Speaker 1: Hey there, in today's video we are going to be running through the seven steps to writing a winning grant application. This is how we teach this in our course, Grant Writing from Start to Funded at LearnGrantWriting.org. But I'm just going to give you that real basic outline of it so that you can really get your arms around grant writing and see that it's science, but it's not rocket science. Okay, let's get into it. Alright, so step one is preparing for success. Let's run through what that looks like. You're going to want to organize your files. So this is how we suggest organizing it. If you take Grant Writing from Start to Funded, we actually have this all on a Google Drive that you can make a copy of so you'll have access to everything. But this is how we organize every single project so it's really repeatable and very clear like where everything is, which gets more important when you start doing more than one project and you're working with a team of people. So I'm not going to really run through the specifics on this right now, but just wanted to let you know that this is sort of what it looks like. Okay, so you're going to get started by reading the funding guidelines. And usually these are going to include, okay, eligibility, narrative requirements, what they want for attachments, deadlines, how to submit, etc. Sometimes foundations in particular don't really have funding guidelines or the information might only be on their website. So just be aware that funding guidelines come in lots of shapes and sizes. If you're looking at a federal grant, it can be 140 pages, right? So they really, really do vary, but you're going to want to spend some time going through that with a fine-tooth comb to make sure you've got everything. The sun is shining and I'm kind of blinding, but blinded, but you know, we're good. Let's roll with it. Okay, so you're going to also prepare a narrative skeleton and a skeleton is an outline for your narrative. So instead of starting with a blank document, you're going to go into there and you're going to start typing in the narrative questions and the scoring criteria if that's available, because you want to make sure that you have like one document where everything is that you start plugging in your answers and start putting bullet points down for ideas on how to respond. Do not start writing your narrative at this stage. Just prepare the outline. Okay, so that's the kind of quick and dirty version of how to prepare for success. But now we're going to move on to step two, which is rocking your kickoff. So after you've read your funding guidelines, you prepared your narrative skeleton. It's time to develop a grant schedule and host a fabulous kickoff. So here's the sample schedule we provide in our course. It's basically a Google sheet that's kind of nice and interactive, so you can change the dates depending on your project, but it's really important to have lots of micro deadlines and really mapping out when are things going to get done, because a really common pain point people run into is they run out of time to apply, right? So you don't want that to be you. You're also then going to host an absolutely amazing kickoff, and these matter because your success and happiness as a grant writer does correlate to how your kickoff meeting goes. A kickoff meeting is when you're gathering everyone that's involved in the project, and you're getting them in one room or virtually in a room, right, and you're really laying out every step of what's happening to be able to execute that project. What are the deadlines? What are people responsible for contributing, right? And so this is a really important step. Never skip it. For best results, we encourage you to demonstrate genuine appreciation for people. Really think creatively. I mean, honestly, bring cookies, bring a unicorn cupcake if you want. We've done that. Just do something that feels a little bit more than a normal meeting, like you're creating a very positive experience for someone, and they're much more likely to help you when you need it. We have a sample meeting agenda in Grant Writing from Start to Funded, but it's a basic agenda, right? You're just laying out the project overview, the questions that you have specific to the narrative that you need help with, laying out that grant narrative skeleton so that your team can start seeing it, and then a schedule. Okay, step three is developing your grant budget. So what is a budget? Well, it's a financial plan for how you're going to basically make your project happen, what it's going to cost, and it's itemized to show those major expenses. So we also have a free grant budget template that makes life way easier, especially when you know how to use it well. So that is going to be linked below, and you can go and get access to that from either the free resources page we have, or by taking this mini course, which is a much more detailed version of what we're running through today. So that is how you kind of learn the basics of how that budget form works. But basically, it has a personnel tab, fringe benefits, travel, equipment, supplies, contractual, like if you're contracting to have someone else do the work, it's not you, construction if that's pertinent, other direct costs, indirect, which are things that can't be readily identified with the cost of a project. So an indirect cost is like the electric bill, like what percent of your electric bill goes to this project? You don't know that, right? It's hard. So, and then cost share is match. So maybe you've heard of that term. So it's how much funding are you, the applicant or other sources helping pay towards this overall project costs. Now, budgets can get really confusing. So we're not going to go way deep on that right here, because I already have recorded a much better version that you can go and watch. But just understand that it's really important to be spending time knocking out that budget as fast as possible and not putting it off, because you need to know how much your project is going to cost. And it influences so many other parts of your narrative. Okay, step four is spending some time paying attention to those key attachments. A resolution is fairly common, you might need this from the highest in command at your organization authorizing that the grant is submitted. So this would be common that your board of directors would sign a resolution or a city council or whatever, right? There's usually some process that exists at every organization authorizing, yes, we're going for this, and we're submitting the application. I'm going to skip through this for right now. Letters of support, another fun hot topic, right? So this is, and I can link to a blog post we did on this. But getting quality letters of support is super fun. It's so great reading them when they're heartfelt, and they have great, they're kind of like free narrative content, frankly. And a lot of people just don't manage this process very well, and they get all these cookie cutter letters, and that's worse than no letters. So and they're not always required. So be aware of that. But if you are going to be gathering letters of support, it's important to have a good process around collecting those. Okay, so those are like the two main attachments. There's several others, they always depend on what your specific project is. But those are the ones that are the most time consuming. So the ones we wanted to talk about. Step five is writing your narrative. Now you might have this memorized, because I've been running through all the steps, and I'm kind of skipping through them right now. But all right, so what's a narrative? It's a written description about your project. Who's going to do what, how you're going to do it, who's benefiting, and why it needs to be funded. You're going to want to prepare your first draft as soon as possible. And I mean, messy, messy work. It's just like throwing those ideas down, no complete sentences. Just you want a top to bottom draft done in eight to 10 business days at most. Do not let perfection get in your way. I know this is a perfectionist. I know it's a problem, but you can do it. Just get that first draft out. It can be super messy. But once you're done, you get to start editing and refining, and it becomes very beautiful after that first messy draft is out. So we talk about a lot more tips in the course, but that's sort of the basic on yes, you're spending time writing your narrative, quite a bit of time potentially. Now also, when you're writing your narrative, you want to be thinking about how you can be most persuasive, and how you can use data to really back up what you're saying. Because A, it makes it much easier to write your narrative, because you're building a strong case, and you're just using information that exists. You don't have to come up with all this, your own content. So it helps establish urgency, and credibility, and persuasiveness. So I'm going to skip this example, but the most common place that you can go and find demographic data is, of course, if you're in the US anyway, it's the census.gov. If you're in another country, you're going to have something similar. They're not the most fun websites to navigate, going to be honest about that. We have some training on how to use them. But it is where you go to get the most basic information you've got to have, which is going to be, what are my unemployments, and poverty level, median household income, what percent of this census tract that we're serving receives food stamps, right? I mean, obviously, this depends on the specifics of your application. Pretty much every one of them needs to have some demographic data, so be sure to get comfortable using census.gov. So we actually had Alexis Swenson, who is a former student of GrantWriting from start to funded, and she's the founder of Goods of a Soul. She actually cut that video for us when we explain how to use census.gov and get good data. Now, writing persuasively is very important. Your project is worthy of funding, but so is someone else's. So you have to be convincing that you need it the most. So remember that GrantWriting is persuasive writing. Now you're writing to always emotionally move your reader, and you want to really get to their heartstrings. And so be thinking about the story you're telling, not just the what, but the why, right? The broader picture. Why does this really matter? And doing so will help you establish urgency, and urgency is key. So you're like, we need the funding now, not in the future. We need it now to have the impact that we promise we can make. So we go through six steps in how to write persuasively, and I did kind of shortcut past those. But again, they're in a free mini-course, just got to go watch it. Just didn't need to re-film the whole thing. So it's also important that you have a work plan, that it's really organized how you're going to do what. And this is the part most people hate, and it can be difficult, not going to lie, because you're the grant writer, and it's probably not the technical person implementing it, but probably the person responsible for putting together the work plan, the scope of work. So sorry, it's a reality. But the sooner that you can kind of get comfortable with breaking down projects and thinking about them very step-by-step-by-step, the better, and then your whole application will be able to flow from there. Okay, so step seven is actually submitting that bad boy, you're going to get that application turned in, right? So you're on the homestretch, and we're going to be covering how do you package this application, why you should have an independent review, debrief meetings, and sharing your wins. Okay, so in terms of design, your effort in making the application a beautiful design is going to correlate to how competitive the grant is, and then what the grant guidelines tell you to do. Some are going to say Times New Roman, size 12 font, so that's all you can do. But you can still get creative when you're using bold and italics and underline to try to make the most of making your application easy to understand. For example, this is just a schedule developed literally in Google Table, and then just coloring the rows to make a Gantt chart of sorts. So easy. You can do it. So little things like this, though, can go a really long way to help making things more visual and not having to rely on words only. When you're packaging your application, this is big. Package your attachments carefully. Do not include everything possible under the sun into your attachments. They don't want that. It needs to be really short, really to the point, okay? And then be sure to name it something that's very clearly identifiable. So like Portland underscore budget. Really clear what that is, right? So it's important just to think about this kind of final step. Do it thoughtfully. Do it with grace. Have your names very logical, and then just make sure you're not overdoing it. Now, an independent review is so important. So this is when you're going to be getting a second set of eyes on your work. And I know, Grant Writers, that you're often working alone, and maybe it's really hard to find someone to do that, but it's imperative. So be sure that you find someone in your organization that can have a look at it. They're checking the hyperlinks work, right? They're just looking for those final errors. Another thing that I think we get a lot of benefit out of is that our community will help do that independent review for each other. So we have a private Facebook group where graduates and students of Grant Writing from Start to Funded hang out. And so if someone's looking for help, they often get kind of matched up, and that can be a good way to get an independent review done. You'll also run through your application checklist, which is developed in the beginning of preparing for success, which I think I forgot to bring up. But basically, it's just, it's simple, but boy, does it go a long way. You're going to have this checklist of everything that needs done, where it is available, and then the person that's reviewing it, approving it. When it comes time to submit that application, nice work. You're about to press submit. So be sure to turn in your application at least one day early, preferably two. My order is messed up here. Take a screenshot and save those emails saying the grant was received so you're really sure. Recognize that it's extremely stressful, even if you've been doing grant writing for a long time. You're going to have adrenaline release, and so have a plan for what you're going to do after your grant is submitted to dissipate that. Like take off an afternoon, go take a walk, go take a bike ride, go see, go do something to just let that all go, because it's just nerve wracking. It's nerve wracking to press send and think, God, did I make any mistakes? But you didn't, because you did an independent review. All right, so you're always going to have a debrief meeting, and I know it can be tempting to not do one of these when the very tail end of your project maybe didn't go super well, but that's when it's most important. So within one week of submitting your grant, host a debrief meeting with the entire team, and you're going to talk about what went well and what could be improved, and document that and put it in your project folder. You'll be so thankful. So when you go and pursue a grant again, you can pull that thing up and have a look at it and make sure that those opportunities to improve are actually something that you guys are sticking with and always getting better and better and better at. And hooray, that's it. You submitted your grant, and it's all very extremely exciting, right? Congratulations. So that is the one-on-one on the seven steps to writing a grant application as we teach it. Obviously, we go way deeper, but for a YouTube video to give you your basics, that should do a pretty good job. Be sure to check out that free mini course on the seven steps to grant writing if you want the full enchilada. And if you're like, no, no, I'm really ready to go all in, then you can check out grant writing from start to funded. So you've got options, lots of good things to keep learning from. And that's it. I'll catch you next time. Be sure to drop a comment if you have any questions or hit like and subscribe. We drop about a video a week. So it's always helpful to know what's on your mind so we can make some videos for you. That's it. See ya.