Find Yourself a Great CPA: How To Win Grants By Having Excellent Financial Records

Sadly, one of the obstacles that can keep a charity from winning a grant is having poor financial record keeping. This gloomy conclusion might make even more sense if you look at the non-profit organization from the point of view of the skeptical, even cynical foundation executive.

Although your grant proposal may have all the right research and all the right foundation buzz words, a lack of financial information can seriously weaken, even undercut all your great work as a grant writer. The role of solid financials is so great to your eventual success in winning grants that some grant writers refuse to even work with non-profits unless they have stellar financial statements already in place. 

As a rough and ready consulting firm, however, Drew & Associates takes a different approach. In particular, we focus on helping non-profits improve their record keeping, deliver reasonable financial statements, and secure low cost audits or even lower cost accountant compilations or reviews. 

 In our experience, most foundations know that a genuine audit including testing of your financial records by a competent CPA is just too expensive to justify. In my case, I have often told non-profit leaders that Trish and I would gladly donate to the charity if we were confident the money would go into a high quality audit.

Nevertheless, all the funders really want to see - in the end - is something that looks like an audited financial statement. 

In other words, they want you to keep your records in Quickbooks or some other financial accounting software and then produce for them a Statement of Activities which basically shows your income and expenses for the previous calendar or fiscal year and a Statement of Financial Position which shows the overall strength of your charity by reporting your assets and liabilities. I always thought it was odd that the Statement of Financial Position also reports what happens when you add your net assets and liabilities together. 

I always thought that the only really important number was your net assets - or your charity's actual net worth. Instead, I now understand that adding net assets and liabilities together shows the funder how large your organization is in general.

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. 

How to Leverage the Most Strategically Visible Parts of a Grant Application

While I have not seen formal research on where a person's eye travels when they first read a grant proposal, I paid attention to my own habits and have generalized them to assist our clients. Ironically, if you understand how to speed read, you will also have clues about how to position your information so that it has the most dramatic impact on the reader. For a quick overview of speed reading, check out the video below: 

 

How To Speed Read

For example, in most of the grant proposals that we write we include photos. Part of the reason we do this is that photos subconsciously send a powerful message about the quality of your non-profit and your attention to detail. Accordingly, I like to find the best lit, best focused, and most contemporary photos I can find off the internet or from the collection established by the non-profit itself. 

What people may not realize, however, is that I am betting that people are more likely to read the captions under the photos than the text of the document itself. Consequently, I make the caption extremely easy to read and I build into it the most powerful, compelling message associated with that charity. 

I also assume that people will be more likely to read your footnotes than your actual grant application. For this reason, I pay great attention to the footnotes, seeking to make them readable, persuasive, recent, and consistent with the winning message/image of the non-profit organization. 

Assuming that people scan headlines in a grant application just as they scan headlines in a newspaper or on a website, I also pay particular attention to making sure that each headline is catchy, interesting, and consistent with the non-profit's overall winning message. I have found it helps to spice up the headline by adding a little alliteration, a reference to a current movie or television show, or an interesting play on words. 

No matter what, I assume that the reader will most likely be scanning my application, looking for excuses to turn it down, and that the best way to win their support it to seed the most compelling messages into the portions of the grant they are most likely to first study and concentrate on reading.  

Borrowing from the Pros: How to Get the Most Out of Your Grant Cover Letter

As a political scientist, I am always interested in how political consultants used direct mail to raise money and advertise their political candidates. As a grant writing consultant, I have adopted a lot of these same techniques to benefit the non-profit clients we serve at Drew & Associates. Many of the political consultant's best ideas were the result of early eye tracking experiments. For a look at some of the most recent developments in eye tracking, please check out the video below: 

For example, it turns out that when someone opens a letter the first thing that attracts their eyes is the appearance of their own name. Consequently, I am very careful about having my staff double check the spelling of the recipient's name and also their title. My view is that if we make a mistake with the grant reader's name, then we immediately make a bad impression. If we get their name exactly correct, however, we will have used that initial millisecond of exposure to immediately win the trust and confidence of the reader. 

This is why I refuse to issue letters of inquiry or cover letters that are simply addressed to generic appellations like "To Whom It May Concern" or "Dear Sir or Madam." I also use a Ms. or Mr. when I address the letter reader too. If the person's name gives me little indication of their gender, then I try to Google them to figure out the appropriate term of address. If they have a non-English name that I am unfamiliar with, then I will Google that too.

I also avoid using the generic term Grant Administrator or Grant Coordinator. Instead, I review the funder's website or research printout and address the letter to their president or chair. To make sure that I get the name exactly right, I will cut and paste it directly from the website.

It turns out that the next place a person's eye goes to when they read your letter of inquiry or your cover letter is your own signature. Try this yourself and notice how your eyes move over the next letter you receive in the mail. I also seek to leverage this initial bit of information too. If you have ever taken one of my grant writing workshops, then you will remember that I spend time teaching people how to create a professional looking signature. Too often, I have seen people labor over a grant application and then - at the last minute - undercut their own effort by signing the application or cover letter as if they just finished an increasingly rare third grade penmanship class. Instead, I recommend signing quickly, like you are a doctor signing a prescription. The signature, by the way, should be done with blue ink. We use blue ink so that the reader understands that the signature is applied with a pen and not done with a photo image the same color as the text.

Finally, the folks who taught me about political direct mail always stressed the P.S. at the end of the letter. For some reason, people will scan the entire letter first, but then zero in on the P.S., or post script, at the end of the letter. To take advantage of that habit, I like to place the most compelling message regarding the charity and its project in the P.S. I rarely send out any letter of inquiry or cover letter without including a P.S. 

P.S. If you follow these tips, you will be using the reader's most basic habits to quickly get a powerful first impression established in their minds in six seconds or less.

Start 2020 Off with a New, Inspiring Resume

One of Dr. Drew's biggest secrets of success as a grant writer is his skill at tweaking the resumes of the charity's key talent so they are more likely to win really big, life transforming grants. In our increasingly media saturated world, a fresh -- strategically designed -- resume can be the difference between winning or losing either a job or a multi-million dollar grant. At any rate, we thought it would be fun to offer a special starting in January 2020 for everyone who is seeking to find or get a better job. Here are the details of Dr. Drew's resume writing package.

Here's What Dr. Drew Will Do to Improve Your Job and Career Prospects for 2020 

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. 

Discounted price: $400. 

Regular price, after January 30, 2020: $500.

Payment by Check

For payment by check, mail to: Drew & Associates, 25195 Via Catalina, Suite A, 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 and Why a New Resume is a New Life.

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. With his help, I got a great new job. Thank you!

-- Dr. Irit Gat, Antelope Valley College

Pro Tip: How to Work With an Expert Consultant

Federal grants are highly competitive. These grants can become quite technical and your ability to win may depend on the last minute relationships you build with people who have very specialized expertise. Below, I will give you a peek at the techniques I use to manage these temporary but very important relationships.

 
Since I do not do academic research full-time anymore, I find I am now more dependent on the goodwill and understanding of national-level research/evaluation consultants. I still remember how to do regression analysis, survey research, or program evaluation; Nevertheless, my expertise is stretched to the limit when it comes to understanding the literature reviews of other fields -- particularly in the hard sciences or in the sometimes obscure details of esoteric educational theory.
Here are some of my best tips for working with experts in your field:

1. Give Experts Your Best Work: I think the most important thing is to get a very polished draft ready to submit to the outside research consultant. I have found that many of these extremely talented individuals are more than happy to comment on or improve your grant application, but you need to be careful with their time and their attention span. By waiting to send them a virtually finished product, you demonstrate that you are conscientious and that you have gone as far as possible on your own expertise and power.
2. Follow Up on Expert's Suggestions: I am careful to follow up on their suggestions in terms of additional reading material, theoretical perspectives, or new ways of displaying information. I have found it surprisingly easy to follow up on the outside expert's suggestions simply by looking for the same information on line. I do not need to become an expert in their field. Nevertheless, with a little on-line research, I can get my understanding up to the 80% level needed to win in a federal grant competition. By following up on the consultant's suggestions and being a good student, you win more of their time and their respect. 
3. Reward Your Experts: I am generous about including the outside expert in the federal grant application. Often, I will include an outside expert as an evaluation specialist, a role that entitles them to at least 10% of the gross revenue coming in from the federal grant. On a million dollar grant, this will give the expert the possibility of a $100,000 payday - more than enough to engage their full attention in perfecting your grant. 

Finally, if you are having a hard time finding a national level expert to help you out, you can sometimes get leads from the folks teaching at major universities. Often the federal government itself will provide you with a list of outside experts that have passed their standards of approval. All in all, it is best to approach the national level expert when you have completely run out of ideas and absolutely done your level best. This way you will demonstrate that your project and your work effort are worthy of their best attention.

Government Grants: Pay Attention to the Questions and the Points

I have enjoyed a rather remarkable level of success in winning government grants. Most recently, I won two prestigious grants from the National Science Foundation. I think the following two tips have made the biggest difference for me.

Tip #1 Answer the Question

Much of my success has been due to my careful habit of answering the questions posed by the government - federal, state, or local - with answers that carefully address the gist of the question along with each separate element of the question.

For example, I am often confronted with questions like the following from a recent federal grant application: "Describe how the impacts align with the goals and objectives."

In my answer, I would be careful to hit on each element of the question so that I have something to say in regard to each of the following words: impacts, align, goals and objectives. I might write something like this: "The impact measures indicated above were aligned with the long-range goals and short-term objectives by searching for tangible evidence of how our ABC Veterans Housing Program was making a measurable difference for all of our stakeholders - especially the elderly in our program. Alignment was obtained by choosing the existing program performance measurements which were the best possible fit with the specific goals and objectives established for each element of our program."

Notice in this example that I am trying to touch on each element of the question. This way the reviewer would have to award me full points for my answer because I was fully responsive to each element of the question. At times, this can lead to repetition, some awkward sounding phrases, and a sort of pedantic approach to the grant topic. Nevertheless, I have found that this method works out quite well and that it forces me to carefully read and consider the questions posed in the government's request for proposals (RFP).

Tip #2 Pay Attention to the Points

The second most important thing I would advise regarding how to win government grants is to simply observe that it pays off to notice how many points are assigned to each question or each element of the grant application.

For example, let us say that you have a 60 page grant application. If the guidelines indicate that the first question they ask is worth 10 out of 100 total points, then I would assign 10% of my allotted pages, that is 6 pages in this example, to answering that particular question. Accordingly, if the second question is worth 20 points, then I would devote at least 12 pages to answering it.

I have found this to be a useful rule in apportioning the amount of text I assign to answering each particular question posed by a government RFP. This is also a useful rule because it helps you trim back your text if you have gone on too long on a single particular topic.

Funder Research: How to Narrow Down or Enlarge the Field

As I have grown my business, I have found I now have to spend more time training our staff on the basics of grant research. It turns out that grant research is both extremely important and surprisingly difficult to do right. Most grant researchers find that they stumble on a ton of possibilities or else none at all. Consequently, they need to know how to adjust their search to find more or less prospects. By and large, I think most grant researchers are unfamiliar with the options available to them when they use a standard grant research database. In particular, they may be unfamiliar with their range of options.

There are four general categories that will be most useful to you: subject matter, location, target population, and type of grant.

Subject matter: The first step, in my view, is to focus on broader terms like education, social welfare, healthcare, or justice. If this gives you too many hits, then you can simply switch to narrower terms like low cost housing, minority education, teen pregnancy, or electronic health records. Of course, it helps if you have a general understanding of the work done by non-profit organizations when you follow this procedure. In my experience, however, this sort of knowledge will just come to you naturally over time and you start researching grants. In a pinch, however, it pays to review sample grant proposals or the project innovator form filled out by the client to get a better idea of the range of wording available for your search.

Location: If I stall out with this option, I next turn to the project's location. For example, I ask if my project is going to have an impact on a specific city, county, state, regional, national, or international location? Most grant funders, of course, focus their resources close to home. Nevertheless, I think that adjusting your geographic focus will increase funding opportunities. In addition, it is generally extremely easy to use geographic search terms.

Target Population: After searching on subject matter and location, I then turn to the target population itself. This is basically the group of people who will most benefit from your grant project. Sample target populations would include single moms, the frail elderly, disadvantaged youth, the homeless, persons with low incomes, at-risk youth, international journalists, HIV/AIDS patients, and so on. In general, I find that there is more funding for children than the elderly and for less stigmatized rather than more stigmatized groups.

Type of Grant: Finally, I focus in on the type of grant that the charity or individual or business wants to win. Most of the database search engines you use will offer to search under a variety of different types of grants such as: capacity building, challenge, conference, construction, consulting, demonstration, dissemination, endowment, equipment, exhibition, general purpose, land acquisition, matching, operation, planning, publication, renovation, research, scholarship, seed, special project, subvention, training, and travel.