The Grant Writing and Funding Coach

Chapter 3

The Words: Your Idea in a Short Summary

It’s time to roll up your sleeves and create a draft budget. Enthusiasm about your idea will inspire you to write and talk about it, but make it easy on yourself and do the hard part first. Create a draft budget, because, “How much money?” and “Who’s contributing?” are the first questions people will ask when you introduce your idea.

Now that you have a general budget in mind, the next step is to write a short summary of your project in order to discuss it with your board, council, or potential partners.

1. An Inspiring True Story

At the core of every successful grant application, there is a true and compelling story that inspires you to request funding and that could inspire funders to say yes.

Most of us have experienced sitting down on the couch on a Friday night at the end of a long week to watch a movie with our friends, family, and assorted pets. You have the snacks queued up and, as the trailer comes on for the mystery, romance, action, thriller, or drama, the opening line is: “Inspired by a True Story.”

Now, everyone in the room, including the cat, has moved from an evening of passive viewing to one of engaging in a true, collective story. A story which everyone can learn more about, think of ways to solve, change, or tell other people about it. The story provides possibilities.

That’s exactly what happens to grant officers and board members of funding agencies when you inspire them with a true story.

This is your chance to start to build an opportunity for partners and funders and to engage them in solving a challenge. For most of them, that’s why they’re there. They want to get things done, solve problems, see growth, and support solutions important to their community and to the world.

Idealistic? Yes. Optimism, enthusiasm, and vision are big players in the world of grants, both for grant seekers and funders.

Along with the budget, the summary is the most important element of your application. Your summary will include what you intend to do, why you intend to do it, and how you will sustain it. The rule for grant summaries is the shorter the better, so here’s some suggestions on how to create a great summary.

1.1 Less is more

Start with a 100–150 word summary answering the same time-honored journalistic “five Ws and an H” I used for the budget: Who, what, when, where, why, and how.

• Who is applying for the grant, who will benefit, and who are the partners?

• What is the project and what are the outcomes?

• When will it begin and end?

• Where will it take place?

• Why do you need the project?

• How will you get it done?

• How much will you and each partner contribute?

Sample 2 is a short summary for the Seal Point Retreat upgrade for which I created the draft budget in Chapter 2.

Sample 2: Short Summary

You might be asking, “Is that all?” Only 100–150 words? Yes, for now. There’s a common misconception that successful grants require tomes of narrative about the project. Not true. Funders are busy people from varied sectors who want to understand projects quickly and help make things happen.

There’s a common misconception that successful grants require tomes of narrative about the project. Not true. Funders are busy people from varied sectors who want to understand projects quickly and help make things happen.

The summary, aside from the budget, is the most important section of the application because a grant officer can use it effectively to summarize your grant and take it to a committee for a first review and possible shortlisting. Sometimes, the summary and budget are the only parts of the application reviewed. Once you have this summary you’ll be able to build upon it as you move ahead.

1.2 Active sentences, please!

If you’re having trouble cutting your summary down to 100–150 words, try a quick spelling and grammar check to weed out passive sentences. Those pesky passive sentences! You know, the ones where the subject has an action done to it, rather than the subject doing the action. Passive sentences slow things down and create word jungles in summaries.

Here’s an example of an active sentence: “Pesky, passive sentences ruin the summary!” Here’s the same info in passive, “The summary was ruined by pesky, passive sentences.” We want active sentences, please!

Here’s a tip, if you’re having difficulty cutting your word count down, there are numerous editing apps available. I use Hemingway Editor to refine summaries. You can find it online, it’s less than ten dollars, and perfect for grant summaries. It shows you sentence length, passive sentences, and overuse of adverbs.

An app like Hemingway Editor is a no-frills time saver and it’s easy to use offline. In using any app, if it comes to choosing what the app has to say over a sentence you love, leave it. Trust yourself for the final draft.

If you want to delve more into getting things right and untangling what you have to say, an excellent resource to use as a guide is The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White.

If you have a friend or colleague who can have a look at what you’ve written, it always helps to have that second look and opinion. For longer narrative, thank goodness for editors. I’ll discuss that in later chapters.

2. Using the Summary for Inquiry Letters, Cover Letters, and Social Media

Now that you have a draft summary, you can use this description in writing initial inquiry letters, cover letters, in suggested support letters, and in social media and press releases.

2.1 Begin to look at sample documents

In this book, I have purposely not provided samples of inquiry letters, support letters, etc., because there are numerous sites which provide excellent sample documents of cover letters, letters of inquiry, proposals, and budgets. Grantspace.org, which is a free service of Foundation Center, a subscription-based service for funding searches, provides sample documents of cover letters, letters of inquiry, proposals, budgets, and more.

Instead, by equipping you with a draft summary and budget and later, a final budget and summary, you have a fluid, all-occasion basic wardrobe which you can mold to a worldwide spectrum of formats, templates, and requirements for accompanying documents.

3. Thinking Ahead to an Expanded Summary

From this time forward, you’ll be equipped with your concise summary. As you progress with your project, you’ll find more points that you may, or may not, want to include in a longer narrative.

As you gather more research information, you’ll be able to choose what holds the highest importance for you and the funder and add it to the extended summary.

You’ll expand this first summary into a 300-word summary in the final application chapter. At that point, you’ll be able to attach appendices, business plans, and background research for funders who want more in-depth information.

4. Fiction or Nonfiction?

Some people enjoy playing logic-based puzzles like Sudoku or color-coding their closets. Others like reading mysteries and thrillers in which the world is put right by the end of the novel. All these activities have elements of logic, hope, and resolution.

On the logic side, grant summaries include elements of solving a puzzle because you need to synthesize needs, finances, partners, and timelines. Crafting a short summary can be an enjoyable experience in logic and persuasion.

On the hope side, here’s a story. I write nonfiction and fiction. When I started writing fiction, friends asked me, half joking, if there was a big difference between writing fiction and writing grant summaries. The answer I gave is that, though one is fiction and one is fact, they both provide opportunities for the reader to imagine what could be.

Grant writing requires facts and imagination because you have to take the funder along with you to the solution. You have a challenge, you can envision the solution, and you invite the funder to participate in that solution. A friend of mine changed the way I viewed application narrative the day she gave me the book In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction (WW Norton, 2006). Edited by Lee Gutkind, this book of 25 creative nonfiction essays is a pleasure to read and opens up doors for writing engaging narrative and for talking about your project.

To me, the short summary and draft budget are the seeds from which an application and the project itself can grow and inspire participants, the community, and funders. It’s like taking a lake of information and pouring just the right of amount of it into a glass to offer an introduction to funders.

5. Looking into It Further

In thinking about the eventual expanded summary, remember that people generally like background and history when they’re delving into a subject. Explore and note historic facts that you can take to the final summary to provide more context for the funder.

By this point, you may be able to see that writing summaries requires constant reading and research. If you plan to continue on in the world of writing grants, be an avid reader and researcher. You probably already know a great deal about your idea’s subject. And you may presume that everyone else knows just as much as you do about the topic, but many people don’t. Read everything you can about it and find interesting points that will interest funders.

One of the tips I can give you on research is to look to Project Gutenberg and digitized newspaper portals for historic information. It does take time to do this kind of research but coming up with one new and interesting fact about how your idea fits into history can provide valuable context for the funder.

6. More Tips for Writing about Your Project

“Show, don’t tell” is a composition principle for writing in which the author engages the reader through action and details. This has different applications in fiction and nonfiction. In grant writing I can give you a real-life example, and I’ll use fossils.

A client has 80-million-year-old fossils. Fantastic, world-class discoveries. How is the client going to convey to funders that this material, with improved exhibits, has significant economic growth potential for the region and perhaps, also for other nearby communities?

This client could explain visitor success to date, but how could the board quantify what is known with relative certainty, with improvements, could happen in the future? As life and business strategist, Tony Robbins says, “If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results.” For approaching funders this could be translated into, “find someone who has achieved the results you want and show funders how they’ve succeeded.”

In the instance of fossils, showing funders how the project could succeed involved researching other examples of similar size communities who had significant fossil material which caused significant regional tourism and economic impact. Research studies, statistics, and outcomes from England’s Jurassic Coast, now a World Heritage Site, showed funders what was eventually possible. The grant succeeded.

Show and lead funders to possibilities.

Think big, look at the world around you and at what others have accomplished and listen to what others have to say. Because grant summaries embody a mix of writing approaches, I look to what writers in other genres have to say about their work and preparation.

Steve Slaunwhite is a well-known copywriter and author of a number of books on copywriting including Start & Run a Copywriting Business (Self-Counsel Press, 2005). Copywriting, or writing copy for advertising and products, is not grant summary writing, but there is a similarity in advancing an idea and concept. Often, granting and fundraising are called “advancement.”

Slaunwhite says about copywriting, “If you’re serious about building your copywriting muscle — and you must be to succeed in this business — then I suggest you become a student. All the successful copywriters I’ve spoken with are voracious readers and continually learn all they can. You should too.”

Be who you are in writing your summary. When talking about basic tools for writing, popular author, Stephen King in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Scribner, 2010) uses a toolbox metaphor to suggest putting your vocabulary on the top shelf of your toolbox, but cautions not to make any conscious effort to improve it. Sure, always improve your vocabulary but don’t overstretch to impress.

Why? Because your writing becomes stiff and self-conscious. I’ve seen this in applications in which people try too hard. Don’t assume you’re on one level and the funder is on another and therefore, you have to overcompensate.

The other caution I’m going to mention is spending too much time self-censoring in order to impress a funder. Be careful; you may lose what makes you unique.

A great example of what makes your organization unique comes from a board member who, known for her love of the wild, many years ago, volunteered to create a carved wooden sign for a black bear who had been spending too much time mingling with humans. The black bear had first come face-to-face with a conservation officer, then to the taxidermy shop and, last stop, to a museum gallery.

The sign this board member created reads, “The Museum Board Member Who Carved This Sign Thinks That the Conservation Officer Should Have Been Stuffed Rather Than the Bear.” The board, of varied opinions on the subject, had much discussion on whether this sign was going to go up. In the end, they decided that it was a reflection of diversity of opinion on the board and it stayed up with apologies to the conservation officer. The point is, what this board member had to say was a genuine reflection of one of the many faces of the organization and community.

One of the best examples of overstretching is ArtSpeak. If you’ve attended a gallery show and had trouble understanding descriptions in the labels or brochures, you’ve seen this special form of overreaching description.

Art, like life, is rich with complex layers. Understandably, people tend to write in complex layers about it. Nevertheless, if you’re trying to appeal to a general audience which may or may not have an art background, it helps to introduce concepts in a style people can understand.

Here’s an example of ArtSpeak I’ll use to describe a picture a friend of mine took of people gazing at a painting in a gallery while discussing where they were going to go for lunch.

“This multidimensional digital image dramatically navigates the stratum of gallery visitor complexity, the juxtapositions of the viewers’ experience and revelations of the transient interworking of public interpretation of art and iteration. This symbolic work brings forward discussion of multiple levels of society, our own existence and the paradox of artist, subject and basic human hunger.”

You get my drift. Overreaching leads to complicated and unnecessary wordiness. Keep it smart, simple, and respectful.

7. Trying Different Angles

If you’re working for a nonprofit, you probably know that, just from the title itself, people can have a misconception that nonprofits do not carry out business or make money. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I often work with nonprofits which operate on a business model and earn revenues in gift shops, programs, special projects, and more. These funds, sometimes 50 percent of overall revenues or more, are critical to keeping the doors open. Because of this, I also look to business books and other genres for advice and wisdom.

In thinking about approaching funders, it helps to see what the “for-profit” sector considers for their customers, or in a nonprofit’s case, the word “customers” could be replaced with “funders.” You’re not selling them an item, but you’re providing them with an opportunity. The same concepts in sales apply. Funders want quality, to know you can get the job done, and that you will be able to see the project through.

In Avoid Small-Business Hell, (Self-Counsel Press, 2015) author Jack Borden gives savvy advice about customers which you can also apply to funders. Here’s his take on a customer’s objectives:

• You must learn from your customer’s business experience what your customer’s buying objectives are for your particular business industry.

• Communicate with your customers in order to determine what their objectives are.

• If you don’t know what their objectives are you won’t be able to meet their objectives; once those are in place, check to see if you have in place what they need.

• Build a culture of commitment to meeting your customer’s objectives, and the culture of commitment must be prevalent from the top to the bottom of the organization.

8. Thinking Ahead about Graphics and Visuals

I could write long into the night about a subject, hoping that word count might be a tipping point for a funder, but it wouldn’t work. Images, more than anything you provide, give funders clear insight into your request because a picture really could be worth a 1,000 words, or in the case of a funder, many thousands of dollars.

When I started putting images, graphics, and simple charts into applications, funders said a sincere thank you and the success rate went up. I’d provided them with a better understanding of the project. Just because I could see the entire project in my mind didn’t mean that everyone else could.

Work with a graphic artist if you can. If you can’t afford it, consider this: I use Flickr.com with a restricted password and insert links into the text for specific images I want a funder to see.

This gives funders a chance to look at the project in more detail at their leisure. Dropbox.com and a number of other sites are also available for sharing photos or videos of your project.

I was talking to a landscape architect recently about a plan for an extension on a building and improvement of the grounds around it. We were standing in a wide back alley between two historic buildings.

I’m sure anyone viewing us waving our arms around and pointing to invisible enhancements and additions would have wondered what we were doing. We were talking about and pointing to things that we could see in our minds. Granted, they were vague concepts that changed as we both discussed them over the conversation; yes, we could both see them.

Afterwards, I told him I appreciated the fact that he had the capability to take our conversation and draw out a concept. We talked about how we both had experienced situations in which we had assumed that everyone has the ability to envision physical changes. For me, it was a major aha moment when I realized that some people just couldn’t envision what might be in my thought bubble no matter how much I tried to explain it.

This is no reflection on folks who don’t envision spaces, after all, they’re probably the people who excelled in algebra while I sat at the back of the class reading books. We just see and understand things in a different way. Just because I have an idea that I can see in my mind, doesn’t mean that I should assume that other people can see it. It’s my job to help those people see what could be.

9. Understand the Time Factor on Grants

A great comparison for understanding the time factor, or, lack of time for funders when reviewing grants, is to think of exhibit storylines in museums. Let’s say you’ve decided to take your family to see a traveling exhibit on dinosaurs at a large museum. Behind the scenes, paleontologists, geologists, botanists, researchers, technicians, and writers have researched for years and compiled reams of publications and research papers about these animals.

But when you walk through that exhibit you’ll probably give 30 seconds of your time to reading a label about a T-Rex. There are people behind you wanting to get through the crowded gallery; or maybe you need to go outside, put more change into the parking meter and rush back in while your family waits. Exhibit designers and storyline writers know people are rushed for time in galleries because they have tracked our reading times.

The average time the public spends on a label is around 30 seconds. The job of the exhibit team is to synthesize the volumes of behind-the-scenes information and transform that into visually pleasing, compact, easy-to-read messages that you can take away with you and think about.

That’s what a funder needs, too.

Another aspect of visuals is that the graphic designers working on the labels format them to provide you with a good amount of white space between the text lines so that they are easy to read. Facts stand out. It’s more visually pleasing for the reader. It’s no different for funders reading an application: Give them space!

Clean format is a courtesy for you and the funder. It’s me, thinking more about the funder, than about how my delicious narrative will impress them. And, it provides an opportunity for the funder to read and understand a many-sided project presented in an enjoyable format.

9.1 Concept drawing

If you have a tight budget and are being strategic about the wisest use of your funds, your best investment is a concept drawing from an architect or landscape architect.

This investment gives you the talents of a professional who brings years of experience in looking at what works and what doesn’t work. You thought you had a good idea; wait until you see what one of these professionals can do by bringing in new ideas to the project you may not have considered such as layers of accessibility, materials, placement, aesthetics, and public enjoyment factors.

It brings the project to life and puts life into it.

The concept drawing is your new baby, which you can take on road trips to council and community meetings and show off. Or, you can host parties and open houses with it as the center of attention to get people thinking about how, as it grows, it has the potential to improve business or life or the next generation.

When it comes time to send off your application there is no more critical document than a concept. If you can, spend the money.

If you don’t know a professional in your area, check with the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects, American Society of Landscape Architects, Canadian Architects Association, or the American Institute of Architects.

10. Leave the Technicalities to the Experts

There are many interpretations of the saying, “Don’t try to be all things to all people.” To me, it means leave the technicalities to the experts.

Applying this concept when writing proposals, especially when you may have a small staff, relieves you of the stress of thinking that you have to create narrative for a subject in which you may have limited knowledge or expertise. Finding and contracting the right expertise will give you and the funder a proposal that is genuine, well researched, and feasible.

For instance, you may be a general proposal writer for a community that does business in sectors such as forestry, fisheries, mining, etc. You don’t have to try to become an overnight expert in these fields. Your job is to amalgamate community plans and technical reports and to find the appropriate planners and experts to help you apply this information to narratives, budgets, and timelines.

11. Examples of What Works and What Doesn’t Work So Well

The application is the culmination of the organization, research, and planning you’ve put into moving your project forward to this point. You might, at this point, have much more information than you, or the funder might be able to wrap your head around.

So how to best think about shaping your application both in the summary and the budget?

The following two examples, based loosely on a combination of applications and funder’s responses I’ve seen, have a clear message that funders respond to the “less is more” axiom when reviewing applications.

Here’s an example of an application that succeeded because it reflected immediate and honest need, community support, and the ability to carry out the project.

During one of the worst storms in the Pacific Northwest in the last 20 years, a small community suffered catastrophic damage to its historic dock. Twelve-foot waves in this powerful southeaster destroyed the ramp connecting the road to the dock and twisted support beams under the dock.

Without the dock, the community would lose its major point of commerce and communication, as the dock is a critical spot for recreational boaters and fishers and commercial fisheries.

The community needed $90,000 to repair the dock. They asked a federal community-granting agency for $40,000 of that total. They outlined five partners in the grant that would bring time, cash, and equipment to the project.

This application succeeded because:

1. The request narrative was short and to the point. It identified the need and explained the critical role the dock played in the community. It outlined how the community rallied to provide cash and tangible in-kind support. The wharf manager wrote it. It was genuine and authentic. The summary was clear, gave context, and stated the facts. It also provided a clear view of what the community would lose if they could not repair the dock.

2. The budget was clear. It included cash from the proponent and estimates from the partners that would provide in-kind services with hours of use of heavy equipment. Within a short period of time and with few questions, the grant committee approved the full amount. The community repaired the dock by early summer for boating and tourist season.

3. The aha moment for me on this beautiful application was that the community created it under duress. The need was clear and there was little time to overthink and overwrite the narrative.

An example of a situation in which funders wanted to assist but felt that the disorganization of the application itself might reflect on the applicant’s ability to carry out the project: A community organization wanted to start a project which would spruce up its downtown core which was suffering from an economic downturn.

The project would see the creation of small green spaces, parklets, in the downtown core with plants suitable to the desert region and it was going to cost $320,000. The organization would contribute $10,000 in cash, had a request in to another major funder, and had 20 partners who would contribute to the project through in-kind services.

The request narrative was 15 pages long and took the two-person staff working on it countless hours — in fact, weeks — to complete. Fifty percent of the narrative was cut-and-paste content from previous press releases and applications. The narrative focused mainly on the organization itself rather than on how the project would be completed and sustained. The budget was heavily loaded with possible in-kinds and a small amount of cash from the organization itself.

The funders, some of them residents in the community, saw the merit in the project and wanted to fund it. But, they needed clarity, shorter narrative, and more solid contributions in the budget.

The funders asked for a revision. The staff responded by adding more content and additional partners, costing them even more time. The funders would like to have seen the project go through but they were concerned that the lack of organization in the application might reflect how the organization would carry out the project. Reluctantly, they turned it down.