Storytelling is an effective way to persuade a funder to award your organization a grant. It communicates a need, offers a solution, and presents matt wieters jersey an opportunity for someone to help by making a financial contribution, according to Cheryl Clarke, author of "Storytelling for Grantseekers."
As a grant writer you've got a great story to tell: How your organization helps the homeless. How your organization addresses inequity in your city's elementary schools. How your organization helps wounded veterans with combat stress and traumatic brain injury.
You've got data to support why your programs are needed. You've got anecdotes about clients you've helped. You've got outputs and outcomes to demonstrate your programs' effectiveness.
What you probably don't have is space.
The downside of having a great
Reporters call this "writing tight." It means conveying as much information as possible in as few words as possible. It sounds easy, but if you've spent years writing research papers, for example, it can be quite a change from the way you've been used to writing.
The advantage to writing tight is the grant reviewer can still quickly take away important information about why your approach is the best compared to 20, 50 or 100 others. Here's how it's done.
1.? Find Your Focus
Before you write a single word, can you sum up your ask in a single paragraph? If you're applying for general operating funds, this may mean summing up your organization's mission in a sentence or two.? If you're applying for program funding, what's the program's goal? Decide what your main point is, then stick to it. Anything that doesn't relate should be left out.
2.? Keep Paragraphs Short
Look at the news section of today's paper. ?Do you see any long, expository paragraphs? Nope. Chances are you see something like this:
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