The Grant Writing Basics series I am teaching now developed from all the 40- to 50-minute sessions I have presented over the years. I have certainly had experience with organizations wanting me to teach their staff “All There Is To Know About Grant Writing” in a single under-an-hour session, but that doesn’t give much credence to what we grant writers know and do, does it? And to try and encapsulate it into 45 minutes leaves the wrong impression; it perpetuates the myth that we “just” write grants, or that our job is just a walk in the park and POOF! Money pours in.
So when a client came to me wanting a deeper dive, I pounced at the chance to really flesh out all the basics of grant writing for their program staff. I leapt at the chance to leave behind a cadre of individuals that understand the soup-to-nuts of grant writing, and are equipped to carry out all the aspects of the job if called upon – either within their agency, or if they land somewhere else someday.
They would have a tool in their toolbelt that would even serve them if they never ever wrote a grant proposal themselves in their lives; they would be a great grant team member though, and a great partner to anyone working to get a grant for their program or project.
And they could FIND AND WIN FUNDING FOR THEIR OWN PROJECTS!
That is my goal in my full Grant Writing Basics course: to equip my fellow non-profit professionals with the knowledge and understanding to get funding for their own projects, or be valuable to whomever was in that grant seeking role.
Going through all the Grant Writing Basics in depth takes three full days. Not 45 minutes.
- DAY ONE: Grants 101 built their knowledge to find and write a decent grant proposal.
- DAY TWO: Grants 102 was a peer review of their grant narrative homework assignments.
- DAY THREE: Grants 103 is everything else.
In developing this series, I found that after mapping out two full days of course work, all there was time to do was find and write the narrative portion of a grant proposal. But there is so much more. So, I developed Grants 103.
Grants 103 rounds out the totality of what it takes to “just” write grants. It covers:
- Budgets for grants and the budget narrative, key pieces in a total understanding of how grants get funded and why
- How to avoid technical glitches, and what to do if they are encountered
- “What’s next” after you hit Submit, and the process that’s taking place on the funder’s side
- The issue of how to act/react when a decision is announced on your grant proposal
- How to manage and organize for multiple proposals
- How to streamline your work to get ready to submit multiple asks
- And where and how to learn more about the field
So, another full day!
But all topics that would otherwise shortchange the course participants if they were left out. All topics that demand “air time” in their own right. All topics that round out the knowledge needed for grant writing independence within their organization.
No longer will they be reliant on someone else to tell them what to do, where to find it, how to do it. They will be autonomous and self-sufficient, AND ABLE TO FIND AND WIN THEIR OWN FUNDING!
