I am being told that I must become a “grant writer” for my law enforcement agency within a month or so. There is not enough time to apprentice so they want me to learn everything I need to know in a 2 day workshop!!! Any suggestions?
Suggestions! I’m filled with ‘em. Especially for someone who has transformed, like one of the X-Men, into a grant-writing superhero. Again like the X-Men, I replied via e-mail:
The self-serving but accurate answer to your quandary is “hire us.” Note that we also edit proposals, although about 60 – 70% of the time, when people hire us to edit they’d have been better off just hiring us for the full monty. If that’s not going to happen, I’d say this:
1) Read all of Grant Writing Confidential; I should turn it into an ebook, but I haven’t had time, and making this blog into a cohesive book will probably never be worth it from a pure cost/benefit analysis. Still, I want to anyway—especially after reading “Practical Tips on Writing a Book from 23 Brilliant Authors.” What I wrote in “Why You’re Unlikely to see ‘Seliger and Associates Presents Grant Writing Confidential: The Book and Musical’ Anytime Soon” is still accurate, but the possibilities opened up by self-publishing have exploded in the last year.
2) Does your agency have a particular program to which it wants to apply? If so, which one? Assuming the agency does have a specific program in mind, write as much as you can of the proposal draft before you go to the workshop. Take the draft with you and try to discuss it with whoever is teaching it. Then you’ll basically be turning that person into an editor / professor; it’s much easier to discuss writing, or almost any other “making thing” discipline, in the concrete than in the abstract.
Taking an infinite number of workshops is not going to make the blank page any easier. Having something, anything, on the blank page is better than having nothing. Isaac likes to say, “Something can be edited. Write something.”
3) If you have anyone you know who’s a decent writer and can be pressed into service as an editor, warn and beg them in advance that you need their help. Every writer needs an editor.
4) Start writing as soon as you can; leave blanks; get to the end. I’m repeating what I said in number four, but something cannot be edited if it hasn’t been written. I suspect this fundamental fact scuppers as many would-be grant writers as any other.
5) Good luck.
6) GWC readers: you have any other advice for Susan?
5 responses so far ↓
1 sal // Jan 23, 2012 at 8:14 am
The phrase “just do it!” applies to the spontaneous grant writer.
Also find examples(ie previous grants written, grant templates) to use as a guide.
Utilize the finance committee in preparing the proposed budget and any financial statements.
Lastly, make sure a method to evaluate the project is given.
2 Tiva // Jan 23, 2012 at 9:05 pm
A lot of publicly funded agencies will provide you with a successful proposal from an earlier year if you ask for one – but won’t necessarily volunteer the info that they do this.
Some of the grants workshop providers out there are scam artists – here’s two that I’ve been to personally and thought were really good: The Grantsmanship Center 5-day program (tgci.com), and anything by Andy Robinson (http://www.andyrobinsononline.com/).
Kim Klein deserves her rep as an excellent trainer, but she will probably tell you to go beyond grants & look at a diversified fundraising strategy (good advice!) – if you just want to learn about grants I’d try one of the other two – both travel a lot & probably have a workshop you can afford to reach sometime this month.
3 Frank // Jan 26, 2012 at 1:37 pm
Absolutely try to get examples–I got my first grant writing job having never written a proposal before. But the employer saw that i could write, and sent me to a short workshop. Everything else was learned on the job through reading prior proposals, and with the help of the previous grant writer, who had taken a different position in the organization. If you’re on LinkedIn, there are a number of grant writing groups available, and the people in them are usually very helpful.
4 linden // Feb 1, 2012 at 9:52 am
Hey Susan,
Here are two tips to help you get started:
1) Take the RFP and use it to make your outline. In general, your final proposal’s sections and sub-sections should mirror those of the RFP requirements section as closely as possible.
2) Read over the RFP and highlight all the catch-phrases, concepts and keywords that stand out. Be sure to include those words & phrases in your proposal– you want to show your potential funder that you are paying attention to what they want and what they value.
5 Diane Moss // Feb 6, 2012 at 8:00 am
Frank’s advice is tops. At the outset of becoming a grant writer, I learned by reading
as many different proposals as possible and looked for guidance from various reliable sources. A friend who is a lawyer (and often my reviewer before submission) once remarked that writing a proposal is like writing a brief and that has served me as a guide for writing concrete, well-thought out and persuasive grant proposals.
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