Grant Writing Confidential

My sister forwarded an unintentionally hilarious e-mail to me concerning a “Professional Grant Proposal Writing Workshop… at the Wilshire Grand Hotel Centre” that will cost a mere $600. You get two days of donut eating and “a certification in professional grant writing from Grant Development Solutions” that will probably help you less than half a day reading Grant Writing Confidential, which is free. In fact, you’re welcome to read the GWC archives, send me a check for $50, and I’ll send you a certification in grant writing of your very own.

We’ve already explained in detail why “Professional Grant Proposal Writing Workshops,” credentials, certificates, participation awards, gold stars, and the like are usually a waste of time here, here, and, most importantly, in Grant Writing Credentials … Are Only as Good as the Organization Giving Them. Interest in them evidently persists, however misguided the entire concept is.

Maybe this would be a good time to tell the story of Isaac’s one experience with grant writer training. When he was younger than I am now, he went to a seminar probably not unlike the one being advertised. When the seminar leader wrote “Who what where when why and how” on the board,” he realized that writing proposals was essentially like writing newspaper feature stories and left. That’s why the links above recommend that people with no grant writing experience who want to see if they have what it takes to be a grant writer, enroll in a beginning journalism class, volunteer to write proposals, and then start practicing.

Back to the task at hand, however. One item of note regarding Grant Development Solutions is the best part about their website: the faculty, which is described thus:

[This post has been edited to remove the names of the faculty, since one of them requested that his name be taken out of the post. Fair enough: were I him, I'd want my named removed too.]

“Trainer # 1: He has been involved…”

“Trainer # 2: has over eleven years of experience…”

“Trainer # 3: Trainer # 3, a marketing major, began her…”

One important thing that separates good proposals from bad ones is consistency of the sort lacking in the example above. For some reason, each introductory phrase is subtly different. That’s not the only weakness; the writer should either make concrete or remove statements like “Trainer # 2 has over 10 years of collegiate teaching experience.” Presumably, whoever wrote this copy is only mentioning specifics when they’re relatively impressive (“and a Master of Science in Economics, Ph.D. candidate, from TexasA&MUniversity,” although the typo in A & M is a problem) and leaving them silent in cases like Trainer # 2. Those who know anything about academia are aware that “Collegiate teaching experience” could just mean being an adjunct for a community college or, for that matter, teaching how to create to perfect flat top at a Barber College.

Other problems should also tip one off to the potentially high bogosity of the grant training enterprise. The marketing e-mail is filled with the kind of innuendo that makes me cringe and should make you want to avoid their workshop. For example, the e-mail says, “The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the nation’s largest foundation, plans to award more than the $2.8 billion in grants it distributed last year — though not as much as it had once expected to.” That might be true, but the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation doesn’t accept unsolicited proposals. So why cite them as an example? And its comments about stimulus funding are vastly less useful than what you’ll find here.

The sucker attendee is also promised that, “Grant Development Solutions trainers and consultants do not merely lecture participants, but act as personal consultants and coaches dedicated to encouraging participants to succeed beyond their own expectations.” I’d be more than happy to do the same: just write your name on the back of a hundred dollar bill, send it to me, and I’ll encourage you to succeed beyond your own expectations.

So why do people keep falling for this stuff? I’d like to say “I have no idea,” but I came up with a few:

* Going to meetings and listening to people talk at you is vastly easier than being left alone in a room with a computer, an RFP, and an unlimited amount of coffee.

* Information asymmetry: people who haven’t been to workshops feel don’t understand they’re useless until after they’ve paid their money and taken their chances.

* Financial asymmetry: organizations or other people are paying, which makes it an attractive way to shake up your workday.

* People are under the mistaken impression that one learns how to write in a group setting.

* Delaying the inevitable: attending a grant workshop is a way of procrastinating while simultaneously rationalizing that procrastination as working.

* It’s the only way to move up in your organization: some large nonprofits and public agencies tie pay raises, bonuses, and the like to nominal education and might have a budget allocated specifically for that purpose. This is the major legitimate reason one should attend a grant workshop.

Some of those reasons probably overlap. If you have other theories, leave them in the comments. And if you have much sense, keep your $600 for something more worthwhile than lame grant writing training.

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EDIT JULY 09: Toned down some of the hyperbole and removed the names of some grant trainers.