Tag: grant writer

The Elephant in the Room: Grant Writing as Fundraising

There are many blogs, books, and conferences devoted to nonprofit fundraising. Topics, such as direct mail best practices, making “the ask,” and getting your board on-board, have been dissected again and again.  Yet, how honest are the conversations around fundraising coupled with grant writing?  Compared with the personal, relationship-based nature of appealing to individual donors and meeting face-to-face with local businesses for financial support, fundraisers can feel overwhelmed when also expected to research and write grants on top of their other responsibilities. When everything’s a trade-off, should your fundraiser spend their time grant writing? Or is their energy better spent cultivating relationships and stewarding donors? Here are a few considerations when debating the best use of your fundraising team’s time.

Grant writing is unique and requires a special skill set. Grant writing is vastly different from other types of fundraising and other types of writing.  The process is often solitary, reflective, and inward-focused. A strong grant application should be clear and concise, making sure to answer questions directly, with little-to-no niceties.  Simple, detail-driven, transactional grant writing is oftentimes in stark contrast to the friendly nature of a fundraiser who interacts with donors.

Grant writing is a process, with a system and deadlines. Maybe not the first or second time you apply for a grant, but once you’ve applied for enough grants, a good grant writer develops a system.  How is your system working for you?  Do you have a system? Large foundations have entire teams to monitor grant deadlines and reporting.  Smaller organizations with limited resources may find it difficult to systematize grant writing while balancing other fundraising activities.

When successful, the real work starts. When the grant is awarded, you and your organization must administer, track, and report on the grant funding.  There is typically more demanded on an organization when funding comes as a grant, so fundraisers must have the system in place to concentrate on the reporting.

Making the case for outsourcing your grant writing. Contracting your grant writing to an outside team frees staff to focus on what matters most: your mission and your donors.  Professional grant writers will write more objectively about your program and have the tracking systems in place to handle researching new grant opportunities and reporting once grants are obtained. What are you waiting for?

Williams Grant Writing (WGW) has the team, time, skills, and systems in place to act as your grant writing partner. WGW can help you research funding opportunities, review draft applications, apply for the grant funding, and help you stay on top of reporting and deadlines. WGW has a proven track record of connecting nonprofits to funding. Contact us today to see how we can help.

Staying Ready to Apply for that Dream Grant

If You Build It, They Will Come:
Staying Ready to Apply for that Dream Grant

Most of the time, working for a nonprofit means juggling competing deadlines, lack of resources and time constraints … all while fulfilling your important mission to do good work in your community. It can feel overwhelming to have inadequate planning time to get ahead and stay ahead of critical projects.

However difficult it may seem, planning is essential to success. So, schedule planning time on your calendar, turn off distractions and notifications for an hour or two, and compile your grant writing toolkit.

With a little prep work, you can get and stay ready for funding opportunities by organizing just a few commonly-asked-for grant application items. Because many funders are turning to online portals where you need to enter text into text boxes, it makes sense to organize your materials for easy copying and pasting of information. In Williams Grant Writing’s experience, there are six items most funders want to see to consider funding a program:

1. IRS 501(c)(3) Determination Letter
2. List of Board of Directors and Senior Management
3. List of 3-5 Highest Paid Employees and Salaries
4. Current Organizational Budget
5. Itemized Budget for Project
6. List of Other Funding Sources Associated with Project

Having these items ready-to-go will make those last-minute application deadlines easier to make.

Of course, compiling these 6 items is just the first step. WGW can help you research funding opportunities based on your programs and location, review draft applications, apply for the grant funding, and help you stay on top of reporting and deadlines. We have a proven track record of connecting nonprofits to funding. Contact us today to see how we can help!

Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Grant Writer?

You need more than a love of writing to craft a well-written proposal that achieves results

Poetry, scripts, short stories and…grant proposals? Yes, grant writing is a genre unto itself. You may enjoy writing for pleasure or find dashing off a well-written email easy, but grant writers must possess a special skill set to write a proposal.

To be able to hone winning grant proposals, you need the following:

An ability to stay organized

A messy desk is not a sign of a genius in the world of grant writing. On the contrary, a successful grant writer must be meticulous in tracking information, such as:

  • The organization’s history, contact info, mission statement, brand narrative, programs, and projects
  • Lists of past donors, possible donors, and resources for finding them
  • Documentation of the extraordinary accomplishments of your organization
  • Outreach efforts
  • Calendar of deadlines, important dates, meetings, conferences, meet-and-greets, and fundraising events

You have to maintain this level of organization throughout the entire process, starting long before you put pen to paper and even after you’ve submitted your proposal.

Stellar research skills

To be a grant writer, you need a deep-rooted curiosity to constantly seek out possible funders, decipher the requirements and legalities of the grant, get to know your possible funders, understand how to best present information to them, learn from rejections, and, oh, so much more.

In other words, you must possess an insatiable hunger for learning.

“Identifying state agencies, private foundations, and other organizations that give grants to individuals or small businesses requires considerable time, effort, and research,” warns Carolyn M. Brown.

The research that you do in the beginning of the process is crucial – it can save you time and effort in the long run.

Excellent time management skills

If you want to be a grant writer, you must know how to use time efficiently – not just for your organization but also for the potential funders. You have to put in the research to craft well-written proposals that don’t waste the funder’s time. (In other words, they’re not sloppy, meandering, poorly written pieces that do not interest the funder.)

You also respect time by scheduling only necessary meetings. For example, if the information can be presented well in any email, consider writing one instead of forcing everyone to attend a meeting.

The most important time management rule is: Never miss a funder deadline. Deadlines must be met ─ not viewed as suggestions.

Clear, engaging writing skills

Writing for a grant needs to be strong, crisp, and informative. Everything within the proposal should serve a purpose and serve that purpose well.

Your grant writing needs to focused, clear, and organized, so that readers will get a clear picture of:

  • Your credibility
  • The problem or issue
  • Reasons for your proposal (including benefits and goals)
  • How the grant will help to ease or solve the issue

The proposal, as a whole, should be cohesive as well. Paragraphs should naturally flow from one section to another and not be a series of disconnected thoughts.

In addition to adhering to the overall tone and style of the proposal, a grant writer should make sure that it doesn’t have typos or grammatical errors. Sloppy writing suggests sloppy thinking.

Critical eye

As a grant writer, you can’t get too attached to your own writing. You need to revise (and revise and revise) your proposal, critically looking at writing that needs to be tightened, deleted, or strengthened.

“In your revision and editing, ask your readers to give careful consideration to whether you’ve made explicit the connections between your research objectives and methodology,” according to the Writing Center.

  • For example, you’ll have to ask yourself:
  • Have I made a compelling case?
  • Is my hypothesis clear?
  • Does my project sound doable or too lofty?
  • Did I provide metrics and measurements for determining its success?

Ability to ask for help when needed

Researching opportunities, getting materials together, writing a proposal, and waiting to see whether the grant has been awarded to your organization all takes a lot of time. So, you need to know when you simply do not have the time or energy to dedicate to writing a proposal.

It’s all right to admit that you need help writing a proposal. At Williams Grant Writing, we can dedicate the time to crafting well-written, thoroughly researched proposals, so you can focus on the other aspects of your organization. Put us to work for you today.