I did a mental double take. Did I just say I won a competitive grant with the appendix to the proposal?  I thought further: I did a good job writing the body of the proposal. And I always corroborate staff qualifications in the appendix.

But this grant paid for “capacity building” (training in running a nonprofit), and we were quite experienced and very well-qualified. So I used the appendix for more than verification. I took advantage of the extra pages to demonstrate in detail all the ways my organization had “been there and done that.”

One of the most convincing documents had to be the table of contents from a capacity-building manual we used when training nonprofit groups throughout the state. I also listed the dates, places and the participating nonprofits.

In addition, I supplied a list of dates and topics each of our staff members provided to their constituencies. Training topics addressed by our partner for the grant were also appended.

I showed how we were ready to hit the ground running with results of a recent survey we conducted asking nonprofits what types of training they needed.

In all, I included nine optional attachments each identified by a letter from “A” to “I.” The letters helped draw attention in the proposal’s table of contents and served to identify each attachment in references made within the proposal.

After yesterday’s talk, I remembered another successful proposal. Much of the data in it came from a door-to-door survey. Naturally, a summary of the complete survey was appended to the proposal. Hmmmm . . . maybe that appendix won us the grant.

However, those days are long gone. The fonts computers produce have made the two-space method unnecessary. Today, every major style manual (including the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook) makes it clear that one space is proper.

Does it matter if you still use two? Actually, yes. Anytime we see two spaces in an article that was written in recent years, we immediately think “amateur hour.” And that’s the last thing you want your reader to think about you.

This can be done through email messages, a post on your blog or social media such as Facebook or Twitter. (Keep in mind, some members might not be familiar with social media. Take the time to learn what modes of communication are most useful for your board.)

If board members are kept current with the organization only through meetings and minutes, they could get the idea they exist only to rubber stamp your plans. If you’re relying on board members to raise funds, remember you probably will get back about as much time and attention as you give to them.

Board members cannot promote a program they know little about. If they aren’t sufficiently involved in accomplishments, how can they “sell” your organization as a good investment?

When the organization is launched or after the annual dinner, there is a feeling of togetherness among board members, volunteers and staff. They are working for a cause that all embrace. You need to follow up with continuing contact to maintain the momentum. Frankly, keeping volunteers is all about momentum.

Let your board and advisory committee members know the details of your current activities and the results. Insert photos into your communications. Give members roles that provide opportunities to show their expertise.

Something not working? Ask their advice. Invite them to see firsthand what you’re doing. On occasion, ask them to roll up their sleeves and help.

Speaking of “firsthand,” try to always have your meetings in person so everyone can get to know each other. Too many meetings by teleconference intimidates those who can’t get heard among the voices on the telephone.  The frustration could prompt members to quit the organization.

You might do all these things and still a member doesn’t show up. Maybe the excuse is a busy schedule. We’d counter with the adage: “If you want to get something done, give it to a busy person.”

We’d suggest a strictly-enforced bylaw that requires attendance at a minimum number of meetings. Those who can’t meet the rule can be rotated off in favor of someone with more enthusiasm.

It is the resume, when you compete with others to get the job. It is the grant proposal, when you compete with others to get funding. It is any time you compete with peers to get donors, votes and even “your way.”

More is less in persuasive writing when you use words that say the same thing. For example, “Our approach is economical, efficient and frugal, freeing up manpower, materials and money for other uses.”

It is obvious to the reader that your plan will save money. In fact, it is obvious over and over and over. The reader tunes out when statements include unnecessary words; and worn out by the repetition, gives little attention to the rest of your statements.

Imagine the sentence above being followed by “Think what we could do with the resources this method saves our organization.” When your sentences repeat the message, you suggest to the reader that you (in a resume) or your plan has no other good qualities; that much of the document is really filler.

In conclusion, when you write  a resume, proposal or sales document, don’t use unnecessary adjectives and redundant sentences. Let each unique point you make stand out.

This Grantsmanship Center website holds the mother lode for a grantwriter. A map with clickable states takes you to lists of the following types of grantmakers in your state: top grantmaking foundations, community foundations, corporate giving programs and the homepage of every state government. The Center has paid subscriptions and other services that can be bought, but the free services are very good as well.

Community Foundations will require a blog post of their own, but if you want to visit their websites, you can when you click on the Grantsmanship Center’s map of the states.

Similar to the Grantsmanship Center, the Foundation Center has paid and free services, and the latter are quite good. You can sign up for free newsletters, including the RFP Bulletin which lists current grant announcements.

Grantstation requires a paid membership for searches, but you can sign up for a newsletter that posts current grant opportunities.

The Nonprofit Times offers a free searchable database of corporate donations.

Fundsnet gives you a searchable index by topic as well as recently announced grant opportunities.

Don Griesmann on Charity Channel provides lists of open grant opportunities. You have to join, but it’s free. Here is a sample grant list.

The internet offers grant resources that have been collected by type of grant sought.

The School Grants website has a list of government and foundation funders of educational projects along with other grantwriting resources.

Another place where grants for education are posted is Grants Alert. You can sign up to receive updates by email.

The organization Connect for Kids lists grants for organizations serving children.

The Community of Science website says it will “search the world’s most comprehensive funding resource, with more than 25,000 records representing nearly 400,000 opportunities, worth over $33 billion.”

The University of North Carolina provides grant leads for researchers.

In many cases, you may have to further filter or elaborate upon the information you receive through these collections of grant sources. Grantseeking is labor-intensive, but the payoff can be great. Good luck.

Government grant opportunities are easy to find since every agency lists its open grant competitions on its website.

Grants from all agencies can be found at Grants.gov, now the federal government’s official grants portal.

The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance also lists all federal grants. It can be found here.

Both of these online directories feature a search for grants by topic.

Federal agencies’ grant pages show open grant competitions and provide additional resources for the grantwriter. Click on any of the following to go to the grant site:

Department of Education

Department of Health and Human Services

Department of Labor

Department of Homeland Security

Department of Housing and Urban Development

Department of Justice

Department of Environmental Protection

Department of Agriculture and Rural Development

Smaller and Quasi-governmental Agencies

Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives

Corporation for National and Community Service

National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Humanities

National Science Foundation

Historic Preservation Fund

Library of Congress Foundation

Fish and Wildlife Service

National Wildlife Foundation

We decided whenever we talk about locating grants and resources for writing grant proposals, we will include the Grant Institute Resources page. This site has a wealth of information.

In future postings, we’ll provide information about finding private foundation and state grants.

]]> http://www.wewriteforyou.com/Blog/?feed=rss2&p=359 0 http://www.wewriteforyou.com/Blog/?p=346 http://www.wewriteforyou.com/Blog/?p=346#comments Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:34:54 +0000 Rick Gershman http://www.wewriteforyou.com/Blog/?p=346
If you’re ever uncertain about how to spell a word, it’s always worth the time to look it up. As we mentioned in this earlier post, it takes only seconds to look up a word on an online dictionary.

By the same token, if you write quite a bit, it’s definitely worth the $15 to get online access to the AP Stylebook, the best go-to guide for proper usage. It’s a phenomenal resource you can check out here.

However, a visit to the site’s Frequently Asked Questions page reminds you that anyone can make a mistake. The FAQ’s second item reads:

Is the 2008 Associated Press Stylebook available? No, it has sold out and is not going to be reprint. The ISBN number is 978-0-917360-52-7

The obvious goof here is that “reprint” should be “reprinted.” But if we’re going to be picky (and you just know we are), the answer also is missing a period at the end.

And that’s not simply a “style” consideration, ironic as that would be. All of the other answers in the FAQ (including another that ends in a series of numbers) end with a period.

Again, we strongly recommend a subscription to the AP Stylebook to anyone who writes professionally on a regular basis (rest assured, we don’t receive a commission or anything else from the Associated Press).

But we have given the AP a heads-up about the FAQ goof, and we’re curious to see how quickly it gets fixed.

I consider people talking loudly on there cell phones in public to be offense of. They should of taken care of business at home or at there work sight. Do they have more rite to be herd in public then others?

I mite just go up to a loud cell talker and say, “Are thoughts could be as important as yours. We cant here them because your so loud. You deserve an Olympic mettle for rudeness!”

There are 14 words used mistakenly in context. Did you find this type of writing to be a turnoff? One friend told us, “When I read something like this, I die a little inside.”

As we’ve said before: you must review and edit everything you write.

I have never been around a grant where a politician has influenced which applicant gets funded. These days, government grant administrators have become insulated from political intervention. They use outside experts — variously called reviewers, readers or evaluators — to read and score proposals, removing themselves from the ultimate decision.

Grant administrators include the maximum points allotted for each section in their Requests for Proposals (RFPs). Under open government provisions, all applicants can request section scores and comments provided by reviewers. Several grantors routinely supply scores and reviewer comments anyway.

When I ran state grant programs, no politician ever pressured me to fund a competing applicant. That said, I was questioned a couple of times, after-the-fact, why an applicant was not funded. It was comforting to show the ranking of scores and the cut point where we ran out of grant funds to award.

Typically the result was questioned by senators or representatives on behalf of those who scored near the bottom. The low-scoring applicants might have put less effort into their proposal than they should have, hoping political intervention would get them the grant.

It quickly became my practice to send scores and reviewer comments to all applicants when the competition was over. I did this so sound organizations — ones that met critical needs and had good ideas — would understand how to write better proposals and increase the likelihood they would be funded.

Political connections can be useful for many things but getting the edge in a grant competition is not one of them.

A winning grant proposal is error-free.

In the last post, we talked about how clear and grammatically-correct writing alone is not enough to get your proposal funded. On the other hand, a proposal that meets funding criteria and is submitted by a worthy organization will not be funded if it contains writing and grammatical errors.

Some proposal reviewers (judges) score sections filled with grammatical and typographical errors in the lowest range of points available for the section. Even I, a copyeditor and grammarian, am amazed at the large number of points often deducted.

These are the explanations I have been given:

“A sloppy proposal indicates that the organization would operate a sloppy project.”

“They must have put this proposal together overnight, since they clearly didn’t have it proofread.”

“I don’t think these people can be very bright.”

“The proposal was too hard to read – the sentences went on forever and there were no commas to indicate pauses or necessary separations between words.”

Most of the time, it is the person who cares most about the cause and knows the grant program the best who writes the best proposal. This individual may not be the best writer on staff. It is incumbent upon the applicant to have a good writer take the not-so-good writer’s draft to fix errors and rewrite sections.

Naturally, to have time for edits and fixes, the applicant organization must finish the draft proposal with sufficient time to make the edits. Staff still should double-check the revised proposal to ensure it remains accurate.

Time for thorough editing is only one reason why a last-minute proposal usually is doomed. Grant research and writing is labor-intensive. It is better to forgo a grant opportunity discovered at the last minute and save your resources for when you have sufficient time to do a good job.