Since I’ve launched the Unlock-Grants course and started exhibiting “at conference” (slang for the annual GrantSummit, powered by Grant Professionals Association), I have become a recognizable face to many new friends — my students! I love when they walk up to the Unlock-Grants booth and introduce themselves!
This year, I got to know my Unlock-Grants student Matthew Rossi of Living Classrooms Foundation at the conference in Baltimore. I interviewed Matthew (a former educator) about his experience with the course. He shared two key takeaways:
1) The Unlock-Grants course “has recursive learning built in.”
Recursive: “the repeated application of a rule, definition, or procedure to successive results.”
Matthew specified in our interview that he valued the course’s recursiveness in particular. Meaning, he appreciated the fact that in the course, I begin talking about a principle of grant writing, give you an example of its use, and then test your knowledge in the quiz that follows. Then, in the next module, I repeat that same principle and its application, and build on it and your knowledge of it to explain the next principle.
Then you get the chance to apply what you’ve learned to real-life situations in a Need Statement, Logic Model, or draft proposal that you can submit and have reviewed.
What this recursiveness in my approach does is:
a) gives immediate value to what you learned;
b) cements the principle learned; and
c) is used as a foundation for further learning, further confirming the value.
Meaning, the way the course is structured allows for validation, better retention, and deeper learning.
I’ve been explaining it as a “layered, scaffolded” approach. Each section of the course builds on the one before. In this way, taking the course out of order would not have nearly the value as taking it in sequence.
I was asked at one point whether I could offer single modules that people could purchase depending on what their learning need was.
The question:
If a learner needed to know more about Prospect Research, for instance, could they just purchase that module?
My answer:
No.
My reasoning:
Because since the course is built as a total unit, it would be like buying a house’s roof without having its foundation or walls.
If you take the Unlock-Grants course sequentially, by the time you get to the Prospect Research module, you have learned about Logic Models, Need Statements, Program Sustainability, Budgets for Grants, and a whole lot more. Someone just cherry-picking the Prospect Research module would be out of their depth; the vocabulary, concepts, and principles covered in the course up to that point would be referenced, and they would not understand the context, purpose, and reasoning behind prospect research work.
I suppose I’m making assumptions, but if you’re looking for grant training, I am guessing you wouldn’t have the foundational knowledge necessary to get the most out of a single module of my course. So the value of any single Unlock-Grants module you would purchase out of sequence would be diminished.
ONE CAVEAT:
You can purchase one module at a time, but because of how the course is built, you must purchase them in order, and cannot advance to purchase the next module in the sequence until you pass that module’s quiz.
That’s why I say attending webinars is a great way to plug some specific knowledge gaps or learn a little about a narrow topic. But it is not the way to go about learning the totality of the grants profession, where a grant pro’s work fits into a full development plan, or into a development team’s work.
The Unlock-Grants course offers Matthew the “recursive learning” he values, as well as lifetime access to all its tools, resources, and the growing Topic Library, where his questions are answered and his draft proposals are reviewed.
2) The Unlock-Grants course gave Matthew “confidence to become a better grant writer and manager.”
This is a feature of the course I don’t talk about much, but Matthew picked up on a very salient point: that throughout the course’s content, I hammer home the value of the grants profession, the value of grant professionals, and by extension, MY STUDENTS’ value.
I point out time and time again throughout the course that as a grant pro, they are a leader within their organization. They are an important member of their development team, and of their nonprofit. I work to empower my students to take charge:
- assemble their cross-departmental Logic Model team;
- approach their CFO or finance team with their budget needs;
- talk to HR, IT, Marketing to gather the important information they need,
so they can make a strong, airtight, solid grant proposal and win grant dollars to support their good work!
Through the course, I work to give Matthew and my other students more confidence, and the strength of their convictions, knowing that they have the answers, they know what the next move should be, and to ask for what they need from people.
Self-assurance helps you:
• pipe up in staff meetings when things aren’t right;
• bug people when they’ve missed the deadline to get you something critical to your work;
• when you make a cold call to a new funder prospect; and,
• when you negotiate with your boss.
Confidence is just cockiness though, when it’s not backed up by knowledge. The Unlock-Grants course gives my students knowledge, plus tools, resources, and a lifetime of support to ask their questions. I am only just an email away, and I bring all 15 years of my grants experience to bear — along with the experience of being in their shoes once myself.
Many thanks to Matthew Rossi for his candor and enthusiasm about Unlock-Grants.
