Plan Ahead: Tips for Building Your Focus as a Lightning Fast Grant Writer

Typically, new non-profits and new grant writers come to me with massive projects. From my experience, these projects are so broad and so ambitious that no one except Superman and Lois Lane could get them done. My most important advice is usually to scale back their ambitious plans and focus their attention on the most important 10% of what they originally planned to do for their clients. 

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Too often, charities and grant writers think they can get ahead by creating a broad, general, comprehensive project that covers all the bases. This is usually due to a misplaced sense of perfectionism. It is as if they are saying they are confident they will win funding only if they offer to do everything possible for their clients for virtually free.   

Promising the funder less will actually improve your chances of winning a grant in a number of obvious and non-obvious ways. First, by featuring only a small portion of your total effort, you will have the advantage of pulling out the most attractive elements of your overall program for their consideration. As I teach in our Two Day Grant Writing Retreats, the funder wants to pay for the star on top of the Christmas tree. They would prefer that your annual campaign donors cover the more mundane aspects of your charitable work. Next, you can create a more credible case that you will be able to follow through and implement your program if you promise less to the funder. The funders are not any brighter than us, but they are not any dumber either. They can tell if you are trying to do too much, more than your organization can handle, and they would prefer that you take on programs and tasks that are proportional to your budget, expertise, and previous experience. 

Narrowing your concerns to a portion of a specific program will also help you in the process of drafting a compelling grant application. For example, if you pick a narrower topic, then you will find it easier to focus in on the most significant research that backs up your approach. Instead of providing the latest scholarly research on 10 or 12 subtopics, you can use your time and develop meaningful expertise by zeroing in (or focusing) on a smaller element of your program and creating a rock solid justification for that particular element.This focus on a smaller project will allow you to present your charity as a true, highly credible, cutting edge leader in its field. 

Ironically, a smaller project will also allow you to do a better job of articulating what is best and most exceptional about your charitable organization. This is a particularly great strategy for newer and smaller charities. They cannot compete head on with larger charities. Nevertheless, they can argue that they have greater expertise, qualifications, and access to clients in their local areas. The smaller project will also allow you to provide some leadership to the funder by indicating what you think is the most important and compelling need in your service area. The smaller project will also help you call attention to the unique attributes which will make your charity the best, greatest, most efficient solution to the smaller problem you have chosen as the object of your laser-like focus. 

Finally, I like the idea of focusing on a smaller project because it helps risk adverse non-profit agencies get over the delays and slothfulness associated with thinking that they need to promise a big program, a program that they may not have the expertise or resources to pull off. It is quite easy to talk yourself out of writing a grant if you make it into a seemingly impossible project. Instead, by focusing on a smaller project, you take away one of the excuses that facilitates procrastination and perfectionism. As always, the solution is to get into action. It is easier to get into action if you have a small project that absolutely needs to be completed by your charity.