Gold for Everyone! Open the Vault of Foundation Grants for Your Non-Profit

For the first time in a decade, I will be teaching a rare two-day session of Grant Writing Fundamentals. This is a fleeting opportunity to learn the most important things I know about grant writing during a weekday, online course. (Normally, I only teach on Saturdays.) 

This new, updated, Zoom class will be offered from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, July 7 and 8, 2021.

For students in the Philippines who are scheduled to participate in this class, the Zoom meeting will run from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM Philippine Time on Thursday and Friday mornings, July 8 and 9, 2021.

Special Schedule for Students from the Philippines

Why the change? I am teaching the class on two weekdays as a favor for a dear friend, Dr. Rufino L. Macagba Jr., the chairman, and president of Lorma Medical Center and Lorma Colleges in the Philippines. To provide my course in an accessible manner, I had to split it in half and teach it over two weekdays. 

For those who know best, you will undoubtedly be relieved to learn that I have finally found a way to teach students in the morning while avoiding the morning myself. 

The pricing for the Zoom class is about the same as what is charged by the community colleges which offer Grant Writing Fundamentals in California. The course fee is $70 and there is a materials fee of $45. The total price is $115. The materials fee includes your booklet and handouts for the course. Right now, there are only seven seats left. If you want to access this class and interact with some of the greatest and nicest people you will ever meet, it would be wise to buy the class right now. Just click on the button below.

Course Description

Learn this valuable skill in a highly interactive videoconferencing format from the comfort of your home. Join Dr. Drew in an invigorating and informative workshop created for new and experienced grant writers, executive directors, organizers, board members, community volunteers, and individuals who want to get a detailed look at the grant writing process. Dr. Drew will introduce you to all information needed for a successful grant proposal. You will learn how funding is announced, how applications are judged, and how to construct each element of a winning proposal. The techniques Dr. Drew emphasizes—including how to work quickly, how to create a winning message, and basic evaluation techniques—apply with equal force to small or large grants. Certificate of completion given to each participant who finishes the class.

About Dr. Drew

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an author, trainer, speaker, and consultant. Dr. Drew has raised over $53 million for charities including the Los Angeles SPCA, Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, and the Petersen Automotive Museum. Dr. Drew has taught at Cornell University, Hope International University, University of Oregon, and Williams College. He is the founder of the International Grant Writers Association.

Course Popularity

Antelope Valley College - since 2007, Glendale Community College – since 2007, Gavilan College since 2008. It has been popular throughout southern California at the following schools: Chaffey, College of the Canyons, Cuyamaca College, Imperial Valley College, Irvine Valley College, Long Beach Community College, Los Angeles Harbor College, Mira Costa College, Orange Coast College, Santa Ana College, Santiago Canyon College, Riverside College, Rio Hondo College, West Los Angeles College, and Soka University.

Praise for Dr. Drew's Courses

“Learned about the database to find grants.” – Nicole Sims, West Los Angeles College

“Interacting with the group sparked many great ideas.” - Neekole Glaspie, West Los Angeles College

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

"The course was very inviting. Dr. Drew was very clear and knowledgeable. He made it easier for me to achieve my goals and enjoy 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."

"The course was very informative and gave me a good insight into what it takes to be a grant writer."

"This class was excellent and very informative."

"Great class. Thank you for offering it!"

"Yay! Great class!"

"Excellent-- I really enjoyed Dr. Drew. Best organized information."

"Dr. Drew has given me the tools to stay motivated and to move forward on my non-profit."

"Overall outstanding."

How to Get the Most Out of Your Grant Writing Meetings

I have been watching the new Grant miniseries on the History Channel. I recommend it.

As they write: "While nothing in Grant’s early life marked him for greatness, he now stands as one of the most brilliant military minds in U.S. history—credited with winning the Civil War and preserving the American Union. This map charts his progress and achievements during the nation’s most wrenching conflict." At the very least, the miniseries will remind you of the extent to which politics gets in the way of action.

In grant writing, we typically address the politics of grant writing by asking our clients to fill out a project innovator form and collect the needed documents. This is usually enough to identify issues that might get in the way of creating a winning grant campaign.

We have also found it essential to conduct a well-organized and impressive kick-off meeting for the client and their staff. Over time, I have come to believe that one of the most important secrets of success for a grant writer is learning how to conduct a powerful, influential and effective grant campaign kick-off meeting. This meeting can make a large difference. The reason is that grant writing is a team sport, not an individual effort. To pull together a winning grant application in a short period of time you need to use every technique at your disposal to win participants to your side. Without their earnest help, preparing a conforming grant application will be a slow, lonely process.

Along these lines, I like to run a tightly organized staff meeting when I get together with our Drew & Associates senior grant writers, research assistants, and marketing staff. Here are the tips that I follow myself to build a strong and effective team:

1. Punctuality: My meetings start and end exactly on time. In my experience, if I get sloppy about starting and ending the meeting on time, people start showing up late and failing to use our limited time efficiently. In my experience, no one shows up late.

2. Allow Time to Blow Off Steam: I start each staff meeting with an informal discussion that allows everyone to release their stress by sharing a little information regarding either their personal triumphs and/or struggles. We blow off a little steam too by talking about personal health issues, problems with children and loved ones, or the general madness and insensitivity of those around us. The aim of this portion of the meeting is to allow people to vent some of the tensions and concerns that might otherwise distract them during the rest of the meeting. An additional benefit of this portion of the meeting is that I can identify important clues about how our staff are doing and what--if anything--I need to be doing to make their personal and work lives easier.

3. Use an Agenda: I think it is important to distribute a written agenda at each meeting. The agenda starts with a quick report from each branch of our consulting practice - writing, research, marketing, and collections. We then move on to discuss old business followed by a discussion of new business. If someone wants to suggest an additional discussion item, I usually just add it to the end of the agenda under the category of new business.

4. Keep Meeting Minutes/Record Action Items: Someone takes careful notes at each meeting. My wife, Trish, is remarkably persistent in noting what I and my staff have promised to do to move forward on specific business issues. Later that same day, she sits down with me and goes through the list and we take initial action on each item while we still have the clarity and motivation to get the task done.

5. Foster a Culture of Openness: Although I am not sure that this last tip will help everyone, I do encourage our staff members to speak their minds, criticize me or my practices, or vent their frustrations to the furthest extent possible. To me, this is what it means to be working in a healthy functional consulting practice. At times, however, I do wonder how I got myself into a situation where I'm paying everyone in the room to find fault with me. The benefit, of course, is that I get fresh ideas, honest feedback, and I learn how to avoid serious mistakes. To me, the most dangerous thing in the world is to be surrounded by people who simply repeat back to you your own ideas. As I see it, I am paying for others' honesty and objectivity no matter how much I might be embarrassed as an individual.

6. End on an Inspirational Note: Finally, I like to end each meeting with my sincere thanks to everyone for their time and attention. I remind everyone that what we are doing has a profound impact on some of the most dangerous, urgent, and difficult challenges facing our nation. I think it is important to remind my staff--and myself--that in our society virtually all projects of great significance must first pass across the desk of a talented and insightful writer.

The Start of a Beautiful Friendship: How to Make the Most of Your Phone Calls with the Funders

I have always believed that an attempt at relationship building with a funder should always come before applying for a grant. The best way to engage with a funder is almost always a phone call. At the very least, the funder learns there is a real human being, a beating heart, behind the non-profit's application. The funder needs to be reminded that a real person will be both sad and hurt if the application does not receive fair and thorough evaluation.

It is useful to remember that while grants may come from institutions, the proposals get reviewed by real people. As I like to say in my workshops the reviewers are people just like us. They are not any brighter than us, but not any dumber either.

One good piece of advice is to do your homework ahead of time by thoroughly reviewing information about the funder. This practice helps to prepare what you will say and understand what you are asking for. This call is about beginning a conversation and—we expect—a relationship. Inappropriate reasons to call a program officer might be to flat-out ask if the foundation will fund your request or to ask questions that are addressed in the funder’s guidelines. Although, I have succeeded by doing both.

Appropriate reasons to call could include addressing genuine uncertainty about your organization’s eligibility, clarifying a confusing aspect of the application process, or even requesting a face-to-face introductory meeting. Demonstrate your intention to build a relationship. For example, you could ask for a meeting by explaining: “I know your foundation is concerned about XYZ in the community. We’re concerned about that too and have a plan to address it. Could we meet to trade ideas? I’d like to hear your perspective.”

Finally, it is okay to have the funder tell you no. If you are not a fit in terms of eligibility, then it is better to find that out right away. There are plenty of other funders. 

Tips for Making the Most of the New Home Office, Part 3 of 3

For better or worse, I have worked out of my home for nearly my whole life. Out of necessity, I have learned some tricks for improving my productivity. Mainly, they all boil down to the necessity of staying in the zone - this is the happy, fulfilling moment when the day seems to fly by because you are concentrating so hard and so completely. It is actually easier to get into this highly productive state at home compared to at work. Nevertheless, you need to do everything you can to keep yourself in the zone.

1. Don't answer the phone. Phone calls are a terrible distraction. The worst thing about answering them all immediately is that you teach your customers, lenders, suppliers, and employees to call you at the drop of a hat when things get tough. Surprisingly, if you are a little tougher to get hold of they can sometimes solve the problem on their own. I like to avoid answering calls immediately. Instead, I allow phone messages to pile up and then I deal with them all at once. 
2. Don't do email first thing in the morning. Sadly, responding too quickly to your emails is also a great way to bust up your home office routine. It is better to batch those as well. I try not to even open up my email until later in the day. If you begin with your email, you will quickly find yourself doing less important tasks, generating additional unnecessary work, and distracting yourself from the work that really matters - meeting deadlines, closing deals, collecting checks. 
3. Eat the frogs first. This means get your unpleasant chores done first. I number all my chores each evening or morning and then force myself to do the top one or two first thing in the morning. Usually, the call or confrontation isn't any where near as disturbing or as time consuming as I feared. I also feel great for the rest of the day because I know I accomplished something that was tough for me to do or say.  
4. Use games to stop procrastination - remember you don't have a boss watching you any more or peers to inspire you. For example, to overcome call reluctance, I often find it helps to imagine that when I call someone I'm just calling their answering machine. 
5. Take a baby step to get started. Another great gimmick is to just tell yourself you are just going to do something for five minutes. You will often find that once you are started you fall into the flow state and you work until the task is finished. 
6. Leverage your advantages. Use all the resources around you to be more productive. Have your wife or children help with simple tasks. Make use of your assistants, co-workers, and others around you. Just because you are alone at home doesn't mean you can't be on the phone every hour checking up on people, assigning tasks, and leveraging the talents of others to get things done. 
7. Bliss out. It is easier to be spiritual at home than in the office. Use this to your advantage. You have more ability at home to be serene, in the moment, and happy. You don't need to conform to useless social conventions. In fact, you have more time to meditate, feel the balls of your feet, enjoy the fact that you are alive. I know I am taking advantage of this COVID-19 crisis to improve my meditation skills. I'm noticing I'm seeing opportunities sooner and profiting from them.
8. Don't wear pajamas. I think it is better to dress up for work at home just like you would at the office. Clothing is a psychological cue for you even if no one else notices it. I think people can tell if you are answering the phone in your pajamas. Don't do it. 
9. Watch out for sound quality. Remember that small sounds travel when you work at home. More likely than not, the other party on the phone will hear the clatter in the kitchen, the flushing toilet, or the dog in the background. You need to be sensitive to these sounds and not allow them to impact your listener. This means no music during phone calls. No television in the distance. Above all, don't wash dishes or clean cabinets while on the phone with a client. They can hear the noises and know that you are distracted. 

In the absence of office peer pressure, you need to find other ways to make yourself productive. Creating a happy, calm, quiet atmosphere will go a long way toward allowing you to outperform your office self by making it easy to concentrate and harder to be interrupted.

Fear Not: Foundation Giving to Remain Strong in 2020

I have enjoyed calling the upcoming economic crisis the Great Suppression. This is because the reduced economic activity we are enduring is not caused by anything seriously wrong with the U.S. economy.

The economy is strong. The increased unemployment we are seeing is a side effect of efforts to protect our population from the COVID-19 virus. Accordingly, we can expect the economy to bounce back quickly...especially if the current stay at home orders are reversed soon.

In this crisis, grant writers will be one of the occupational groups to be the least impacted by the economic crisis. Part of the reason is that grant writers are used to working on their own - either in an office or at home. In addition, one of the most significant factors which bodes well for grant writers this year is that the vast majority of foundations, that is the private non-operating foundations, are required to keep making grant and other contributions despite the hardships associated with the COVID-19 virus.

This is called the “payout rule.” With certain exceptions, private non-operating foundations must distribute five percent of the value of their net investment assets each year in the form of grants or eligible administrative expenses, with certain exceptions. The rule was created to prevent foundations from receiving assets but never actually making charitable distributions with them. Remember the donors who established these large foundations received a huge tax break and often tax free income for themselves and their families too. The payout rule is just the government's way of extracting an economic price for these enticing tax benefits. 

This familiar, if complex, rule is getting additional attention from foundations looking at the first quarter of the year amid the economic downturn associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Grant writers and their employers or clients are undoubtedly asking themselves what do the rules require? And what does this rule mean this year for foundations and the nonprofits dependent upon them?

The good news is that giving in 2020 will not be seriously affected by a slowed economy because distributions must be based on an endowment’s monthly averages throughout the previous year, 2019.  Nevertheless, we should be prepared to deal with the fact that the diminished value of foundation investments at the end of the year and into 2021 could affect giving beyond 2020.

In other words, because of the way complex distribution rules are structured, the short-term outlook for non-profits depending on foundation funding looks very good. In 2021, however, we estimate payouts will drop due to a decline in the stock market associated with a reduction in economic activity connected to COVID-19. 

The bottom line is that foundation payouts will remain strong throughout the rest of the year. It behooves charities to apply for this money now. All things being equal, these same foundations will not be as generous a year from now. Accordingly, it is smart for grant writers to redouble their efforts and maintain their productivity. Ironically, they will be among those least impacted by the crisis and among those most central to mitigating its impact.

Getting in the Zone: Tips for Making the Most of Your New Home Office, Part 1 of 3

Due to the spread of COVID-19 those of us with jobs and businesses will be spending more time working from home. For some, this is a great triumph. I have a friend who told me he thinks this is a harbinger of a brave new world where almost all of us have given up commuting and instead work from the comfort of our dining room table.

As he said, "It makes no sense to drive one hour just to go from one computer screen to another computer screen."

Despite my friend's common-sense observation, I think there is good reason to be cautious about the practicality of working from home. I should know, I've been doing it, off and on, nearly my whole life, as a college student, a graduate student, a young professor, a business owner, and later as a grant writing consultant.

To me, the biggest difference between working at home and working at the office is the different levels of peer pressure you will experience. At the office, much of your motivation and concentration is supported by the social pressures you face to behave yourself in front of your boss and your co-workers. Coming back late from lunch - drunk - will expose you to negative consequences. Working at home, however, you can get away with infractions.

Out of necessity, I have learned some tricks for improving my productivity at home. They boil down to tricks and techniques which improve your productivity in the absence of social pressure. One of my central principles is the necessity of preserving your sense of flow while working from home. To me, flow is the level of concentration and happiness that occurs when you are being most productive at home, it is a mental space where time seems to fly.

Maintaining flow is actually easier at home than it is under the stress of an office. If you concentrate on maintaining flow, then you will be leveraging the advantages of your home office. Potentially, you might find you may be more productive than if you were at the office. Nevertheless, I should warn you implementing these techniques and strategies takes an enormous amount of discipline. All I can say is that it is worth it.

1. Definitely keep track of your hours. For some reason it is very difficult to keep track of the passing of time. It is easy to deceive ourselves about how we spend it. One of the very best things you can do for yourself is set up a spreadsheet and record what you are doing every 15 minutes. You should do this for about two weeks. I think the first week is not really a good measure of how you waste your time because you will most likely be on your best behavior. What you will find is that minor activities like reading the paper, watching the news, or answering e-mails can turn into massive, daily, wastes of time. Keeping track of time will also help you see how little you have of it. 
2. Be realistic about your concentration and focus. I've found that I can only really handle about four hours of sustained writing a day. 
3. Demand quiet and uninterrupted time. This is difficult for some...not so much for me. What loved ones may not realize is that interruptions are huge consumers of time. The lost time is not merely in the act of dealing with the interruption, it is also in getting back into the rhythm and thought patterns of your work - your flow. Ideally, work should be a pleasurable, right-brain activity. You should be concentrating so hard that when you look up you are surprised to see that four hours have passed. That level of concentration cannot be maintained unless you have the active cooperation of those around you. For me, interruptions are physically painful. It hurts me just to think about them right now. 
4. I have found it useful to put up a do not disturb sign on the door to warn my wife off. 
5. Pro-Tip: There is nothing wrong with binge work late at night. I have done this since I was in high school. In the early morning, there are no interruptions because everyone else is asleep. It is quiet and there is nothing to do except work. Once you are on a roll, it sometimes helps to just keep it up. Once your head is into the work, it is unproductive to break your concentration and flow. 
6. Above all, you need to pay attention to ergonomics. This means get yourself a high-quality chair - something way better than what you had at the office. Also, make sure your keyboard is at the right height. Your arms should be level. Definitely get an ergonomic keyboard and use voice recognition software. Take breaks every hour so you do not mess up your back. While you are at it, you should probably make it a habit to look away from the computer monitor occasionally, toward a distant object, to rest your eyes. 
7. Be sure to exercise. Stress in your body distracts your attention and interrupts the state of flow which is essential to keeping yourself, happy, motivated, and taking action in the absence of social pressure.  

For me, the toughest thing about working from home is learning to force yourself to do things you are afraid of or do not want to do. This is where you just have to summon your inner warrior and get it done. Do not be shy about gloating over your superiority when you can force yourself to do unpleasant chores. I like to remind myself that successful people do the things that unsuccessful people do not like to do. Please remember, this is not an easy task. If it was easy to be productive working at home we would not have all these skyscrapers.

Compelling Power: Charismatic Leaders Teach Us the Value of Simplicity

As a political scientist, I have always been fascinated by the biographies of charismatic leaders like John Kennedy, Nelson Mandela or Mahatma Gandhi. As I studied their speeches and other communications I began to note certain common themes that gave their communications greater urgency, effectiveness and persuasive power. I will share one of their most compelling techniques in this article: They keep things simple. 

For example, when Napoleon returned from his exile on the Island of Elba to retake his throne in France, his directions to his band of followers was exceedingly simple - walk in a straight line to Paris.

Above all, I was impressed by the simplicity of their communications. I think simplicity is effective in grant writing because it give the funder confidence that you understand what you are doing, that you will be able to implement your project, and that they will be able to understand what you are doing and explain what you are doing to their bosses too. 

In grant writing, I am always looking for ways to simplify the presentation of an idea. I typically look for funding for the single most attractive aspect of the charity and pay less attention to the myriad of lesser programs that clutter up the agency's programmatic agenda. 

Secrets of Success: Speed Up Your Learning with Triangulation

One of the secrets of being a really great grant writer is developing the ability to write quickly about things you know nothing about. Personally, I find this business challenges me to learn new things quicker than a meteor. Luckily, my training as a political scientist gives me unusual advantages when it comes to high speed learning. These advantages have been important to my success, since so much of what I do tends to take place on an emergency basis.

Ironically, I did not get 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 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. The big 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 problem not mine.  

One of the best ideas I picked up at the University of Michigan while I was 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 on the issues of responsible fatherhood, healthy marriage, and substance abuse.  

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.

Up Your Game: How to Identify the Most Convincing Research

As you may know, I have had a lot of success in winning large federal government grants. In retrospect, I think that my background as a political scientist and as a published author gave me unusual advantages with federal government grant applications because so many of them are based on evidence derived from previous government studies. 

Since I had experience doing my own research and creating literature reviews as a political scientist, it was relatively easy for me to pick through federal websites and identify prospective interventions, programs, and practices that would most likely make a difference for the clients of the charities that hired me to work as a grant writer. 

As such, I apply certain internal standards to help me determine whether or not a particular study will present strong evidence in support of the program that I am trying to get funded. I will share some of these standards that I look for in the section below:  

1. Peer-Reviewed Articles: In general, I know to look for articles printed in peer-reviewed journals. This is just a fancy way of saying that an article in the journal will not be published unless a jury of independent researchers determined that it met their field's standards for academic research. In most fields there are the prestigious and the less prestigious journals. I look for ones that have been around a long time and for individual articles in those journals that have been cited by other researchers.  
2. Random Assignment: Next, I am particularly interested in finding studies which use random assignment to establish test and control groups to test whether or not a particular program or intervention works or not. A test group is simply the group of people - or animals, I suppose - who will be treated differently by the experiment. The control group, on the other hand, is supposed to be a group of very similar people who will not be exposed to the treatment variable. What is crucial is that the assignment to either the test or the control group must be random. This is a fundamental assumption behind the statistical methods used to determine whether or not there is a significant difference between the test and control group after the experiment is done. 
3. Quasi-Experimental Studies: Sometimes, it is not possible to simply assign people at random. In these cases, we might create test and control groups by recruiting volunteers or testing the same people before and after they were exposed to the treatment. These studies are called quasi-experimental studies. 
4. Population Similarities: The strongest studies are experimental and quasi-experimental studies that are based on populations similar to the one you are looking to serve. For example, you should not justify an experiment on college students, based on a study that looked at elementary school students. 
5. Multi-Site Studies: You will also be better off in picking larger studies that included multiple sites, meaning that the research was conducted at a number of different college campuses or in different cities around the nation. The problem with single site studies is that the single site might be contaminated statistically with unique people who respond to the intervention in the same way simply because they already have so much in common.
6. Attrition Rates: You need to pay attention to the little details in the study like how many of the participants dropped out of the study before it was done. This is because the people who dropped out will influence the final results of the study. 

Finally, you should be aware of the possibility for "experimenter bias" which is the tendency of the researcher to confirm their own suspicions in their own study. Sometimes this happens on purpose when the researchers fudge their results or manipulate their data to match their own conclusions. Other times there is an error in the study itself, but the research fails to notice this error because the overall study supports their conclusions. Since the results break their way, the researcher sees no need to double (or triple) check their own results. To guard against experimenter bias, I like to find studies where the researcher(s) appear to be sincerely surprised by their own results. To me, this is at least one indication that they are being honest with themselves and their readers. 

Dusting Off the Classics: Hot Tips for Recycling Grant Proposals

One of the best ways to speed up the grant writing process is to have readily available templates based on earlier, successful grant applications. Frankly, even copies of previous losing grant applications are immensely helpful whenever you sit down to write a new grant. 

The challenge is that the grant reviewers can often tell that you are simply recycling a previous grant rather than preparing a new, fresh, cohesive application for their benefit. 

Despite this difficulty, I have had a lot of success in recycling earlier grant applications into successful contemporary grants. Part of the reason is that I implement some key changes that insure the revised proposal still looks fresh and relevant. 

First, I am very careful about updating all of the dates in the document related to program goals and objectives. Leaving in a prior date is a powerful signal to the funder that you are simply recycling an old version of a previous grant.

Second, I make sure to update the research used to support the grant application so that the footnotes indicate that we are using the most recent articles in the field. These articles may still have the same information as the earlier articles, but they look sharper with a more recent publication date. 

Third, if I do add some new information to the existing grant, I make sure to balance that additional information out by referring to this new information in three or four other locations in the grant application. This makes for a more consistent application. It also creates the impression that you have thoughtfully revised the proposal rather than simply recycled an existing one. 

Finally, I am also careful to revise the grant so that it reflects a single voice. We all have slightly different, habitual writing styles. The reviewers can often tell that a grant has been recycled simply by noticing the abrupt changes in writing style that sometimes appear in a grant application. My favored technique is to rewrite each line of a previous grant so that it reflects my voice and not the style of the previous grant writer. 

How to Cut Corners to Quickly Produce the Reader's Tears

Although many of the tips I shared above are perhaps used by all writers, my aim is not to teach you how to be a screen writer or a novelist. (I do not have the calling or the skills to do that anyways.) What I can do, however, is share with you how I have bent -- or broken --conventional writing advice in order to write emotionally powerful grants under the pressure of significant and unalterable due dates. 

1. Don't Worry About Originality

Traditional writing coaches caution us not to plagiarize someone else's work. They may even teach their students not to risk plagiarism in the first place by even trying to take inspiration from books, movies or popular television shows. As a grant writer, however, some of my greatest successes have involved copying, almost word-for-word, an existing story that made me tear up and simply changing a few of the details to match the experiences of my non-profit client. When you are preparing a last minute grant because the previous grant writer passed out from overwork and exhaustion you can always rely on proven stories to work in your favor. If this bothers your conscience, you can take comfort in assuming that as you go through the rewriting and editing process that you and your team (boss) will make enough minor changes to personalize and make your material fresh. 

'This Is Us': The 11 most gut-wrenching moments that made us cry this season (so far).

2. Don't Worry About Being Sappy

Novelists and playwrights have the time it takes to create exotic or complex emotional situations. Grant writers do not. We have no choice but to be sappy which basically means we have an un-limited license to write in a manner which is overly sweet or sentimental. A choice which would seem lazy or silly or predictable in a major motion picture can nevertheless succeed in a grant proposal because we have a different format, an extremely limited exposure to our reader, and we need to balance out the other parts of the application which can be very dry including the budget or our goals and objectives. 

3. Embrace Cliches

As grant writers, we are not really in the business of creating brand new characters who have deliberately different or idiosyncratic emotional reactions. We do not have the time. Instead, we need to latch on to overly familiar or commonplace applicable story elements which, in another context, would rightly be considered cliches. We can produce tear provoking material at short notice by polishing up and reusing cliches which are already known to hook readers and draw them into an appropriate empathetic response. Therefore, we can get away with telling stories that include a child who loses a father to a gang attack (Lion King, 1994), a husband's fight to maintain custody of his son after his unfaithful wife leaves him (Kramer vs. Kramer, 1979), or a wife diagnosed with early onset dementia whose Alzheimer's stresses her family life (Still Alice, 2014).

4. Add Emotion Enhancing Coincidences

When we tell stories in real life, we typically add in amazing coincidences. Although writing instructors would disagree, it is okay for us to create scenes where the rains start to fall the moment your character gets sad news, or sees a beautiful sunset as an answer to a prayer. In grant writing, we have a poetic license which allows us to report scenes that have as much emotional punch as possible.

5. Don't Rewrite or Revise Too Much

While your initial draft of your story should make you cry do not get disappointed if you do not feel the same emotional impact after you are on your seventh or eighth edit. When you get bored or numb to your own story it will actually hurt you if you take the time to rewrite your material in order to create an improved emotional impact on yourself. Instead, I have found it useful to assume that the reader, who will be reading the story for the first time, will most likely have the same initial emotional experience as I did when I first created my over-the-top tear producing story. 

How to Grab Your Audience by Leveraging Emotional Power in Your Grant Proposal

Technically, people cry as they read a story because they are emotionally engaged with the main character and then that character suffers some sort of loss. To complete this task a novelist has a lot of advantages that grant writers do not. For example, a novelist has a whole book length manuscript to use to build up a powerful identification with the main character. As grant writers our task is much more difficult because we do not have that luxury of time and space. If we are going to make readers cry we need to accomplish our objective much more quickly, in perhaps a page or even a paragraph. To pull this off, we need to focus with precision and line up as many of the most significant causal factors as we can in our appeal.

1. Tear Up Yourself

If you can write stuff that makes you cry, then you will already be half way to your goal. As you may know, method actors typically draw on their own experiences when a director asks them to do a crying scene. Method acting coaches get actors to cry by asking them to remember their most painful experiences such as the loss of a child, a parent or even a pet. Transferring your own saddest reactions into the text is probably the quickest, fastest and most reliable way to get your readers to cry. If this is not within your comfort zone, then you will need to lean more heavily on the other factors that generate tears. Personally, I recommend using all of them including a likable characters, sad settings, poignant moments and engaging details. 

How his fans cause Milo Ventimiglia, who plays the father in This is Us, cry with their stories.

2. Focus on an Identifiable, Likable Character

To quickly get your reader to identify with your main character, you need to create - or find - one who immediately becomes a likable and easy to identify with figure for the reader. One of the most effective uses of this technique is the animal cruelty television ads which cause the viewer to immediately identify with a lonely, hurting, frightened, malnourished and yet still cute and cuddly dog, horse or cat. So, in order to set up the reader's tears, you must immediately share extremely positive, even heroic information about your client.

3. Draw on Familiar Family Situations

One of the best way to speed up the reader's tears is to present them with character types which are already highly familiar to them. For example, it is best to focus on a mother or a father, a brother or a sister, or a son or a daughter. By focusing on family members you automatically tap into your reader's own powerfully charged emotions surrounding their own family members. This is, by the way, one of the key techniques leveraged by the writers of the This is Us series. The show would not be able to routinely provoke intense emotional reactions if the characters were dealing with distant relatives, strangers, or unfamiliar situations. 

4. Place Your Story in an Extremely Sad Setting

Just as the animal cruelty videos feature animals in cages and bleak environments, you can use the descriptive setting of your story to immediately establish a mood conducive to sad, compassionate emotions. For example, you would quickly lose points if your started telling a sad story based on a sunny Mediterranean beach. Instead, it is more effective to pick a setting that basically screams sadness and misery including being out in the rain, in the cold snow, in extreme heat, or in dull, sterile and oppressive environments like tunnels, alley ways, hospitals, prisons, courtrooms, cemeteries and so on. The setting creates a depressing mood which facilitates your reader's saddest associations. Another way to remember this point is to understand that anything in your setting which is bright or happy will distract your reader from the character's painful loss. 

5. Don't Be Shy About Leveraging the Pain

As a grant writer, you have the reader's permission to engage in a level of hyperbole or exaggeration that would be over-the-top for a novelist or a screenwriter. For example, if it is sad for a child to lose a finger, then you might be better off choosing to tell the story about the child who lost a hand or an arm. Give yourself the freedom to push your own boundaries and focus on the elements of the client's story which are extremely painful. If you push yourself as hard as you can, you will probably be moving in the right direction. No matter what, you can always scale it back. The problem for most grant writers, however, is that they are too shy to push the readers into an extremely upsetting situation. 

6. Focus on Creating a Single Poignant Moment

Since we do not have much time, it makes sense to immediately establish an incredibly sad moment. The good news is you do not need a series of sad incidents to get the grant reader to a gut-wrenching moment, it is enough to build quickly to a single climactic moment where all the character's pain, loss and suffering is most acute. Creating a concentrated peak moment is useful, in part, because it focuses your attention and make the most of your existing skills as a drama writer. Of course, a short single poignant moment will also be easier for you to refine or share with your grant writing team. Here, the fastest way to get your reader to cry is to focus on a story where someone has to go away or leave for whatever reason. For example, if you have ever taken one of my workshops, then you will remember how sad it was at the end of the day when the workshop came to an end and we all packed up to go home.  

7. Add Vivid Details

Finally, you will immediately gain your reader's attention by seeding into your story some unique, striking details. For example, you might write about the dust on a teddy bear's button eyes, or the smell of an apple, or anything that quickly gets your reader visualizing a concrete, specific imaginary moment. Personally, I have found it useful to seed into my story details which connect with each of the five senses including sight, hearing, smell, taste or touch. Again, if you try this please give yourself permission to be bold. You can always scale back the details later on if you must. 

How to Encourage Your Team to Think Creatively and to Improvise as Well.

In addition to the improvisation you do yourself as a grant writer, it is also important to know tools for helping your grant writing team improvise as well. Too often a lack of creative energy can be traced to the fact that various team members may be afraid of failing. With this motivation, they may be more creative inventing reasons for giving up than coming up with solutions that will make it happen. Below, I will share with you the five most important techniques I have used to help my teams improvise like jazz musicians. 

The Lion's Cage (Charlie Chaplin), Music Composed by Colin Bruce

1. Do the Right Thing

I picked up this idea from George H.W. Bush. As a vice-president and former director of the CIA, the elder Bush had a lot of experience in working with appointed and career government staff. One of his techniques was to simply ask his team: "What would we do if we wanted to do the right thing?" Of course, this seems a little funny because we assume that everyone would naturally want to do the right thing. Bush's question was an acknowledgement that international relations is an opaque business and that often it is not possible to do the right thing if it creates other disadvantages and risks. Nevertheless, I am fond of asking this question because it challenges staff to really check their own agendas and respond with high quality solutions which represent an ideal answer to a question. Once you have their innovative answers on the table, you can always scale them back and do what is most practical at the moment. 

2. Time and Plan Your Improvisation Challenges

Typically, any grant writing team has enthusiasts and doubters. Both have a role in the grant writing process. In my experience it is best to start out with the enthusiasts, they are the ones who will be most energetic and committed to making the grant happen. With them, I encourage their spontaneous comments and ask them to elaborate on their enthusiasms. It is only late in the process - after a draft or two - that I invite the doubters to take a shot at the proposal. At this stage, their negativity will point out holes in the document. Based on their comments, I will get a solid list of issues which need to be sorted out and fixed as the grant moves forward. One question I ask the doubters is "What can we do to make the grant work to your satisfaction?" 

3. Out Crazy the Crazies

One of my favorite techniques of improvisation is to run with a crazy idea and, in a sense, out crazy the craziest person in the room. For example, someone may say that we should provide free equipment to students. (Clearly impractical.) My response is to suggest that we give them free clothes, movie tickets and automobiles. The impact of this approach is that I have loosened up the thinking of the group, helped them think outside the box, and made them more comfortable with speaking their minds. This technique is really most helpful when the crazy comment is really delivered by a crazy person. You might also try the reverse crazy technique which is to suggest to the group that they do the exact opposite of what they expect. This approach helps them zero in on the merits of the project simply because extinguishing it has been placed on the table. 

4. Take Money Off the Table

Another way to open up your group to innovation is to ask "What would we do if money was no object and we were certain to succeed?" This question gives your team the freedom to dream the best possible solution. They get to shoot for the stars. This approach actually yields surprising results since some ideas of the staff and administrators may not be so expensive or risky after all. There might be ways to approximate the things they want to do by using new technology, borrowed resources, or key donations. No matter what, you will get fresh ideas and the motivation to proceed. 

5. Make it Personal

Finally, it sometimes helps to touch the heart and highest aspirations of your team by asking "What would you do if it was your own mother or daughter in this program?" The responses to this question often elicit surprisingly sensitive, thoughtful, and decisive answers. It works, in part, because it gives the team members a simpler problem to solve. They are solving the problem of their own, for their own family, without regard to the objections and concerns of non-family members. Even though their ideas might highlight their personal values, the ideas themselves will probably be at least 80% of the way to the correct solution. 

If you remember to apply these techniques when you and your team are threatened by writer's block, then you will quickly find new avenues which restore your freshness, confidence and energy. As long as what you write works for you, you should be in good shape. This is true even if you are entirely unfamiliar with the topic of your grant application.

Succeeding When the Pressure is Great: The Five Most Important Tips for Effective Improvisation

The need for improvisation in grant writing is the logical consequence of the requirement to write long, original, persuasive documents under tight deadlines about topics that are unfamiliar. Due to severe time constraints, the grant writer will never have the time to adequately research their topic. If they are afraid of improvising, then they may deny themselves and their team adequate time to review and revise the grant proposal. After all, keep in mind multiple revisions are needed and will be made to make the document perfect. Below, I list my five most important tips for effective improvisation. 

"Big Bear Lake Scene," oil on canvas 18" x 24" by John C. Drew, Ph.D.

1. Trust Yourself

In an emergency situation, it always makes sense to begin by trusting your own gut instincts. Often the program managers at your charity may have no clue how to organize their work either. Your best guess at the way to proceed may actually win the team over and impress the funder. Plus, if you are sincerely happy with what you are writing then you are probably at least 80% of the way toward identifying the ideal elements of a winning grant proposal including the needs statement, the program solution, and the evaluation measures. Regardless, the key is to keep writing no matter what. When you read what you have written the next day you may be surprised by the quality of your work and the internal coherence of your arguments. 

2. Play the Worst, Average, Best Game

If I am stuck about the best course to follow as I'm writing a grant, I like to play a little game called Worst, Average and Best. I begin by thinking about a serious issue and then ask myself what the absolute worst solution would be. I don't know why, but imagining the absolutely worst solution, the solution that would make things much worse tends to clear my mind and gives me a foundation on which to build. I then ask myself what would be an average solution to the problem. Here, my brain generates traditional answers to immediate questions. I have found that this question tends to trigger my existing memory and pull up ideas and procedures or thoughts which I hadn't previously considered. The next step, however, is what makes this game so satisfying. I ask myself what would be the best possible solution to the problem? Out of this question, I have often found surprising solutions that appear in my mind. These are ideas that are grounded in the literature and are simple, effective, and creative. Even if my idea is off base, however, I still go with it. The staff of the agency or its leadership may or may not agree with my take, but - at the very least - I have done my duty by providing them with my best original insight. In times of crisis, I have found that playing the Worst, Average, and Best game has often led me to powerful solutions that make me feel quite confident about what I am writing or doing for a client or for workshop participants. 

3. Reverse Conventional Wisdom

One of the best improvisational techniques in my repertoire comes from my graduate school mentor, the late, Theodore J. Lowi. He taught me that it was frequently useful to take an idea and then explore the practicality of its complete opposite. For example, one of the truisms of grant writing is that the best pathway to winning is to follow the funder's directions. It would be folly to ignore this advice. Yet, we can imagine the creative ideas that might emerge if we reversed this saying and thought instead, the best pathway to winning is NOT to follow the funder's directions. How might that be true? As I ask myself the question it occurs to me that the best way to win grants, in reality, is to know a board or staff member of the foundation and have them recommend you to the funder. Some funders expressly ask you not to do this. Nevertheless, this is one sure way to win grants. This idea might not have occurred to me if I did not experiment with reversing the original shibboleth. 

4. Makeup Facts and Figures Just to Keep Writing

The only practical solution is to recognize your own strengths and weaknesses and do your best at improvising when you run across mainly unfamiliar matters. Whatever inadequacies this creates are relatively minor since other readers on your team should be able to revise the document and make it more realistic. This is why, in my seminars, I recommend that you write a draft of the whole grant first and then do the research for the document. 

5. Google It

The internet has been one of the greatest blessings for grant writers in a hurry. If I am stuck on something, I am usually pleasantly surprised when a quick Google search of keywords or a name brings up a Wikipedia article or some other resources which fill me in on the topic. The Wikipedia entries are particularly useful when they contain recent footnotes. Even so, I and you need to check those links. Too often the source cited in the Wikipedia article is no longer available, at least in its original form. When I bump up against paywalls, I usually just make do with the article summary and rely on the agency staff to verify my take on the article in question. My associate grant writers are particularly adept at finding key information on the internet. In one case, an associate grant writer found step-by-step directions for creating fish ponds. We were able to use this document in our draft grant proposal and the client, who built fish ponds himself, seemed perfectly okay with what was submitted.

Speeding Up Grant Writing in High Pressure, Last Minute Situations

I think that grant writing trick shots are most impressive when they occur at the last minute when the pressure is greatest and the need for correct decision-making is at its zenith. Below, I want to share with you some of the day-to-day habits that end up being trick shots when they pay-off under difficult circumstances. 

Pearl Rothman, Grant Writing Associate, recently visited Paris. Despite her absence, we were able to keep working on her  projects because we all use the same passwords.

Pearl Rothman, Grant Writing Associate, recently visited Paris. Despite her absence, we were able to keep working on her 
projects because we all use the same passwords.

1. Use Excel Spreadsheets for Your Budgets: I always recommend that the staff urge work on the details of the client's budget early and as quickly as possible. Most organizations tend to procrastinate on creating a budget, in part, because it usually includes sensitive information and involves working with the already overwhelmed accounting department. I have found that it solves a lot of problems to insist that all budgets are written out in Excel spreadsheets. These spreadsheets can easily be incorporated into your existing documents. Moreover, they make it easier to implement last minute changes without creating difficult to sort out math problems. It takes a little longer to set up a budget in a spreadsheet, but you will look like a trick shot genius when you easily make the inevitable, last minute, required changes to the budget. 

2. Don't Be Too Careful with Your Passwords: This point is a little counter intuitive. I have found that nothing causes more problems at the end of a project than dealing with inaccurate or forgotten passwords. This is especially true if you are working on different computers, at different locations, all at the last moment. My solution is to put the passwords right into the document or to put them on easy to see post-its on my desk or in my wallet. To be sure you run the risk of someone accessing your grant and stealing your work. However, I have never seen this happen in real life. On the other hand, I have seen people panic and lose valuable time when they are struggling to remember the password they need to access or submit their on-line grant application. Worst case, I have never gone wrong or made any mistakes by simply using the same passwords over and over. Right now, I think my team is pretty much trained to use the same password all the time so that we do not have to struggle with this part of the grant writing process.  

3. Write Your Summary Last: Since you are more likely to know what your project is all about after you have done your first draft, I recommend doing the summary, which usually appears at the front of the document, as one of your very final tasks. This way, your summary will include all elements of the grant that you have learned as well as your brightest last minute ideas. 

4. Last Minute Numbering: There is no shame in finding that you got some of your page numbers wrong. You can always add spacing numbers like 1-A and 1-B if you need to add a page between pages 1 and 2 and you do not have the time or the patience to do it exactly right. 

5. Don't Get Too Creative: By this, I mean that you will always save time and create effective, likely to win grant proposals if you follow the funder's directions exactly. For me, this means answering their specific questions, word for word, part by part, in the exact order that they are presented to you in the request for proposals (RFP). This simple exact approach provides you with many advantages including giving you a standard with which to measure the responsiveness of your grant copy and giving you guidance on what to do next when you come back to a project that you have momentarily set aside. 

6. Read the Request for Proposals (RFP) Multiple Times: Unfortunately, it is not possible to fully understand the motivations behind a request for proposals or how to create the best possible answer without spending extensive time with the RFP itself. These documents are not designed to be accessible. They are prepared by people who have the incentive to make your job tougher and to discourage people from even applying for the money. One of the reasons I tend to under research grants is because I believe creating a quick first draft is one of the best ways to slow your brain down and actually learn, line by line, what the funder is seeking from you and your agency. By doing a quick first draft, it forces me to take the RFP seriously and to understand it enough so that I can start doing extremely high quality work in later, more careful drafts. I have also found it useful to take the RFP home and read it at night while I am more relaxed. I often write on it and number the new ideas that come to me as I reread it. Many times I have found that my better understanding of the RFP actually makes it simpler and less difficult to respond to.