Your Grant Authority

I love to read and right now I seem to be in a phase of books that depict life in the South. At the moment I’m reading “Same Sweet Girls” by Cassandra King (who also happens to be married to Pat Conroy – one of my all-time favorite authors) and I’ve just purchased “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett.

Being born and raised in the South, I know that these books can sometimes describe an idealized version of this particular region but I can’t resist the stories that they tell. It’s also a welcome break from reviewing grant applications that I’m sometimes asked to rewrite. While I understand that the organization’s facts and figures are essential to a winning grant proposal, I would love to see some more of the stories behind those facts and figures.

I want to see the stories of real people behind the technical application, the statistics and the project budget and I think that grant reviewers do as well. There’s a lot of talk about “nonprofit storytelling” these days and I’m glad that it’s getting the attention it deserves. While writing grant applications can be all about following the guidelines to a tee, don’t forget to humanize those you’re trying to help. Always ask permission, of course, before you feature an actual client by name but do consider doing so. I understand that writing applications is a lot different than telling a fictional tale but I can’t help but feel that there can be a happy medium between the two.