Easier Than It Looks: How to Perform Grant Writing Trick Shots

If you have experience as a grant writer, I am sure you have had moments when others have been astounded by your ability to solve a problem in just the few minutes before the grant is due. Without getting too dramatic, I thought I would share with you some of the techniques which make it possible for me to perform what I like to think of as grant writing trick shots. 

1. Use a Professional Proofreader: The one technique I use that comes the closest to being a YouTube trick shot is leveraging the expertise of a paid proofreader. This is a secret advantage which will make you look like a genius of grant writing. After all, I cannot stress this enough. It is physically impossible to proofread your own work. I have had three Ph.D. level scholars review a document and my paid proofreader has still found errors of spelling, usage, spacing, punctuation, and consistency on nearly every page of the document. If you want to produce an awesome final product, I don't think you have any choice. Hire someone else to proofread. As an additional trick, I recommend having the proofreader go over the application guidelines too. You may be surprised that you have misunderstood a question in your haste. A smart proofreader will catch your error and make a huge difference to the final product. 

2. Leverage the Power of Consistent Filing: Most people do not understand the amazing power of having well-organized files because they never face situations in which they need to retrieve documents in an emergency. Under extreme stress, a predictable, routinized filing system allows you to smoothly process and collect information and produce surprising results. At Drew & Associates, for example, we now keep electronic files in Dropbox for all our clients. Within each Dropbox folder we establish four sub-folders as follows: 1Work, 2Administration, 3Reference and 4Personal. This system is exactly the same for each client and it allows us to quickly find the information we need to complete the grant. Likewise, we use the same coding style for each electronic document starting with an abbreviation for the client, the full year, the project, and the funder. The benefits of this disciplined system only become freakingly amazing when you are working at high speed and find yourself effortlessly retrieving exactly what you need at the right moment without any hassle and fuss. 

3. Normalizing Last Minute Genius: One of the persistent patterns in grant writing is that you get more persuasive and knowledgeable about your topic the closer you get to the deadline. If you are working under extreme pressure, then you will most likely get your best and most convincing ideas at the tail end of your project. The bravest grant writers, of course, are more than happy to place their fresh new insights into the grant application. In the heat of the moment, however, they may not appreciate the extent to which a brilliant idea cannot credibly appear in just one spot in the grant proposal. Doing this sends a signal to the reviewer that you are not really serious about this idea and this undercuts its value. I fix this problem by reminding myself to make sure that the logical ramifications of my new brilliant idea are artfully seeded or hinted at elsewhere in the document by referencing it in the summary, problem statement, plan of action and even the table of contents. By artfully seeding elements of the last minute idea in at least four other parts of the proposal, I'm able to create the illusion that this great idea was with us from the beginning and not just a last minute realization.