Don't Let Grants Stress You Out
I hear a soft knock on my door and I roll over and look at my alarm clock and it says 2 am. This happens every so often when you are a resident advisor in college. You open your door, see a student in a confused state and mentally begin an action plan in your head to help them out. Being a grant writer isn’t…
I have been conducting quite a bit of funder research lately, which has given me an opportunity to further develop my foundation research strategies. Last week in Developing Your Foundation Research Strategy – Part 1 of 2, I discussed search term selection and addressing previous funders. You may have heard the phrase “Plan the work, then work the plan.” Once you have identified the…
I have been conducting quite a bit of funder research lately, which has given me an opportunity to further develop my foundation research strategies. Last year in Improving Your Research Strategy, I delved into the Foundation Center’s taxonomy and visual navigator and boolean operators. Here are two key strategies I’ve been using since then that may help YOU with your own foundation research: …
Grant professionals choose this career for a variety of reasons, and as with any other career that involves writing, have unique routines to motivate them to dig in on their writing work. What is your go to routine or activity for motivation? Running? Reading? Working in a coffee shop? As we started the new year, I had the opportunity to create some new routines and thought about…
The seed catalog came in the mail immediately after Christmas, its cover graced by bright sunflowers and its pages filled with beautiful photos of plump tomatoes on the vine, shiny eggplants, juicy cantaloupes, and everywhere green, green, green. This catalog didn’t meet its end in the recycling bin; instead, it has been given a prominent place next to my couch, a coffee table book of…
Learning, understanding, and feeling confident, not just informed about federal grants is a significant undertaking for a grant seeking organization. Mix in the occasional federal government shut down or the shifts in policy goals and funding priorities when there are changes in leadership in the government, and the federal grant funding landscape can feel stressful and uncertain. As a result, I thought I would pull together…
As grant professionals, we all encounter a sticky situation, an argument, or a difficult colleague at some point in high-performing grant teams. For example, an accountant might demand something unallowable in a grant application, or someone might want to control the entire project without any prior grant experience. It is so important to work collaboratively with the team, but frustrating to deal with certain people….
“If you want to be a writer you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” —Stephen King It is well-known that reading improves writing, and writing is a large part of the responsibilities of a grant professional. Because of this, the DH Leonard Consulting Team discussed our reading lives recently based on a shortened version of the…
2018 was quite the year in the field of grant writing as well as for the DH Leonard Consulting team. As it winds down and we ensure that all of our clients have their grant calendars and grant teams in great shape for the year ahead, we paused to look at which blog posts YOU enjoyed the most this year. I’ve turned them into a…
I was talking on the phone with another grant professional recently that I had just met. In the course of the conversation, she shared with pride that the Executive Director of her organization knew she could count on her to do whatever it takes to submit a grant application, whether it is working until 3am or working on the weekend. I was quiet about it at…