As a kid, I loved reading Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Who knew if these fantastic stores were true, but they were true enough to capture my imagination when I was about ten. Today, I experience lots of hard-to-believe tales as a grant writer, and I thought I would share a few. Faithful readers may [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Stories'
Seliger’s Believe it or Not Tales from the World of Grant Writing: Recovery Act Weatherization Training Centers and TAACCT
October 16th, 2011 · 4 Comments
The Difference Between Being “Involved” in Grants and Being a Grant Writer
September 25th, 2011 · 6 Comments
Most people who claim to be grant writers or “involved” in grants don’t actually write proposals. They’re more often engaged in things like grant management, the distribution of grant funds, or development (fund raising), which are important but very different things than grant writing. Grant writing means you sit down and write a proposal. Grant [...]
Tags: Government · Grants · Nonprofits · RFPs · Stories
Jake Becomes “ABAMA,” But Not Obama
September 1st, 2011 · 1 Comment
Faithful readers will know that my son and associated Seliger, Jake, has been toiling in the graduate English Literature program at the University of Arizona (go Cats!) for three years, like Kirk Douglas in the opening salt mine sequence in Spartacus. Jake, like his parents and siblings, is a bit challenged with respect to (“WRT” [...]
Tags: Stories
Program Officer Blues: What To Do When The RFP Is Ambiguous, Contradictory, Incoherent, or All Three
August 21st, 2011 · 4 Comments
When you find an ambiguity or outright contradiction in an RFP, it’s time to contact the Program Officer, whose phone number and e-mail address is almost always stashed somewhere in the RFP. The big problem with contacting a Program Officer is simple: you can’t trust what she or he tells you. The formal RFP—particularly if [...]
Tags: Advice · Government · Grants · How-to · Stories
Unicorn Spotted in the LA Times: A Large Nonprofit Gives Back Huge Federal Grants
June 26th, 2011 · 1 Comment
In the 280 or so years I’ve spent grant writing (grant writing years should be considered as dog years because of endless deadlines and dumb RFPs), I don’t believe I’ve ever come across a nonprofit that voluntarily gave back significant federal grants. Faithful readers will know that I use the term “unicorn” for anything I [...]
Tags: Advice · Grants · Media · Nonprofits · Stories
Another Lesson for Grant Writers from KU Basketball: Every Organization Needs a Great Grant Writing Point Guard
March 27th, 2011 · 1 Comment
My beloved KU Jayhawks just got bounced from the Elite Eight round of the NCAA Tournament by a much lower ranked team, V.C.U. As much as I favor the Jayhawks, who would probably beat V.C.U. nine out of ten times, V.C.U. was the better team today and deserved to win. Having watched most of the [...]
Why You’re Unlikely to see “Seliger and Associates Presents Grant Writing Confidential: The Book and Musical” Anytime Soon
March 6th, 2011 · No Comments
A recent commenter told us, “You should write a book, if you haven’t already.” We’ve thought idly about doing a book and then gone back to drinking Aviations, admiring the sunset, and writing proposals. But we might eventually write a book if the conditions are right. The main reason I haven’t spent a lot of [...]
Tags: Blogging · Questions · Stories
Learn How Things Work, Including Grants and Grant Writing
August 29th, 2010 · 3 Comments
We regularly get e-mails and phone calls from people who think they can get money for nothing. They don’t know anything about how grants or grant writing works and apparently don’t want to learn. This is mind-boggling to me because it means such people are wasting their time and wasting our time for no particular [...]
Tags: Advice · Clients · Stories
How Much Money You Should Ask For — an example from the National Mentoring Programs, with Improving Literacy Through School Libraries Program as a Bonus
August 20th, 2010 · 2 Comments
In “So, How Much Grant Money Should I Ask For?,” we discussed a sometimes delicate issue for nonprofits: picking a grant request amount. Our standard answer: ask for the maximum because zeroes are cheap. Funders will sometimes cut down your budget but almost never increase it. Some obnoxious programs, however, won’t tell you how much [...]
Tags: Advice · Budgets · Government · Grants · Stories
True Tales of a Department of Education Grant Reviewer
August 15th, 2010 · 7 Comments
In “Why Winning an Olympic Gold Medal is Not Like Getting a Carol M. White Physical Education Program (PEP) Grant,” Isaac wrote: “Many grant applicants are under the delusion from years of watching the Olympics and similar sports competitions that, if their application receives the highest review score, the grant will automatically be awarded.” One [...]
Tags: Advice · Government · Grants · Stories