OK, I'll tell a common one. Grant programs are obsessed with 'new new new' (in terms of what projects they want to fund). I don't actually think it's a good thing, because if your well-established program addresses a genuinely important ongoing need in the community, it deserve funding no less than something just because it's new.
Nevertheless, it's an obsession among many grantmakers, so we have to deal with it.
Instead of forcing my client to come up a completely new 'innovative' project or program, you can build on your existing one while making it feel 'new':
- Introduce a new element to the project packaged as 'expansion' or 'growth', or a concepts like 'new target group' to bring in as benefices, where in reality it might be only 20% genuinely 'new work' for the client if the grant goes ahead.
- Then you give the application a snazzy title and use wording magic to change the perception of what's being proposed.
Right now I'm doing this trick for a client. Proposal will suggest that the grant funds the first 12 months' salary for a newly installed part-time volunteer coordinator to usher in a new era of program growth, and I'll call it 'seed capacity funding'.
Suddenly what they're funding is 'new', but it's a decade-old program.
I just gave something of real dollar value but I'm happy to trade it for Hacker News upvotes just this once. ;)
> I just gave something of real dollar value but I'm happy to trade it for Hacker News upvotes just this once. ;)
Happy to share an upvote :)
This is nice advice, but not exactly unknown. Have you spent much time on the grant reviewer side of the equation? It seems like literally every grant I've been part of writing involves the compromise and recasting in novelty that you're describing. I would expect many grants are using this approach to deal with the novelty obsession of funding bodies.
That's right, it's just common sense based out of experience.
Why people still need me - even after I can give 'free advice' like the above - is the stuff I have flowing through my blood and brain that others just don't. Grantwriting is a constant creative process. The 'source' of all my tricks I've collated is what I can produce, on-the-fly, in any new situation in the future. You have to have the personality. And I among others like me do. I'm not unique, but it's a pretty uncommon set of attributes you need to have. Obsessiveness and attention to detail (in every aspect of the job), sense of vision, empathy, sense of justice, your grammar and writing prowess, the willingness to jump through hoops (that's grants 101, I have stories to tell about that psychological requirement), hyper goal-based brain - that's all me. A lot of people would rather eat cardboard than go through all that.
So it's my niche. I thrive in this environment.
> Have you spent much time on the grant reviewer side of the equation?
I've spent some - it's not as fun as the challenge of applying to grants though - and it's been enough to know that everything I learned through years of being a grantwriter was confirmed when being a grants assessor.
People see through your cracks immediately. You really must be real (with what you say and in giving them what they want) if you want to have high chance of being funded.
But then every grantmaker type (corporate, govt, private philanthropic, club) has other factors, e.g. granting for 'PR' reasons instead of merit based on the guidelines. Certain private philanthropic bodies will have extremely specific attitudes and goals compared to others. It's a wide world. (Thankfully.) And there's a lot of money.
The only next question would be what country are you in? I've never applied for a grant outside my own country (actually I lie, but not often), and while I have plans to export my skills overseas in future, for now if our countries don't match I should get back to my existing clients. There are also some major legal or pseudo-legal industry differences across jurisdictions for grant-writers, which could be a problem.
