that each application component remains on schedule. In addition, to avoid an application that looks like it was cobbled together from various sources, one person should compile and edit all sections so that they have a consistent tone, language, formatting, look, and sound.  

• Provide what is requested—no more, no less. Look at the review criteria and the points that each section is worth. Give the greatest care to crafting the components with the highest values.

• Note the submission deadline, subtract one day, and take that earlier deadline seriously. That extra day is not a buffer for you to complete the grant application by the skin of your teeth. Most funders are using online grant portals now. The one-day buffer allows you to submit your application well before the deadline and handle any technology glitches that happen during the submission process without freaking out. This is a well-deserved gift you give yourself after the stress you likely have experienced preparing the grant application.

If you have a topic you’d like me to write about in an upcoming post, please comment or contact me.