How We Won a $1.85 Million Grant with Good Technique

Perfect Day in Tahoe As I indicate above, I think we won this $1.85 million grant by taking decisive action, I also think that this victory can be tied to our application of correct techniques too. In this case, I had worked with Corine for a number of years and these techniques have become second nature. Nevertheless, I think it helps to be reminded of the techniques themselves because they saved us time and opened up the willingness of the funder to give Santiago Canyon College a shot at winning this application. I think technique mattered in this application because the time pressure was extraordinarily demanding on us. This grant required me to read a ton of background material, particularly detailed instructions regarding the quantitative measures that were going to be collected as part of the project. Here, I applied two techniques that I have not written about before including speed reading and reading with an open mind at the first approach. My version of speed reading is simply to read each line of the background material by scanning each line only twice, both times deep inside the text itself rather than on the edges. It sounds odd, but if you train yourself to do it, your brain really is capable of reading much more quickly than you think it can. Next, I also applied a technique I learned from a Leo Strauss type political philosophy professor I knew at Cornell University. Although I disagreed with his philosophy, I think he was correct to suggest that the first reading of any text should be done with an open mind, that is from the perspective that you are not seeking to confront or disagree with the author. This more discriminating and judgmental reading can take place in your second or third reading of the text. The first reading, however, should be a completely open-minded, non-judgmental attempt to understand the author on their own terms. In this instance, of course, I needed to use my speed reading skills. Corine brought me in to work on the grant on March 4, 2013 and it was due on March 18, 2013. This gave me little less than two weeks to prepare a 55 page document. As I teach in my workshops, the last minute nature of the grant writing process is a result of the funder's policies. In this instance, I think Corine was first brought in to win this grant after the third week of February when her district contacted her and asked if she could help them write the grant and identify key talent. Luckily for her and us, she attended a Common Core State Standards Advisory - as a representative for CCCAOE - suddenly everything clicked into place and she had a plan for a highly successful program.     As I teach in my workshops, Corine assembled a team of top notch people who helped define our winning message. After the team meeting, I knocked out a quick first draft of the full grant proposal using voice recognition software. As I teach in my classes, I did not rewrite anything the same day I wrote it. While I was knocking out the first draft of the grant application, Corine focused her attention on preparing the organization chart, the budget documents and the sensitive negotiations with potential staff members regarding their salaries, benefits, titles and job descriptions.    All in all, I am proud to report that I wrote the narrative over five (5) days. After that, Corine and her team had about a week to go over all elements of the document in detail. As they pored over the document, they added key details which illustrated their unique knowledge of the educational system, current legislation, and the details of the grant application itself. To improve the overall quality of the grant, I turned to an outside proofreader, Elizabeth Connor, who tightened all elements of the proposal at a moment when I was too fatigued to make a difference any more. As you might expect, Elizabeth caught glaring mistakes that were missed by me and the entire management team. In the past, I have shared the odd reality of my inability to see my own mistakes. I have had my own mother share with me what word I misspelled and I have still not seen the error... As I like to say, people give money to people. In one little detail, I think we made that point in a powerful fashion. In our grant cover letter we named the exact person who would be receiving the grant application by name and title. The group we were competing against, however, only addressed their application to "Sir or Madam." I am sure that this is not the only reason Corine won this $1.85 million grant, but it demonstrates the level of intensity and perfection we developed as we wrote an application of utmost quality under the stress of a short deadline. In my view, it is simply impossible to create exceptional results under deadline pressures without having practiced and honed the correct overall techniques. In this sense, grant writing is more like a competitive sport than an intellectual exercise.