Grant Writing Confidential

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Entries Tagged as 'Grants'

How Not to Get a Grant

March 7th, 2010 · No Comments

Usually I write posts about how to get grants. Today I thought I would give some surefire ways to not get a grant . . .

Call/email/meet with a field deputy in the office of your senator, congressperson, governor, mayor, or city councilperson. Regardless of the project idea, the field deputy will be polite, encouraging, tell [...]

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Tags: Advice · Grants · How-to

A WSJ Article Illustrates the Program Officer Problem

March 2nd, 2010 · No Comments

I just posted “Where Have All the RFPs Gone?,” in which I speculated that the lateness of federal RFPs this fiscal year is probably due to the fact that overworked program officers are still chewing through last year’s proposals. Imagine my surprise when I read “Staffing Woes Hinder Job-Boosting Program” by Michael Aneiro in this [...]

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Tags: Government · Grants · Stimulus

Where Have All the RFPs Gone?

February 28th, 2010 · 3 Comments

Subscribers to our Free Grant Alerts will probably have noticed relatively few large federal RFPs so far in this fiscal year, which began October 1. To paraphrase Peter, Paul & Mary, Where Have All The RFPs Gone?. I assume this dearth is because federal program officers are still churning through the tidal wave of Stimulus [...]

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Tags: Advice · Government · Grants · Stimulus

Take Time to Develop a Proposal Timeline

February 21st, 2010 · No Comments

Many RFPs require that you include a timeline that will describe when your project will actually unfold—remember that the “when” section is part of the 5Ws and H. Even if the RFP writers forget to require a timeline, you should include one anyway, either under the “Project Description” or “Evaluation” sections because the timeline will [...]

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Tags: Advice · Grants · How-to

How to Write About Something You Know Nothing About: It’s Easy, Just Imagine a Can Opener

February 14th, 2010 · 4 Comments

One of the many interesting aspects of running a general-purpose grant writing firm is that we are often called upon to write complex proposals covering subjects about which we know little or nothing, as I discussed in No Experience, No Problem: Why Writing a Department of Energy (DOE) Proposal Is Not Hard For A Good [...]

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Tags: Advice · Clients · Government · Grants · How-to · Research

Federal Budget Freeze Prospect Making You Shiver? Don’t Panic Until You Hear the “R” Word: Rescission

January 31st, 2010 · 1 Comment

President Obama highlighted his proposed partial “freeze” on discretionary federal spending during his State of the Union address last week, which set off a flurry of predictable wrangling among Democratic and Republican members of Congress (for a pretty good summary of what’s going on, see Democrats, Republicans Spar Over Cutting Deficit). While talk of budget [...]

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Tags: Budgets · Government · Grants · Stories

How’d You Like a 20% Discount on Grant Writing? You Got It, As Long as You are Willing to Go Against Conventional Wisdom!

January 24th, 2010 · No Comments

Jake wrote recently about the perils of being too creative as a grant writer in Never Think Outside the Box: Grant Writing is About Following the Recipe, not Creativity. This post elaborates on the invisible fence of “Convention Wisdom” (CW) that forces us grant writers to remain in the box.
CW is an amorphous blob of [...]

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Tags: Advice · Clients · Grants · Stories

January 2010 Links: Foundation Giving, Weatherization, Science, Borders, and More

January 17th, 2010 · No Comments

* Drop in Foundation Giving May Be Steeper than Anticipated. Those of you who want a piece of the action should read Isaac’s post PSST! Listen, Do You Want to Know a Secret? Do you Promise Not to Tell?* Here’s How to Write Foundation Proposals.
* You’ve gotta love the convoluted program titles used by the [...]

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Tags: Government · Grants · Links

Never Think Outside the Box: Grant Writing is About Following the Recipe, not Creativity

January 10th, 2010 · 4 Comments

A New Yorker cartoon I like:

If you write proposals, don’t be this cat.
Any time you’re writing to an RFP—which, for grant writers, is virtually all the time—you’re required to respond to the RFP. If the RFP says, “give services to 300 participants per year,” you should say in your proposal that you’re going to serve [...]

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Tags: Advice · Budgets · Clients · Government · Grants · Stories

Why Seliger + Associates Never Responds to RFPs/RFQs for Grant Writing Services

December 27th, 2009 · No Comments

Faithful readers will note that we regularly discuss RFPs, NOFAs, FOAs, SGAs and other government acronyms denoting that grant funds are available. Jake in particular likes to fulminate about especially dumb RRPs, as he does in Deconstructing the Question: How to Parse a Confused RFP and Adventures in The Broadband Initiatives Program. Despite marinating in [...]

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Tags: Advice · Clients · Grants · Stories