Your Grant Authority

Rejection stinks no matter the shape or form it comes in. If you’ve been grant writing for any length of time you have undoubtedly experienced the sting of rejection of the grant application you slavishly devoted hours, days and even weeks of your precious time. However, it doesn’t have to be a lost cause and can even be the stepping stone for an award in the next cycle. How? Let me challenge you to heed my advice and do something radical to those folks who obviously weren’t in their right state of mind when they declined to fund your most awesome request: call them.

Pretty early in my grant writing career, I submitted a federal grant application that was “approved” but not funded. Huh? I was intrigued but I also knew that meant no money was coming our way and I decided to find out why. I called the number listed (keep in mind, this was a federal representative I was trying to reach…lots of voice mails left) and when I finally spoke with someone they were actually very helpful and answered my questions about WHY the application wasn’t funded. I also contacted the Freedom of Information office and requested copies of the applications that were funded for that program so I could get some idea of what I might be doing wrong. For those of you who have been grant writing for a while, I’m sure you know this trick but for you all who are new to this game, this is something you need to try! The next grant cycle, with new information gleaned from just a little digging, our organization received $600,000 upon submission of our new request. Persistence paid off for me and it will for you too. Good luck!