How to write a winning grant
Do you struggle to find time for grant writing? Are you having trouble getting grant funding? This is a familiar refrain from many non-profit organizations that do not have grant writers on staff. In today’s non-profit environment, funding continues to require fewer staff to do more work than ever before, meaning you may be doing work that doesn’t really fit your expertise. As a result, consider hiring Healthy Way Consulting to help you develop a high quality and fundable grant that will showcase your organization, program, and / or projects and the impact it has on your clients and the community.
Healthy Way Consulting expertise
Healthy Way Consulting owner and operator, Dr. Andrew Clark (PhD), has over 10 years of grant writing experience that he gained while Post-Doctoral Associate and Senior Project Coordinator at Western University’s Human Environments Analysis Laboratory. Andrew’s work at Western provided him the opportunity to learn many best practices on how to write a successful grant under the guidance of Dr. Jason Gilliland, one of Western University’s leading social science researchers. Andrew co-wrote or led the writing of 16 grant applications that were submitted to academic, foundation, and community grant programs. While not always successful (no one is successful every time), those grants were able to help raise over $3 million of research funding for the lab.
In addition to writing grants, Andrew has also been part of multiple grant review panels. This has provided him the opportunity to understand what types of grants are successful and the type of feedback they have received.
What makes a successful grant?
CLARITY. Have you clearly defined your project? So often organizations have big ideas that are hard to describe, leading to complicated and unclear grant applications that make it challenging for a review panel to understand. Focusing your project on a specific idea will allow your project to be well understood, leaving the committee knowing exactly what you are asking to be funded. It is hard to fund something that cannot be defined.
EQUITY, DIVERSITY, & INCLUSION. As many organizations continue to recognize that people who live with disabilities, are gender-diverse, or racialized are disadvantaged in our society, funders are more likely to support equity seeking projects and organizations. This means organizations need to ensure that grant applications are making meaningful impact on equity. Tokenism is quickly identified and dismissed, so there is a need to think deeper on how you can improve the equity, diversity, and inclusion of the project identified in your grant application.
EVIDENCE INFORMED. One of the more tricky parts of the grant application process can be ensuring your application is evidence informed. This is just a fancy way of saying that grant applications are most successful if it includes data supporting your work. In an ideal world, your application includes:
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- Data showing the need for the project;
- Data showing your organization succeeding on previous projects; and
- Data showing the grant is feasible and has a good chance at succeeding.
This data (aka evidence) will help the funders see your project as a feasible and worthwhile bet.
If you have no data, then now is the time to start collecting some. Conduct a literature review to better understand the problems you are trying to solve. Conduct surveys or interviews of your staff / clients to understand the impact you are making. Just start understanding more about your organization, programs, staff, and clients to help share your story and understand your organizations impact. Don’t forget: WE CAN HELP!!!
IMPACT. More than anything else, funders are looking to understand the impact your organization / programs have on your clients and the community as a whole. This ties back to having an evidence informed grant application, but also includes understanding how your program improves the lives of your clients and your community. Telling this story of your organization and projects really helps sell a grant and tells the review committee that your program is worth funding.
Why should you hire Healthy Way Consulting?
Do you have the need for Grant Writing support? Visit our website to learn more about our process or contact us at healthywayconsulting.ca/work-with-us to setup a meeting! While we cannot guarantee that you will receive your grant — it is a bit of a crap shoot at times — we are confident that we can help you create a grant application that will clearly describe your project in a way that profiles your organization and ideas in the brightest light. Our grant services start at $3,000 for a complete grant application.
Do you have a grant writing on your staff, but would like someone to review your grant to provide copy edits, feedback, and evaluation? We provide those services starting at $500 per grant.
We do not charge based on the success of the grant, scope you to death, or track hours by the second. We are interested in building long-term working relationships with our clients, which could include evaluation services if your grant is successful. Let’s grab a coffee, chat, and figure out how we can work together!