Most people who haven’t written a grant assume that grant writing is hard. In this article, you’ll learn 2 main reasons why grant writing can be difficult for many and 3 ways to make the process easier.
When I was asked (even paid) to write my first state government grant in 1988, I replied, “I’m flattered that you’d like me to write your proposal. But I’ve never written a proposal before.”
“Don’t worry,” the university administrator told me. “It’s not that hard. Plus, there’s a lot of help here at the university if you need it.”
Reason 1: “I’ve never done it before”
So the first reason it’s hard to write grant applications is that you’ve never done it before. I didn’t. It’s natural to think that you’ve never written a grant proposal before, so what makes you think you can write one now?
When you try something for the first time, it’s scary. If you’re like me, you don’t have any personal experience to draw on; at least, that’s what you think.
So expect the first time to be scary because it is!
What helped me in my situation was that they paid me. It was my first job right after I got my master’s degree. In fact, I got the call exactly one day after I graduated.
Second, my dream professional job was to create a model language learning program for immigrants for 3 years, so I was confident in my dream and my abilities to carry out an English as a Second Language program. In other words, you had the “content expertise” for the grant even though you lacked the technical grant writing skills. That’s why the university administrator called me.
You can take that first scholarship as an opportunity to make your ideal career or dream come true, just like I did. You can allow your confidence in your abilities to be greater than that of the fear gremlins. Fears will not go away. But, you take them with you on the trip.
Reason 2: “I don’t know where to start”
Once I was given the opportunity to write the grant, I didn’t know where to start. I received the Request for Proposal (RFP) from the Nevada State Department of Education. An RFP includes the guidelines and instructions for the application. That’s where I started.
Next, I went through some grant application videos from the college library and fell asleep in the first 5 minutes. That didn’t help.
I asked around to see if there were any grant writing experts at the university and made an appointment to meet the guy who seemed to be the expert. While it was a confidence booster to hear that she had been so successful with little training, that didn’t help either.
I went back to the RFP, created an outline for my proposal using headings and subheadings from the RFP. I noticed that certain sections of the RFP received different points. That is, when the proposals reached the state agency that delivered the money, they were evaluated and scored according to a weighted scale. “Agency Introduction”, for example, received a maximum of 10 points, while the “Measurable Results” section received 15 points and “Budget” a maximum of 20 points.
At this point, the concession became a game. I remembered taking classes in college and finding out the grading scale the professors used. Later, I wrote my final papers using that criteria. When I figured out how I would be graded correctly and wrote a paper for maximum points, I usually got up to 100 points and a good grade.
Also, the RFP is a rating scale. That’s where I focused my attention. That’s where I started.
If you’re like me, a good place to start is to focus on the RFP and create your outline and headers for your request. Over time, you’ll also get faster. My first $125,000 grant took 100 hours to write. My last grant of $462,000 took 4 hours to write.
In short, most people make grant writing difficult. Two reasons for this are that you’ve never done it before and you don’t know where to start. Here are three tips to make grant writing less difficult: 1) view your first grant as an opportunity to make your dream come true, 2) make your self-confidence greater than the gremlins fear, and 3) ) start with the funder’s RFP.
