Simplify Grant Writing: 10 Items to Prepare in Advance

Imagine it’s Tuesday. You are talking to a friend who is an Executive Director at a local non-profit.

During this conversation she casually mentions that she saw an upcoming grant opportunity. She gives you a few details. It sounds like a great fit for you. Except it is due on Friday.

The application is lengthy, the request for documentation is long and you don’t know how you’ll get it all done in time.

Reduce Stress Through Preparation

James Clear in his book Atomic Habits (2018) outlines how tiny changes in our lives can have remarkable results.

He suggests that we, as humans, gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of effort.

Humans innately don’t want to work hard, so we often don’t. We procrastinate. We give up. We rationalize not doing things.

To combat our natural inclination towards laziness, Clear suggests that we need to prime our environment to make future actions easier.

How?

In terms of grant applications, this is quite easy.

If you look through the grant applications you recently wrote, you’ll notice the common themes.

Many grants request the same documents. They also ask you to answer the same types of questions.

Preparing these items in advance minimizes stress and allows you to concentrate on the specific questions for which you don’t have readily prepared answers.

Common Documents

Grant applications often ask for the same 5 documents:

1.      Board of Directors

2.      Financial Statements

3.      Proof of Incorporation

4.      Senior Staff Bios

5.      Organization Chart

Update these regularly and place them together in one file.

When a board members changes, make the change immediately in your grant writing file. When you receive your yearly financial statements, save them in this same file. If your senior staff or organizational chart changes, update these when it happens.

It will be fresh on your mind and you will have them all ready, in one file, when a grant application is posted.

Common Questions

Many grant applications ask a variation of the same questions, including:

1.      Vision and/or Mission Statement

2.      Current Program(s)

3.      Collaborations (with letters of support)

4.      Future Plan(s)

5.      Any feedback or evaluations received

Write out your answer to each question once and file them together.

Update them immediately if something changes and put the most recent version in a file you’ll have prepared for the next grant opportunity.

Like many of the habits we wish to incorporate in our lives, they often aren’t hard to do. They simply take discipline.

Prime your environment. 

Always take a few minutes to record any changes that occur in your organization. Do it immediately when they happen.

You’ll thank yourself when the next grant application comes up.

Best wishes, Lauren

p.s. If you would like help preparing an upcoming grant application, consider booking a free 30-minute consultation to see if we can help.