Tag: grant writer tools

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!

The Secret Toolbox of Grant Writing Superheroes

Before you start grinding out a grant proposal, get the right resources at your disposal.

Feel ready to dive into grant writing? First, you need to make sure you’ve packed the necessary equipment, so you succeed─and don’t end up crashing and burning.

Here’s a look at some invaluable resources that can make you into a grant writing hero.

Webinars

GrantSpace, a service of the popular Foundation Center, offers free and reasonably rated self-paced e-learning classes to help you through the grant-writing process. The webinar courses cover such topics as introduction to proposal writing, creating a sound proposal budget, and storytelling for social media.

Grant Writing Checklist Concept Worksheet

After spending several hours looking at those webinars, you may be in the mood to start putting pen to paper. This grant-writing checklist concept worksheet from the University of Maine can help you organize some of the many thoughts running through your head right about now.

The worksheet is divided into sections:

  • Introduction
  • Background, appropriateness, and achievements
  • Needs addressed
  • Project objectives
  • Project partners
  • Program implementation
  • Evaluation methodology
  • Outreach activities
  • Project sustainability
  • Key personnel

Team Responsibilities Planning Worksheet

Nobody writes a grant proposal alone, so while you’re crafting ideas for your grant proposal, you need to figure out who will do what. For example, one person may be assigned to check your organization’s network to see whether you have a connection with the potential funder, while another team member dives in to gathering information about the funder’s organization.

To keep track of your grant-writing team and members’ responsibilities, consider using this valuable team responsibilities planning worksheet from the University of Maine.

Evernote

A favorite among writers, Evernote lets you keep online “notes” (documents or images) in “notebooks” that you create and organize yourself. You can create special notebooks to track your grant-writing process, such as:

  • Potential funders
  • Specific notebooks for each funder
  • Outreach efforts for each funder
  • Contact information for each funder

As inspiration hits, you can scrawl down a note superfast in Evernote, save it, and access it from your laptop, desktop computer, or smartphone with the Evernote app.

Dropbox

Similar to Evernote, Dropbox lets you save files in the cloud then access them from anywhere. Everything in Dropbox is synched automatically to all devices, so you’ll never be without a document when inspiration strikes.

Writers typically use Dropbox to save different drafts of documents, upload videos easily, and save images.

KanbanFlow

A must-have for any writer who wants to boost productivity, KanbanFlow is a lean project management tool. Its visual interface makes it easy for writers to keep track of what projects are hottest, what tasks need to be done, and where projects are in the process.

KanbanFlow also lets you use the Pomodoro technique, so you work 25 minutes without interruption and with maximum focus.

Google Drive

If you have different writers working on one proposal or just need everyone to access the same documents (without overwriting one another), Google Drive is vital.

It offers 15GB of free online storage for all types of images and documents. Plus, you can invite other users to view, download, and collaborate on the different files. Because the doc is in Google Drive, you don’t have to send endless emails back and forth with attachments.

Expert help at your fingertips

Busy saving the world or still find yourself overwhelmed? We live to craft well-written, thoroughly researched proposals, so you can focus on the other aspects of your organization. Put us to work for you today.