November 2009
Tips, Tools, and Tidbits -
offering a quick review for the experts, helpful hints for the familiar, and a good place to start for the novice
- If you’re able to communicate ideas effectively to others and you’re organized, you already posses the basic skills you need to be an effective grantwriter.
- One of the first habits you’ll want to establish is careful use of the term “grant”. In the grantwriting world, a “grant” is a funded project. What you write to receive a grant is a “proposal” or “grant proposal”. A successful proposal leads to a funded grant project.
- According to U.S. law, a foundation must give away no less than 5% of the corpus of their funds each year to avoid very high tax penalties and remain a foundation.
- The Internet has fundamentally changed the field of grantwriting. Instead of spending days in the ‘stacks’ at the library researching foundations and funders listed in massive bound documents, we now use the power of the Internet to glean the same information from our home or office in a matter of hours.
- The Internet has changed the way many grant proposals are submitted to grantmakers. A growing number of grantmakers, both private and government, are relinquishing paper proposals in favor of online submittals in a specified application format.
- You must allot time for copying and pasting your responses into the online application form. Many online submittal programs require you to apply and receive approval before being allowed to use their required program to submit a proposal. Be sure to allot several weeks for this approval the first time you use a new online submittal program.
- Electronic gremlins being what they are, it’s important to allow an extra workday or two in case you experience malfunctions with the electronics or software during the submittal process. Some organizations will allow you to submit a proposal via fax or mail if you experience problems with their online submittal process, but only if you’ve contacted them well before the application deadline and only if the system problem is on their end. In no cases will a grantmaker accept a proposal submitted after the deadline.
Note: If you find this section helpful, you might consider purchasing the newly revised handbook:
The Art of Grantwriting.
It will expand on many of the ideas shared in this section.
