ggopher posted on December 18, 2009 16:43
In a recent informal study Grant Gopher conducted, over 100 random grant applications were reviewed. Of those, 32% of the applicants didn’t even meet the basic qualifying requirements. Over half of the proposals had serious spelling and grammatical errors, which incidentally is one of the top reasons grant proposals are rejected. Where a budget was required, 65% of the budgets submitted merely listed the grant amount requested, rather than detailing the program budget. Quite a few other budgets magically added up to the exact maximum grant amount allowed. Almost all of the applications had no plan for sustained operations; the grant for which they applied was intended as the sole source of program funding.
These flaws will almost always result in those proposals being passed up for ones where the writer took the time to think through the application, double-check and polish the document. After all, if the applicant can’t be bothered to do a good job with the proposal, why would the funder have reason to believe the applicant would manage the grant appropriately?
This doesn’t mean that you have to hire a grant writer. It does mean that you should know the limitations you may be facing when writing your own grant proposals.
So how do you know when to hire a grant writer? The first hint is if you have sent several proposals to various funders and have been rejected every time. At a minimum, you should be asking some trusted volunteers, board members and staff to review the grant guidelines along with the resulting proposals to see if they can pinpoint what you may be doing wrong. If their review doesn’t result in some constructive feedback, you should hire a grant writer to help develop a good, basic proposal that you can tailor to various opportunities.
The second indication is if you have no clue where to start looking for a grant. You may be able to hire a consultant or researcher just to find appropriate funders, which will save you a lot of time. If the grants you are interested in applying for aren’t too competitive, you can hire a grant writer just to proofread your work and give you some pointers. If the grant program is very competitive or critical to your mission, you should hire a grant writer to work closely with you or your key personnel. And finally, if you have several proposals all due in the same time period, a grant writer can ease that burden.
If you’re just not ready to hire someone, there are several excellent books about grant writing. Pick one or two books and focus on the lessons contained in those books. There is so much information available that it is easy to get distracted, so keep your focus and get ready to do some great work!