Don't Let Grants Stress You Out
By the time you read this, you may be knee-deep in holiday shopping madness. And it may not be a Hallmark Movie movement for you or those you love. There’s a lot to consider, right? It can become a strange familial calculus of reasonable costs, dream fulfillment, package delivery roulette, and mall or big box parking space availability. Over the past few years, I’ve honed…
I began what I now see was my first grant seeking for a capital campaign when I was in fifth grade. Instead of bricks and mortar I sought a four-hooved, whinnying kind of large scale investment. And my sole source of funding was the Hays Beleaguered Parents Foundation (HBPF); you could say I had an “in” with the key board members. If you’re not familiar…
“What is the essence of life? To serve others and to do good.” ~Aristotle I don’t care what your profession, there is probably a membership organization out there just for you. City planner? How about the American Planning Association? Engineers have the National Society of Professional Engineers. If you’re a professional evaluator you may belong to the American Evaluation Association. Then there’s the International…
I moved to Leavenworth, Kansas when I was a 13-year-old army brat, and that’s when I realized the Wizard of Oz was more than a movie played on television each Thanksgiving. It’s a Kansas-resident obsession, and rightly so. This also began my obsession with sparkly shoes. Coincidence, I think not! This beloved classic teaches great lessons about the power of friendship, family, and the power…
First, dear reader—a full and frank confession. I have an unnatural attraction to British period dramas. As in, if the cast of Downton Abbey reunited to read the entire Uniform Guidance documentation, I would be there for every minute of this kind of attraction. To be clear, I have no desire to live in a country pile of stone and damp. And I have…
What would be your recipe to create the perfect grant? How about a list of ingredients that include: a clean, well-lit quiet office free of distractions immediate access to the most comprehensive databases with all the latest data strong Wi-Fi and a reliable laptop a well-defined program fully realized months before the grant deadline current impeccable data describing the needs and assets of the community…
With Requests for Proposals (RFPs) aka Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) often running between 40 and 100 pages of detailed instructions grant writing seems like endless sets of assembly instructions for IKEA furniture on steroids—minus the allen wrenches of course. The DIY (do it yourself) nature of grant writing comes from following the often-complex instructions, assembling the many required attachments such as logic models,…
My grandson was finally old enough this year to be as excited about Shark Week as much as I am. I love learning about sharks as much as I love being a grant peer reviewer. I served as a peer reviewer for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) grant, a program I’ve written many proposals for in the past. This federal program funds extracurricular…
Originally posted by CharityHowTo July 10, 2019. Read the original blog here. When talking with nonprofit professionals who are new to the grant writing field, or even those who may not be new to the field, but are focused on taking their grant writing career to the next level, one of the most common questions I am asked is about what key resources and trainings…
Here are three varieties of a fruit or vegetable: Belle of Georgia, Desert Gold, and Empress. Do you know what fruit or vegetable this is? If you guessed peaches, you are correct. I have enjoyed some tasty peaches this summer. Last year was the first time I wrote a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) grant. I also handled…