Testimonial: Dr. Drew Wins $2.1 Million for Coast Community College District

Corine Doughty, Dean of Business, Career & Tech Ed
at Santiago Canyon College

I'm breaking new ground by publishing a testimonial letter from one of the most important clients I've served over the years - Ms. Corine Doughty, Dean of Business, Career & Technical Education at Santiago Canyon College. I met Corine in 2004 when she was looking for a grant writing instructor to teach at Rio Hondo College.

With her support and encouragement, I wrote a rather startling series of successful grants for schools in the Coast Community College District (CCCD). If you click on the image below, you will be able to read her letter as a larger document.

In my various workshops and retreats, I teach that grant writing is a team sport and not a lonely academic, scholarly pursuit. Consequently, I do not think my regular readers will be surprised to learn that the secret behind all of these successful grant applications was the speed with which Corine and I worked together to study the newly released RFP, to draft a compelling narrative, and to rally the faculty and administrators needed to make the grant significant, feasible and properly staffed as a project.

Ironically, I should have waited another week before asking her for this testimonial letter. It turns out that Orange Coast College won yet another grant with my assistance that funded just last week. It was a grant for buying new CNC (computer numerically controlled) machining technology that was worth $450,000.00. This was one of the last grants Corine and I worked on before she advanced to a new position as a Dean at Santiago Canyon College.

Fantastic New Resource for Those Seeking Work As Grant Writers

Rodney Walker's energy and creativity never cease to amaze me.  Now he is offering a new service that helps grant writers find work - all over the nation.  I'm going to try it myself.  In the meantime, please check out his new website feature at http://www.grantwritingonlinecourse.com/jobs   This new job site reminds me that in a tough economy, there is still always plenty of work for grant writers. 

Two Day Grant Writing Retreat with Dr. Drew Attracts a Visitor from Guam

At my last Two Day Retreat, I was startled to learn that we had a participant who flew in all the way from Guam. Her name is Zenaida Natividad, Ph.D. She was trained at the University of the Philippines and took a doctorate in education with an emphasis on research and evaluation. Guam is a territory of the U.S. It is an island in the North Pacific Ocean that is about three-quarters of the way from Hawaii to the Philippines. Dr. Natividad wrote her first successful grant about two years ago when she won about $224,903 in 2008 from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for a group called Sustantia. Sustantia is focused to teaching children and parents about proper nutrition to address the problem of childhood obesity on the Island of Guam. She succeeded with this grant application, in part, because she was given total authority to make it work. One of the most important secrets of success in grant writing is the successful delegation of authority. In my experience, I've seen a lot of charities and schools miss out on important opportunities simply because they were running their grant writing programs according to the rules of a larger committee. Where grant writing succeeds at a profitable level, I've usually found that one person has been put in charge and held responsible for grant writing activities - this was the case with Dr. Natividad whose first grant was an extremely prestigious and lucrative one. Dr. Natividad has travelled to the U.S. and Brussles to present papers on the good work she is doing for the children of Guam. I was deeply honored to get to know her better during her participation in our most recent Two Day Retreat.

The Never Quit Guarantee: We Keep Writing Until Your Charity Wins a Grant

As you may know, I'm working with a business coach, Jay McDowell, who is helping me improve my business model and staff organization. In the process, we have developed a unique selling proposition (USP) which has already made a difference for my consulting business and changed our relationship with our clients in a favorable manner. Today, we offer what I like to call our Never Quit guarantee which states that we will keep writing until your charity wins a grant. To me, this guarantee is not that hard to stand by since preparing additional copies on an existing grant is a low cost, high perceived value proposition. Moreover, as the charity learns from its rejection letters (and phone calls) it will become increasingly focused on creating a powerful argument that really breaks loose funder resources. Besides, I never felt completely comfortable with the existing model where I write some grants and then disappear for a year. I care too much about the clients our charities serve and about the survival of these charities themselves. At any rate, I'll be curious to hear your reaction to our new guarantee. As always, I appreciate your feedback, so do not worry about my feelings. My goal is to make the new Drew & Associates operate like clockwork.

Wall Street Journal reports on more business for grant writers. See, http://t.co/h0r941I

Dr. Drew Visits the Anchorage Museum in Alaska

When I was a young adult, I remember the Max Headroom video series.  See, The Max Headroom Show.  This video sort of reminds me of him - along with the stresses we face in contemporary America including terrorism, invasive searches at the airport, Spiderman and the pervasive sense that everything we do is now recorded by a camera. 

This image is the result of a special heat sensitive camera installed as part of a science exhibit at the Anchorage Museum in Anchorage, Alaska.  For a quick look at the fun I had with this unusual image, please check out the YouTube video below.

Check out Dr. Drew in Anchorage, Alaska this week. See, http://ping.fm/wqI6P

Dr. Drew on Website Development: It's Not As Hard As It Looks

As you may know, Tricia and I sat out the initial stages of the website development era.  My impression, at the time, is that a lot of money went into these websites and they always seemed to disappoint the people who created them -- the people who had high expectations for cashing in on Internet and website wealth. 

Overtime, however, it became increasingly clear to us that customers did pay attention to our website and that we often got speaking engagements from people we would not have normally expected to request our assistance - simply because of the information they gained from our website.  For example, here's the link to our own, free website at http://johndrew25.intuitwebsites.com/index.html.

As you can see from my personal experience, it was extremely easy for me to check off that nagging duty in my Outlook task list - create website.  Luckily, there are many options out there for people looking for website building basics. 

The main thing I recommend is to take action and get something up and running.  Once you do so, you will be able to put the website address on your business cards and promote it through your Twitter and Facebook accounts.  Intellectually, I think it is also helpful to create your own website, in part, because it forces you to rethink your business.  Sometimes, in my experience, the effort I put into creating a website has more impact on the creator than the viewer.