Special Offer: Make a Big Impression with a New Resume in 2017

Patrick McGoohan in resignation
scene from The Prisoner television series. 

One of my secrets of success as a grant writing consultant is my ability to tweak the resumes of the organization's key talent so that they are more likely to win really big grants. Surprisingly, a professional looking, strategically designed resume can be the difference between winning or losing a multi-million dollar grant. At any rate, I thought it would be fun to offer a special in January 2017 for everyone who is seeking to find or get a better job in the coming year. Below, here are the details of my resume writing package.

Here's What Dr. Drew Will Do to Improve Your Prospects for 2017 

This is a special service of Drew & Associates.  Dr. Drew will ask you to email him a copy of your existing resume or curriculum vita which he will 1) read and analyze, and 2) discuss with you by phone for one (1) hour.  Then, he will 3) rewrite your resume curriculum vita, improve its format and look, so that it will tell a positive, uplifting, and attractive story about your life, your value to others, and the special skills you bring to the marketplace. 

Regular price: $400.

Payment by Check

For payment by check, mail to: Drew & Associates, 25195 Via Catalina, Laguna Niguel, CA 92677.

Please make checks payable to “Drew & Associates.”

OR

Payment by PayPal

 

Read What One Professional Says About Dr. Drew's Resume Writing Services

I highly recommend John Drew's resume writing services for anyone in the job market. As a full time community college faculty member and department chair, I decided to expand my job goals to seeking a position in administration. John helped me immensely with updating my curriculum vitae and creating a new cover letter tailored to the specific job I am seeking.

I felt his knowledge of the community college system, strong writing skills and his connections were extremely valuable to me - helping me gain insight and add information that I would not have considered myself.

He gave me a lot of time from our first phone conversation until we came up with a final product I felt good about. His interpersonal style made me feel as if I were speaking to a motivational coach who was helping me discover my strengths and abilities to move toward my career goals. 

I strongly recommend his services - personable, well-qualified, knowledgeable and outstanding writing skills. Thank you!

-- Dr. Irit Gat, Antelope Valley College

How to Win Grants from the Trump Administration

NON PROFITS FACE UNCERTAINTY AND ANXIETY REGARDING FEDERAL GRANTS.

Trump's stunning win will install a president in the White House who is likely to shake up federal grant making just as aggressively as he plans to disrupt Washington. Consequently, the unexpected results of the 2016 Presidential election have triggered profound questions regarding the future of federal grants for California and across the country.

President-Elect Donald J. Trump

While we do not yet know the specific policy changes that the new President-elect and Republican-led Congress will pursue, we can make reasonable guesses about the increase, repeal, rollback or decrease of various federal grants. We can make sense of the a priori questions about American politics and government, including:

• Does Trump mean what he says?
• Will Trump be able to do what he says?
• What programs will be nourished and which ones will be starved?
• How long will the Trump administration last, and what will happen with Congress?
• How significant will Trump's appointees be to changing federal grants?
• What hot button issues should non-profits avoid to stay fundable?
• How much, if at all, will the federal bureaucracy change under Trump?
• What is in store for healthcare, science, education, or climate change grants?
• What Obama administration achievements are most likely to be reversed?
• How can we keep our critical programs funded in this dramatically new season?

For most grant writers, it is far beyond their job descriptions to embrace the expertise needed to anticipate the impact of a new administration on federal grants. Nevertheless, this knowledge is crucial to grant planning, strategies, research and time management. Although there are on-line resources available to answer the above questions, it is difficult for grant writers and agency leaders to know which ones to trust, which ones are biased, and which ones have the best reputations for making accurate predictions.

The wealthiest institutions, including colleges and universities, often have high-paid Washington lobbyists available to answer their questions. For most of us, however, this is an un-affordable luxury. Even worse, the new Trump administration is so radically different than its predecessors, that even professional analysts and political pundits are hard-pressed to provide reliable insight into what will take place. After all, most of them have been wrong about Trump from the beginning.

You owe it to your staff and clients to get the answers to these questions from a reliable source, a source who understands Trump, politics, elections, American government and the field of non-profit grant writing. Once you know how to answer the big questions, you will find that your own intuition and specific program knowledge will be empowered to provide you with an excellent grasp of the best and most profitable path for your upcoming federal grant campaign.

DR. DREW'S SECRETS OF SUCCESS FOR WINNING FEDERAL GRANTS FROM THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION.

Course Description

"Winning Grants from the Trump Administration" is a four-hour workshop, including lunch, handouts, and a PowerPoint presentation that applies the insight of an award-winning political scientist to make sense of the risks, threats, challenges and opportunities for California's non-profit agencies and educational institutions seeking federal grants in the foreseeable future. "It is easy to predict political trends," says Dr. Drew, "if you understand the enduring patterns of behavior associated with political realignment, the roles of Congress and the President, the key features of charismatic leadership, and the role of bureaucracy in American government." 

In this workshop, Dr. Drew provides a simple, common sense, research-based model which tells you what to expect regarding grants over the next four years of the Trump administration. 

Applying this model, Dr. Drew answers the most important questions facing non-profit leaders, including what to expect regarding education, science, environment, juvenile justice and social service funding. In addition, he will layout simple suggestions for repackaging existing programs so that they appeal to the core values of the Trump administration including its commitment to economic nationalism, and assisting the working class.

While the federal bureaucracy is slow to change, elections do have consequences. Understanding those consequences will be the key to keeping your federal revenue flowing no matter who is living in the White House. This knowledge will help board members, volunteers, executive directors, principle investigators, and grant-writers secure millions in federal funding and avoid the costly mistakes associated with misunderstanding the current political environment.

 

Course Topics

In this workshop, Dr. Drew will supply the general principles used by political scientists to predict and explain political behavior as it affects specific field of federal grants. These principles will give participants the framework needed to leverage their own unique knowledge and to make strikingly compelling predictions about the key issues and trends that will impact federal grant writing for the next four years of the Trump administration.   

1. Guerrilla Political Science: The Most Important Variables for Predicting Presidential Behavior

• Do elections have consequences?
• Why we can predict Trump's behavior on the basis of his prior statements?

2. The Unprecedented Value of Predicting Congressional Behavior

• Why congressional priorities are ultimately more important than presidential priorities?
• Who will win and who will lose under the Trump administration? 
• What Obama administration achievements are most likely to be reversed? 

3. What are the Specific Implications for Healthcare, Science, Education Grants?

• How will grants for healthcare change under the Trump administration? 
• How much of our science funding will remain the same or similar? 
• Will Trump continue to support career technical education and community colleges? 

The end result of this workshop is that you, your staff and your clients will benefit financially from a clear, no nonsense understanding of how the basics of political science will allow you to predict the trends which will control federal grants for the next four to eight years or more relative to your specific field. 

Time in class will be allotted to giving the participants the opportunity to test their own predictions for their fields given the logic of Guerrilla Political Science. The ultimate benefit of this program will be to foster a clarity and understanding which will allow you and your agency to understand the risks, threats, challenges and unique opportunities you will face over the years no matter which party controls Congress or who is occupying the White House.  

Course Schedule

"How to Win Grants from the Trump Administration" will run from 10:00 a.m. to 11:55 a.m. on Thursday, January 19, 2017. Snacks and soft drinks will be provided for all participants. The location for this workshop will be Coaching Center of Orange County located at 1231 East Dyer Road, Suite 215, Santa Ana, CA 92705.  

 

Course Fee and Early Bird Rate

The program, "How to Win Grants from the Trump Administration," will be offered at a discounted rate of 50% for non-profit organizations including charities, schools, colleges, universities, county and state agencies. The total fee for non-profit organizations will be $125 per person. The early bird rate will be $95 for all registrants who pay for the workshop prior to January 12, 2017. All participants will receive handouts, and an easy to refer to fact sheet to provide a reminder of what was taught in the class for future reference. 

Event: "How to Win Grants from the Trump Administration

Instructor: John C. Drew, Ph.D.

Time: 10:00 a.m. to 11:55 a.m.

Date: January 19, 2016

Location: 1231 East Dyer Road, Suite 215, Santa Ana, CA 92705

Early Bird Price (Before January 12, 2017): $95

Regular Price $125

JOHN C. DREW, PH.D. AUTHOR, TRAINER, CONSULTANT

Your Instructor

Before Dr. Drew became a grant writer he was an award-winning political scientist who taught the presidency, elections, and public policy at Cornell University, University of Oregon and Williams College, the nation's number one liberal arts college according to U.S. News & World Report. As a grant writing consultant, Dr. Drew and his team have consistently won large federal grants, through the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations for charitable organizations, community colleges and universities. All together Dr. Drew has won more than $40 million in funding. "I've consistently won large federal grants," said Dr. Drew. "The secret of my success has always been my understanding the most urgent needs of the new administration. By quickly adapting your programs to match their needs you can almost always find the support needed to maintain or grow your existing programs."

 

What Workshop Participants Say About Dr. Drew

"Very informative, with positive energy transferred to the students."

"The course was very inviting. Dr. Drew was very clear and knowledgeable. He made it worth my while to achieve my goal and have success in life."

"Dr. John Drew was very knowledgeable, invigorating, timely, and made learning interesting and clear."

"This was constant, good practical information. The first 15 minutes made the whole class worth it!"

"Dr. Drew is wonderful. He taught me a lot in a very short time."

Dr. Drew is a native of Southern California. He attended Occidental College in Los Angeles on a track scholarship in 1975. While at Occidental he won a scholarship to study in Europe where he was first exposed to the horrors of the poverty associated with child labor. Later, he won another scholarship to earn his Ph.D. in Government at Cornell University. Later, he taught politics, economics and leadership at Cornell University, Hope International University, University of Oregon, and Williams College. He is a published author on the topic of child welfare and protective programs. Dr. Drew remains active in political and economic matters by contributing articles to American Thinker, David Horowitz's Front Page Magazine and PJMedia. To wind down from grant writing, Dr. Drew enjoys walking, studying foreign languages and acrylic painting. He and his wife, Patricia Drew, live in Laguna Niguel CA where he serves on the board of directors of his HOA.

Write Like You Are in The Middle of a Hurricane

One of the most important fundamentals I teach comes from my friend, Bev Browning, the author of Grant Writing for Dummies. She is the person who taught me that it was best to write like I was in the middle of a hurricane. Given the recent bad weather on the East Coast, I have been reminded of just how terrible it is to be caught in the middle of a hurricane. 

Video from Hurricane Matthew Shot in October 2016.

If you pretend that you are in the middle of a hurricane while you are writing, then a number of things important to your success fall in place automatically. For example, you will be more likely to get right to the point. In an emergency situation, you have a strong incentive not to waste any time in your communications. You absolutely need to determine your most important message and then focus all your attention on quickly getting that message across in the clearest, most effective manner. 

This is one of the reasons why I like to use voice recognition software when I produce the first draft of a grant or a newsletter article. One of the advantages of voice recognition software is that you can write as quickly as you talk. Even though you are talking at the speed of a panicked on-the-scene television reporter, your voice recognition software should pick up every word and record it in easy to revise print. 

Next, writing like you are in the middle of a hurricane gives your writing the extra energy and urgency needed to wake up the reader. They can tell that you are under extreme pressure and not in any mood to waste your or their time. Ideally, even the most passive and peaceful projects will come off as more interesting and compelling if your write like you are in the middle of a hurricane. 

Even if you think your topic is not all that urgent, thinking about it from this mental perspective will help you focus on the portions of your project that really are urgent. I have used this technique to prepare myself before writing on behalf of a charity that provided students with access to organic gardening tours and techniques. In my case, I focused on the homeless people who would benefit from access to the nutritious food produced by the organic gardeners and for the children whose growth might be stunted by a lack of immediate access to healthy, organic food. 

Finally, writing like you are in the middle of a hurricane compels you to be economical with your research and needs assessment. You quickly realize that the reader does not need to learn everything there is to know about the topic of your grant, but they do need to grasp the most important necessities of your argument. A focus on absolute necessity is one of the tools used by charismatic leaders to motivate, inspire and direct their followers. You can always create the powerful leverage of a focus on sheer necessity by imagining that you are writing in the middle of a hurricane.

Using the Foundation Center's On-Line Directory to Help You Find the Best Funders

One of the most exciting moments in my Grant Writing Fundamentals course is when I open up my subscription to the Foundation Center's On-Line Directory and show the participants all the grants the funders have given to charities in their community. This never gets old. Participants who are new to grant writing are astounded by the sheer number of grants, their size, and the detailed information you can harvest about the funders. 

Check Out This Video for Tips on Using the Foundation Center's Online Directory.

One of the most basic fundamentals of success in grant writing is for a grant writer to ignore the time-consuming clutter of questionable on-line resources and instead devote their attention to the best available resource for learning about and finding funders, The Foundation Center in New York. This is the oldest, most reliable non-profit resource for grant writers. 

In addition to directing participants to this extremely significant website, I like to point out that the Foundation Center maintains an on-line directory which is the best possible tool for researching grants. Their Essential Plan gives you access to the most important features of their database, at a price of $49.99/mo. You can save $16.77 amonth if you make your annual payment as a lump sum. (You can also get access to the results of this database by working with Drew & Associates.) 

Thankfully, you can get access to the Foundation Center's On-Line Directory for free by visiting one of their network partners. For a list of the partnership organizations that give you free access to the On-Line Directory, please click on the following link. As their website indicates, they provide free funding information through more than 450 Funding Information Network locations - libraries, community foundations, and other nonprofit resource centers located across the U.S. and several countries. They even provide a resource to help you find a network location near you if you click on this link.

As a professional grant writing consultant, I use a number of tricks and techniques to speed up the process for finding good matches for our client's most important projects. Overall, I organize my search by looking at the largest funders. These are the funders which actually are the easiest to win money from and the best to get to know and build a relationship with over the long-run. 

Next, I always make it a practice to click on the limitations line in the funder's report first. If it turns out that my client is not eligible for a grant from that funder, I need to know that information right away. Otherwise, I will waste time getting lost in the details of the funder's profile. 

Third, I am especially careful to read through the funder's interests to make sure that they are interested in the same topics as my clients and that the funder is also willing to support the type of funding that my clients are looking for whether that funding is for programs, capital campaigns, or general operating expenses.

Fourth, I eliminate from my search the funders who say that they do not accept applications. In my experience, they are telling you the truth. In most cases, the funders that say this are too small to support a professional staff or else have decided to give funding to a handful of charities that are closest to them, charities which may employ the funder's children and grandchildren. It is not worth my time to deal with funders if they are not open to supporting new charities. 

Finally, I do pay attention to how the funder distributes its grants among funding categories. If they tend to give a lot of their grants to arts and culture, then I will pay more attention to them if I am contracted by an arts and culture client. All of this is important since I believe that at least one-half of your success as a grant writer depends on doing high quality grant research. I have, at times, written what I thought was a weak application, but nevertheless won a grant simply because I appealed to the exactly right funder.