Professional is based on personal

Professional relations are always build upon good personal relations. You can never expect that proficiency in what you intend to build, your outstanding expertise or negotiations skills will make your point in fundraising, if you don’t build good trustworthy personal relations.

Though grant writers do not interact directly with their funders, there are some do and donts that will enable a fundraiser to succesfully or not build this personal relation with the targeted funder.

Do

– write an introduction to your grant request

– identify the name and title of the person you think is more appropiate to read your letter/proposal

– ackowledge former successes of the granting body, express your point of view, no matter if you approve it or bring out some new suggestions, it is important to establish a credible paper-based exchange of opinions on matters that are sensitive to the funder valorization

– express your thanks either you wil be or will be not funded, just because they take their time to consider your request

– show granter some third part stories about you, instead of self-sustaining your credibility

Donts

– require immeidate attention to your request, be demanding

– express worries that you will be wrongly disconsidered from funding oopportunities, accuzins them in that way of incorrect professionalism

– dicreditating yourself to gain mercy for your cause

– express your dissapointment for not being funded, if case, ithat will not lead you to any further improvement in your relations but put an end to it

– “forget” to come back and tell your funder insights of the work that has been done with the money you received from them, when funding case.

Hand out free money?

How the idea that foundations, companies, and the government would hand out free money to groups that intend to develop some practical projects sounds for any reasonbale person in the world?

Are we out of the mind to think something on earth is completely “free of any charge”?

So called grants, these money are actually awarded based on some criteria that funders evaluate when receiving a request for those money. A good fundraiser should always thinks within the funder’s mind, try to first understand how her/his grant proposal will be evaluated, starting with the perspective of the “ten seconds look upon the proposal“.

There are basically two entities that award grants: private entities, such as Charitable People/Communities/Foundations, and public entities, such as Governmental/Bilateral/Intergovernmental Agencies. Within each of these, there are subcategories. Whichever acts as a funder, the charitable act we have to consider constitutes always an investment for that particular funder, and a good fundraiser should always understand what return of investment is expected by particular donor/funder.

Being fundraiser: good to know

GOOD TO KNOW

1. Grant writers need to plan ahead – sometimes far ahead;
2. Grant writers should be comfortable handling all kinds of research – from knowing what funding opportunities are coming along to knowing where to find the substantiation and data that will support your organization’s case for funding;
3. Grant writers must be attentive to detail – all kinds of detail – including funder guidelines (that is key);
4. Grant writers must be diplomatic and provide wise counsel and not merely say “yes” to impossible deadlines and poorly designed projects or to opportunities that are, at best, “trawling for dollars”;
5. Grant writers are not program designers, but they are often looked to for advice in that regard and should be able to advise appropriately;
6. Grant writers should have thick skins, to withstand the faculty, staff, medical folks, board members and who all knows who else who will insist that X-number of grants must be written and sent everywhere so that funding is obtained and who will purport to know better than the grant writer on this score (they don’t);
7. Grant writers need to coach applicants who will not think about important project aspects, like evaluation (to ensure that what the grant purports to do gets done and has a measureable impact) or budget;
8. Grant writers must be able to persuade their organizations that developing a fundable project is not up to a single person – rather, it is a team sport and it requires cooperation and commitment, not dumping the entire “grants thing” on the writer;
9. Grant writers must be humble and able to find their kudos where they can – often, it is the grant’s principle investigator and not the grant writer who receives the accolades for “winning” the grant;
10. Grant writers must be willing to follow through – to track and monitor what happens to funds and to stay on top of what happens with a funded project so that it may be reported to the funder;

Being fundraiser: myths

MYTHS

Some grant writers are successful more often than not, some grant writers are most likely to be rejected.

There isn’t any such person as a “perfect” grant writer. Good grantsmanship isn’t about a person – it’s about doing your homework when it comes to seeking funding, following guidelines, clarity of communication and otherwise making the case for project/program support.

I do agree that the best person to write a grant is not a consultant, but someone within your organization who is good at telling the story clearly and persuasively, under supervision from a specialized consultant that should know what to “extract” out from an involved participant in the organization who needs funding. Remember that flowery language does not win. Integrity does. Go for it. Tell the story with passion and have a well reasoned plan to solve the program and a realistic budget.

If you wish to understand what makes a good reliable grant professional, ask about the types of grants one have written and the role they played in making the grant happen. Be aware that someone who writes terrific grants for technology may not be as good a grant writer when it comes to arts and culture or human services. One grant isn’t like every other grant. Not every grant writer is able to or willing to work with state/federal/governmental/bilateral grant proposals and guidelines. Governmental and intergovernmental grants have little in common with the private foundation grants. The latest needs to be cultivated just like you would an individual donor. For the first you have to analyze your position as it relates to possible funding sources and make strategic decisions. Here grant writing is based in large part on meeting the grant makers’ programmatic goals, while maintaining fidelity to your mission and funding needs. But sometimes changing their programmatic goals through lobby and advocacy for legislative changes make your way for governmental grants.

iSupport

let’s define: iSupport

= a personalized way to support, trust and reccomend social causes and civic movements that YOU entrust they share the same values that guides YOUR life

Formalize informal

Technically, informal relations are of significant contribution to our emotional life. Good aspect of this is that we can have meaningful relations with our intimate or personal friends and close acquaintances, but it also effect negative on emotional crashes when we become disappointed by own unfulfilled expectations.

Formalizing informal relation may reduce or avoid emotional damage. It also may excessively increase time and resources needed to be allocated to achieve the expected results.

What are… and where do I have… these informal relations that I could formalize to fundraise for iSupport causes?