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Dr. Drew Says Reduce Your Risks By Working with a High Speed Grant Writer

What are the advantages of assigning the first draft to the high speed grant writer?

You can produce more grants, you can provide your team with more time to perfect the grant applications, like a race car driver your own attention is focused more completely under high speed grant writing, high speed means the final document will most likely reflect a natural consistency based on your current state of mind, you can move quickly when money becomes available, you can reduce risks by addressing the reasonable challenges and potentially unwarranted fears which might keep you from even attempting to produce a grant application.

Moreover, it is more fun and less of a chore. You'll be able to take advantage of the full capacity of your brain's intuition, memory, associations and your innate artistic sensibility. In my view, the challenge of high-speed grant writing is all the more interesting and easier to teach because it becomes a physical and not and intellectual skill.

Secrets of High Speed Grant Writing: Use Voice Recognition Software

I want to introduce you to the incredible power of voice recognition software is a key tool for speeding up the grant writing process. It is very difficult to do this sort of work on a high-speed basis if you are not able to dictate what you're doing, or to record your dictation and quickly download it into print. I write like I'm in the middle of a hurricane to gain sharper focus and urgency.

Secrets of High Speed Grant Writing: Start at the Beginning and Produce an A to Z First Draft

Once you have your voice recognition software in place, I think it is helpful to create a first draft of the entire grant application from A to Z - in that order. Save time by starting at the beginning each time.

Secrets of High Speed Grant Writing: Write First, Then Do Your Research

I'm a little rough in the first draft. I create dummy numbers. I fill in all the blanks with the expectation that the staff will refine the document with the exactly correct numbers based on their experience. My technique is to do my writing first and then doing my research afterwards. This speeds up things by allowing me to research only the information that is relevant to the grant. In this sense, I think it pays to create a quick first rough draft because it forces you to digest the grant application requirements from A to Z. This process of actively answering the questions forces you to read all the questions and to get up to speed on the realistic requirements for a more polished grant application.

Secrets of High Speed Grant Writing: Write for an Overwhelmed Reader


In my workshops, for example, I explain that I'm writing for the hung over intern who is facing severe emotional problems. You can assume the reader is overwhelmed by late night hours, crushed by too much to read even as the reviewer is comforted by too much to drink. I write very clearly simply and cleanly. I point out the obvious connections between my answers and the written questions I'm responding to. It is essential to initiate work on the budget concurrently with the grant application. The tired grant reader may simply not read the proposal and just jump to the budget.

Secrets of High Speed Grant Writing: Apply the Golden Rule to Your Own Grant Writing

Ultimately, the high speed grant writer needs to write what makes sense to the high speed grant writer. If you are not sold on the grant, then it is likely the funder will not be sold on the grant either. You know you are on the right track when you get the feeling that you know why they have to fund your grant application. There is not enough time to go back and forth and interview your team and ask them what they think. There is not enough time in the world for the team to debate and decide every issue. There are too many unknowns. Ultimately, the best thing to do is to trust yourself. That is to trust your intuition and to deliver product that makes sense to you. The Golden Rule works because it is a decision-making tool in a world of constrained rationality. It is a rule that will allow you to gain greater decisiveness over time.

The Best Advice I Ever Received: Spend Time Like Money

What's the best advice I ever received? While I was teaching at Williams College in MA, James MacGregor Burns - the Pulitzer Prize winning historian - told me to "spend time like money."

Implementing his practical advice, I've revised my public speaking to reflect the simple, chronological perspective that informs how I apply lightning fast grant writing to benefit our non-profit clients.