Three tips for writing grants faster:
- Pre-write sections
- Plan writing the specific grant
- Re-apply if/when you are unsuccessful
Transcript:
If you're thinking about putting together a grant or perhaps writing more grants. What are some tips that I have for you to make them more competitive or to get more organised? I think first of all if you've decided you want to be writing grants, I think prewrite as much as you can. That might be the bio section. That might be the about you section or the about your organization section. If the project is something that
is kind of ongoing or is part of something bigger, know the budget, etc.: Tip 1 - prewrite as much as you can; Tip 2 - know where your funding comes from, and know about the organization.
A lot of time, we look just at the grant rules themselves but a lot of the times that grant rule or those grant outcomes put together based on an overarching policy outcome or an overarching policy requirement that an organization is looking for. If we take government for example, most small business grants are actually not so much about from supporting the small business to do its thing but it's more about supporting economic development. Knowing that means that you can write more to those goals rather than just to the goals of say, developing your IT product or your software as a service or whatever it might be.
The next thing is to say no. One of the things that people often do is think that if we fit most of the criteria, then we should go ahead and apply. But that's probably not a good strategy for grant applications. Particularly, when you know that a lot of your competitors are probably going to have a much stronger track record. Perhaps, take all of the criteria and knowing when to say no can save you a lot of time when it comes to putting grants in.
The next thing that you should be doing is planning your application. I know that it seems like you should be writing. But if you take some time to plan what's necessary to put your application together, and when it might get done by. It means you can delegate some of that work effectively, and then bring it all together as one final application later on.
Finally, I reckon you need to practice. We spend a lot of time thinking that we're doing a good job writing grant, so we don't practice writing them. That doesn't necessarily mean write a grant that doesn't exist, but it does mean write the various sections of the grant. Review other people's grants, read what they say, and what those grants are like. Because you're very get quickly get a sense of what's good, and what's not good.
That's my tips for writing good grants better! Thanks.