I want to stay in touch with all of you and a newsletter is the best way to do that. This is an experiment for now. I hope the information below is helpful. Feel free to unsubscribe; I won’t be offended.
The trick to grant writing…
…is to know you are in a sales process. There are many parallels: a sales funnel, customer discovery, social proof… And a good sales process needs marketing support. Grantors are human and, even if they try to make unbiased decisions, they will buy from what they know. Because people buy from who they trust.
Does being known help fundraising? I took a look at a few Social Enterprises, roughly ordered by increasing funding from left to right. There seems to be a pattern.
PR above is just one example. I’m writing a series of articles this year called “12 months to better fund raising” where each month I’ll take a look at a different part of fundraising that few people talk about.
In upcoming months the posts will include: the formula to evaluate whether a grant opportunity provides enough ROI, how to beef up your board of advisors (is there a vegetarian version of this phrase?) and many others.
Personal Update
My girlfriend and I spent Christmas and new years volunteering on sheep farms in Chile. Farming has so many parallels to business life. When I had free time I’d watch the sheep and make up aphorisms:
“As long as the horse fly is making noise there is no problem.” (I think we all know a few people like this:-)
“The art of sheep herding is to do very little; stay too close and they'll scare.”
Do you want candid advice on your grant proposal? Send it to the Unfunded List. You can also sign up to evaluate someone else’s proposal. That way you can be exposed to how other people write proposals.
This is a grand opportunity to here from a like minded person. Truly your are an inspiration. The information is Doo informative and an eye opener. Thanks a lot. I will always keep in touch with you
This is a grand opportunity to here from a like minded person. Truly your are an inspiration. The information is Doo informative and an eye opener. Thanks a lot. I will always keep in touch with you