Leverage the Power of Positive Thinking: A Business Tip from Andrew Carnegie

One of Andrew Carnegie's most popular quotes is "Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!"

With his positive and optimistic point of view, Carnegie was able to build Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company and merge it with other steel businesses to build a smooth, well-functioning steel-producing machine.  By the 1890s, for example, the company was the largest and most profitable industrial enterprise in the world.

For grant writers and non-profit leaders, however, it often seems as if they live in an atmosphere of doom and despair - particularly during tough economic times.  In this context, a little dose of Andrew Carnegie's optimism is refreshing to those who read grant proposals for a living and for outside donors who still have plenty of cash and other resources.

Sometimes, I think writing a grant can be a little like a therapist doing cognitive therapy with a client.  Carnegie, for example, was quite impressed with the power of positive thinking.  As he said: "A sunny disposition is worth more than fortune. Young people should know that it can be cultivated; that the mind like the body can be moved from the shade into sunshine."  As I write a grant for a client, I do whatever I can to turn their negatives into positives and convert their failures into valuable learning experiences.  To me it is always a pleasure to see how a well-written grant can not only win money, but also turn around the self-image of a struggling charity.

For a great little YouTube video that expresses Carnegie's relentlessly positive and practical point of view, please check out this link: Carnegie Movie Promotional Piece

Business Tip from Andrew Carnegie: Put All Your Eggs in One Basket...and Watch the Basket

Andrew Carnegie was one of our nation's most successful business leaders and one of its most visionary philanthropists. One insight I associate with Andrew Carnegie is the idea that there are great benefits to being extremely focused in your efforts as a grant writer.

During his life, Carnegie displayed tremendous discipline in the use of his time and energy.  As he said: "Here is the prime condition of success, the great secret: concentrate your energy, thought, and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged. Having begun in one line, resolve to fight it out on that line, to lead in it; adopt every improvement, have the best machinery, and know the most about it."

Under Carnegie's leadership, Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company introduced many great improvements in the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of steel.  His ability to lower the cost of steel production made it possible for many to enjoy the benefits of transportation by rail and of crossing rivers through the use of steel bridges.  As a grant writing consultant, I interpret Carnegie's suggestion that we should put all our eggs in one basket in a variety of ways.

First, Carnegie's stress on focus makes sense to me as a suggestion to learn all you can about the craft of grant writing.  I still go to grant writing workshops myself and when I participate in other training exercises - including CrossFit workouts - I'm usually asking myself the questions: "How can this help me speed up and improve the process of grant writing?"  Following Carnegie's example, I think grant writers would be advantaged if they stayed in touch with the latest technology and continued to explore how voice recognition software and the new social networking tools can be applied to the field of grant writing.
  

From the perspective of the non-profit agency, I think it is wise for agencies to position themselves as subject matter experts within their own fields - the more limited the better.  Personally, I tell people that I'm the world's greatest expert on child labor and child welfare in the U.S. between 1910 and 1911.  A similar focus on a specific area of public policy would give charities access to funds from those who want to see them build on their expertise.  As they say, there are riches in niches.

If you would like to hear Andrew Carnegie's ideas expressed in his own voice, please check out this link to a brief audio recording of him speaking: Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh  After accumulating his riches, Carnegie retired in 1901 and devoted the next 18 years to social investing in various projects.  He founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. 

Speed Up Your Grant Writing By Being Aware of What to Avoid as You Write a Grant

I ran across a great article by Charlie Hullihen which provides his take on the classic seven reasons why your grant proposal might be rejected by the funder. I am not entirely sure that anyone knows exactly why a grant is rejected by a funder. At times, it may simply be due to the fact that no one at the funding agency has heard about your charity. Nevertheless, I find these exercises to be helpful in reviewing what standards grant writers should adhere to when they write a grant proposal. Here is my take on the top reasons why your grant proposal might be rejected by the funder:

  

1. You do not write for your audience.

I try to avoid this by paying attention to the "buzz words" used by the funder in their own website and other marketing and promotional materials. I also pay attention to the colors they use and try to infer from those colors their underlying value system.

2. You are not proofreading enough.

I think it is virtually impossible to proofread your own written work. I hire people to do this for me and try to mobilize all the well meaning volunteers I can find to help me identify errors, misreadings of the application requirements or matters of inconsistency. Even so, I have found a professional proofreader does a better job than a team of three folks with Ph.D.s.

3. You are not thorough enough.

In general, I find the biggest weakness in most grant copy is that the grant writers have not spent adequate time thinking through their budgets. Too often, the grant will be well-written, but the budget will look like it was hastily thrown together at the last minute.

4. Your proposal contains too much fluff.

To a certain extent, I find this error to be fairly easy to identify any time I see a lot of copy lacking in numbers or footnotes. Many times, this sort of copy can be quickly improved by asking yourself whether or not there is any evidence to support the statements that you are making in your copy. Where possible, I try to add numbers and footnotes to demonstrate that whatever I am writing is material that is credible and convincing to a well-meaning reader.

5. You have a goal but no plan.   

On this issue, you can save yourself a lot of pain and suffering simply by following the standard format for a full grant proposal. This format should include a standardized section of the narrative where you indicate your goals and objectives for the proposed grant project.

6. You are not providing enough data.

In general, I think most non-scholars underestimate the degree to which it is fairly easy to quantify virtually anything that you mention in a grant proposal. I would recommend that you not give up too easily when you are challenged to provide data. If you cannot find it quickly or easily, then I would not assume that it is impossible. A well-trained graduate student should be able to help you figure out how to quantify or measure anything. As Charlie Hullihen points out, your proposal should include "...some background information on similar plans that have been successful. Be sure to cite sources, provide graphs and figures, and show that you can analyze these statistics."

7. Using unreasonable budgets.

I find it particularly annoying when people attempt to do too much with almost no money. This is just unrealistic. Also, in my view, it takes away the honor of being a funder in the first place - if so much can be accomplished with virtually no money at all. I like to build in salaries for the staff and benefits too. In my perspective, a full budget demonstrates that you are a real organization that can be counted on to get the job done and on time.

Speed Up Your Learning with Triangulation

Ironically, I did not get really good at learning until I was already half-way through my graduate career at Cornell University. It was only then that I started to receive the higher quality instruction from professors who were paid to share practical tips, useful advice, and easy-to-follow templates.

For much of my life, I had assumed that learning was supposed to be hard, confusing, and solitary. I had come to believe that enduring poor quality teaching was actually good for me. 

Peeled Orange - 2016
by John C. Drew, Ph.D.

The biggest break-through for me occurred after I earned my Ph.D. At that point, I started taking post-graduate classes in statistics and something inside of me snapped. I realized that if the professors explained something to me and I did not understand them, then that was their failure not mine.

One of the best ideas I picked up at the University of Michigan while I was there studying statistics was the idea that I should read at least three statistics textbooks at a time.

This way, I found it a lot easier to make sense of a topic. In my experience, reading just one textbook makes study difficult, in part, because it does not give me any sense of what was crucial to know, good to know, or simply useless detail. By reading about the same topic in three different textbooks, I found that I started getting a better fix on the priorities attached to any given topic. This approach made it easier for me to concentrate on the important stuff I really needed to know immediately and to only memorize the details that I would need to hold on to for the future. Looking back, I wish I had an instructor in high school who might have suggested this same idea to me while I was studying physics or mathematics. (I also wish I would have had a high school teacher who explained that learning math and science was a long road to follow, but that it was quite beautiful when it all came together during graduate work.)

As a grant writing consultant, I use triangulation to help me quickly understand the client's field of interest.

Typically, I start by reading the client's literature, reviewing their website, and interviewing their staff. Then, I search on-line to see what other experts have to say about the topic and then supplement this with my own library research.

I have found that this technique of using multiple sources makes me a much more knowledgeable participant in the grant writing process. For example, I have found that the federal government keeps track of role-model programs, measurement techniques, and other things that will improve your grant application. There are resources out there for example on the issues of responsible fatherhood and healthy marriage.  

The main thing, in my experience, is to not rely on a single source of information. There is safety and insight in accessing multiple sources of information on the same topic. At the very least, you quickly learn what it is okay to forget.

I recommend the same sort of broad based immersion for someone seeking to learn grant writing. I think it pays, for example, to read multiple books on the topic.

I think it helps to attend multiple workshops - not just one. It pays to try to learn this material using multiple channels including on-line learning, reading, and audio tapes.

If your experience is like mine, then I think you will quickly find that there are certain bedrock, common sense principles behind any endeavor. These principles cover about 80% of what you need to know to succeed. It may take a lifetime to figure out the other 20%, but you can certainly get the 80% you need to prosper quickly and effectively using these techniques.

If you use multiple sources of information, then you quickly get a solid idea of who is teaching the real stuff and who is just offering fluff that will not lead to lasting results. 

By accessing multiple sources of information, you will quickly figure out how to sort the good from the bad teachers when it comes to consuming grant writing instruction.  

In my philosophy, what matters is not what you are learning, but who deserves your trust as a student.