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Welcome to Grant-a-lot! Where all proposals live happily ever after!

Your Fairy Godmother has heard your pleas and has agreed to confer your fondest wish. You can create a world in which all of your grant writing needs are met. Just so she gets it right, your Fairy Godmother wants you to write down all of the people in your kingdom you need to participate in the grant writing process and in what capacity.

Grant Planning Committee

What does the Committee do? How often does it meet?

Who is on your team? Department Role Who?

Senior Management

Review and approve proposals, budgets, and attachments

Administration Help obtain MOUs and letters of support; collect attachments; secure internal and external signatures; and assist with coordination, formatting, copying, and/or submittal of application

Program Provide all program information, including description of activities, outputs, outcomes, and evaluation methods

Finance Prepare and complete budget forms and budget narratives or confirm that existing budgets are current

1/2 Loretta Holland, CFRE www.prospectconsulting.net [email protected] http://meankitty.wordpress.com

List two obstacles you might encounter: 1. 2.


List two people who will champion your cause and help you get your wish!

1.

2.

El Buen Samaritano Homeland Security Work Plan

DUE April 30, 11pm EST! MUST Use Grants.gov

(Goal to submit on April 28)

Task Person(s) Responsible Due Date Complete Face Page SF‐424 (online form) LH 4/12 Complete Budget Summary Form‐424A SF (online form)

SF 4/26

Complete Budget Narrative/Justification (Excel File) SF with MI 4/19 Complete Certifications/Assurances (online form)

SF‐424B‐Assurances Non‐Construction Programs Certification Regarding Lobbying Certification Regarding Debarment, Suspension, and other Responsibility Matters Certification Regarding Drug‐Free Workplace

LH 4/26

Complete Program Abstract/Summary LH 4/27 Complete Project Narrative

Program Design and Outcomes LH with MI First Draft to EBS 4/15 Draft back to LH 4/20

Second Draft to EBS 4/23 Draft back to LH 4/26

Final draft finished 4/27 Organizational Capacity and Project Management LH with MR First Draft to EBS 4/12

Draft back to LH 4/15 Second Draft to EBS 4/19

Demonstrated Experience and Past Performance LH with MI First Draft to EBS 4/14 Draft back to LH 4/19

Second Draft to EBS 4/23 Project Plan and Budget LH with MI and SF First Draft to EBS 4/14

Draft back to LH 4/19 Second Draft to EBS 4/23

ATTACHMENTS NEEDED USCUS conformation of receipt f mandatory LOI MR 4/27 501c3 Letter MR 4/27 Declaration of Funding Intent LH 4/27 Negotiated Fringe Benefit Agreement (if applicable)

SF 4/27

Indirect Cost Agreement (if applicable) SF 4/27 Resumes of key personnel (one page each) MR 4/23 Job description of vacant key positions (one page each)

MR 4/23

MOU with partnering organizations MR 4/23 Project plan phases graphic representation LH 4/23 Lost of other federal grant programs from which EBS receives funding or has applied for funds

MR 4/23

Annual operating budget MR 4/23

El Buen Samaritano: HS Plan Page 1/1


at

Prioritize Your Grant Opportunities! A little work up front can increase your chances of securing a grant. By knowing what makes a good match, you can pursue greopportunities, further explore potentially good prospects and confidently pass on funders that are not right for your organization. A two‐tiered approach helps you quickly determine what goes forward and what does not.

Your Five‐Point Check List for New Opportunities (Tier One) When you find a potential grant opportunity, read the guidelines and determine the following:

• Areas of interest – Does the funder support the types of services you offer? • Geographic limitation – Are you located in the area where the funder provides grants? • “Unsolicited” proposals – Does the funder only support pre‐selected organizations? • Range of grants made – Does the funder make grants big enough to be meaningful to your project?

Does the funder make grants that are too big for your project? • Who they funded before and how much – Check the funder’s website or Form 990

(www.guidestar.com) to see if they fund what you do and at what level. Criteria for Your Grants Team to Consider (Tier Two) Grant opportunities should be vetted by your Grants Team for issues related to organizational direction, finances, and logistics, such as:

• Project’s relevance to mission – Does the opportunity directly address your mission? Are you turning yourself into a pretzel to make it work?

• Submission addresses a gap in existing services/funding – Grant writing efforts should focus first on meeting the financial goals/obligations for existing, budgeted expenses. Will this grant help the organization meet its budget?

• Provides an opportunity for new, needed programs – Are there services that you wish you could offer to augment or enhance existing programs? Are you willing to adjust your budget to pursue these funds?

• Intensity of financial and programmatic reporting – How rigorous are the reporting requirements and when are they due (monthly, quarterly)? Are the requirements proportionate to the amount of funding you would receive?

• Flexibility in how grant may be spent (how restricted) – Will you be struggling to spend the money? Can you capture administrative/indirect costs?

• Size and duration of grant – Is the award large enough to be meaningful and worth the time put into administering the grant? Is there an opportunity for a multi‐year grant or continued funding?

• Timing of deadlines – Does the deadline fall during times of high activity? Are there other grant submission or reporting deadlines? Is your big event that week? Will key staff be on vacation?

http://www.guidestar.com/

Types of Writing: Finding Your Focus

Knowing about the different types of writing and choosing the correct mode keeps you focused on your writing goal and aware of the tone you should take. This will help you think about your audience, make word choices, decide what information to include (and not include), and know whether the voice you use is formal or casual.

When the primary focus is on

and the purpose (writing goal) is to

you are engaging in which has which you can see in

The writer Express yourself and communicate your thoughts, feelings, and opinions

Creative writing A personal feel, personal thoughts and opinions and relates personal experiences

Diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, and fiction

The reader Persuade or convince the reader of something, to change or lead the reader’s opinion, elicit emotion from the reader

Persuasive writing A stance, opinion or position and may include an attempt to elicit an emotional response

Debates, newspaper editorials, sermons, advertising or marketing materials, direct mail solicitation letters

Answering a question (real or implied)

Explain how something works, relay information, provide a direct answer to a specific question, educate someone on an issue

Expository writing Logical supporting facts, details, explanations, examples, strong organization, and logical order

Grant proposals, directions, how-to manuals, textbooks, newsletters

The message itself Create a text that can be appreciated in its own right

Descriptive writing An element of writing for the sake of writing, the feel of being entertained

Movies, jokes, songs

Adapted from A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers, Third Edition, Erika Lindeman The writing goal of a grant proposal is to GET THE MONEY! Which of these strategies can help you do this?

1. Make your reviewers feel sorry for kids by telling a really sad story about one of them.

2. Answer all the questions in the RFP thoroughly so that you receive a high score from your reviewers.

3. Include a lot of personal opinions about your services and try to persuade your reviewers to agree.

4. Present a logical explanation of your services, including a detailed description of how you deliver services, who receives

them, and what your objectives are.


BEWARE! Three Common Writing Traps Avoiding these common writing traps can produce easy to understand narrative that requires less effort from your reader. Clean narrative keeps readers engaged and helps them quickly find the information they need to score your proposal. Removing these writing traps from your narrative can be a space (and life!) saver when you are facing page, word, or character limits. In avoiding writing traps, a thesaurus can be a writer’s best friend.

Active v. passive voice “Active voice” is when the subject is doing the action described by the verb. In “passive voice,” the subject is

having something done to it. Passive voice can sound vague, buries the subject, and softens the action. Active voice has a snappier, more forward sound. The word “by” and the presence of “be” verbs (is, are, being, was, will be) often signal passive voice. Space

Saver!

Passive: Testing is provided by qualified, licensed staff. (7 words, 49 characters) Active: Qualified, licensed staff provide testing. (5 words, 42 characters)

Passive: Two hundred clients were recruited by agency outreach staff in 2009. (11 words, 68 characters) Active: Agency outreach staff recruited 200 clients in 2009. (8 words, 52 characters)

Fluffy phrases Writing formally simply means communicating in a professional manner with someone we don’t know well personally. Writers often fall into the trap of using extra words and stuffy writing to sound formal and smart. Fluffy phrases add unnecessary bulk to your writing—without adding enhanced meaning. Winnowing this excess can make narrative nimbler and ultimately more interesting. Look for “be” verbs; words like “of,” “with,” and “who;” and words ending in “-ing” or “-ed.”

Space Saver!

Fluffy Phrase A Better Choice

have a tendency to tend tois indicative of shows, illustratesare in need of needmake contact with contactgives rise to results in (can often be cut altogether)has the effect of making, gives rise to makes, causes, rendersin order to tothe patients who are located in patients inadditionally, also, in addition to, currently (can often be cut altogether)There are some patients who are Some patientsIn regards to, concerning, with respect to about, on, for (can often be cut altogether)the recruiting of clients client recruitment

Hyperbole and overstatement

Zeal for our work can propel us to make broad overstatements. Hyperbole is a sure sign that you have left the world of expository writing, have ventured into marketing language, and wish to elicit an emotional response. The claim is something you cannot prove to be true or would be hard-pressed to prove if asked for supporting data. Danger words!

Only Always Never

Unique Completely unique Most

Sole In the entire service area Any adjective ending in “est”

Statement Problem

Without the help of the AIDS Foundation of Webb County, none of these individuals will have the medical are they need.

This is rather presumptive and not able to be proved.

The Brazos County Health Center helps the poorest, sickest people in the County.

Can only be true if everyone in the County has a medical exam and is screened for income.


You’re the Editor! The narrative below needs your help! Read each sentence and circle the words that indicate the writer has fallen into a trap. Rewrite each sentence so that it is active, clear, and reasonable. Example #1: Clients who are in need of services are provided with these services by a multidisciplinary team. Correction: Clients receive services from a multidisciplinary team. Correction: A multidisciplinary protection team provides services to clients. Example #2: The clients who are located in the rural counties frequently have a tendency to have issues in regards to transportation. Correction: Clients in rural counties often have transportation issues.

It’s Your Turn!

1. In order to medical meet the needs of clients who are residing in rural areas, which gives rise to

transportation problems, case managers make contact with the local CARTS program. ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________

2. Testing for HIV/STDs is offered by medical staff at no cost to clients who are the poorest people in the county and would never know their status without this service.

________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________

3. The Tarrant County Health Center provides a service that is completely unique in the county, with no other resource for free, rapid HIV testing in the entire service area.

________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________


Writing SMART:


for funding!

Creating Objectives That Tell Your Story

A SMART objective can be an output or an outcome and can be used to evaluate process or performance. Writing SMART requires that your program and its staff commit to tracking, evaluating, and achieving results—which may mean that you have to change the way you collect information or store data. Conversely, writing SMART willalways let you know if your program is effective and meeting the

needs of your clients—and will make you very competitive

Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timely

Don’t dance around your objective. Being vague doesn’t help anyone, and in fact could leave you with nothing to measure or—worse yet—poor results for clients. A vague objective could also be misinterpreted by the funder, who could hold you to a much stricter standard! Being specific means stating your intention clearly. Deciding to “increase the number of clients who have better health outcomes” seems like a good idea, but there is no rate, number, percentage, or level of frequency linked to it. Ask yourself: Who or what is going to change or benefit? How many will experience benefit or change? How much change is expected? In what geographic area? Over what period of time?

Your objective should show a positive client-centered change of some type (outcome) or indicate a quantity of some type (output) and must be able to be measured. This means you need a benchmark or a starting place from which to begin measuring. You can’t determine that the number of children reunited with their families has increased if you don’t know many you had to begin with. You have to be able to track data to measure success. If you decide that more clients will be in medical care and they will achieve better health, you have to have prior proof (track) of how many were in care to begin with and the current state of their health. If you are not the entity that tracks this data, and thus do not have immediate and legal access to it, you’d better get permission and cooperation to access it.

Objectives should always represent a challenge to be met by your staff and your clients. Remember that you are trying to make a change for the better—or you wouldn’t be in business! If making this change was easy, your clients could probably achieve it on their own. Conversely, you don’t want to set yourself up to fall short. When proposing objectives, the funder assumes that you know what is possible and what is not. The key is to challenge, but not panic, your staff. If you decide to increase the number of clients in care, what is reasonable to expect? If you do nothing different with your program, why would this condition improve? What is the reason you think you can expect and attain this change?

Is the objective realistic and are you really in control of the result? Part of being realistic is defining your reach. Deciding to “increase the number of HIV+ people adhering to a treatment plan” in your county is a pretty tall order. Even if that happens, chances are, you are not the only one taking credit for this change!

In fact, there is no reason you can make this claim. Even if you were the only HIV provider in your entire service area, there are too many other factors at play.

What you can reasonably claim is that you are affecting this outcome for the individuals you see, and probably only if other conditions are met. Someone who is in case management and whose life is stable is more likely to adhere to a treatment plan than someone who is not and has unmet basic needs.

Change takes time. You have to give yourself a reasonable amount of time to achieve your results. Usually, this is measured in 12-month increments unless otherwise specified by the funder or defined by the structure of the program. Being clear about how long it will reasonably take for this change to occur or for you to serve a certain number of clients gives your staff something toward which they can work. You can know when you are on target and when you might need to step up your outreach efforts. You also remove unrealistic expectations for immediate change.

Kinds of Objectives:


Outputs and Outcomes,

An objective is a rather generic term for a kind of result. Funders expect you to evaluate not just how much you did, but what happened to your clients. Outputs: An output is something that can be counted, like the number of clients you serve, the number of classes you hold, or the number of people you have enrolled in a program. Outputs are expressed as a total number of people or events and are measured by attendance, enrollment, or occurrence. The primary question that is asked is: How many or how often? Outcomes: An outcome is something that happened to your client as a result of receiving services, attending the classes, or being enrolled in the program. Outcomes are expressed as a change in a client’s condition, behavior, knowledge, attitude, or beliefs. Outcomes are measured by pre- and post-tests, assessments, client self-report, and attainment of client goals. The primary question that is asked is: What has changed for the client?

A Look at SMART Objectives: Writing Exercise

As a group, read and correct (or approve) the following sample SMART objectives. Identify whether each is an outcome, output, process measure, or performance measure. Examples: 1. The Johnson County Health Center will increase the total number of clients served. By the end of the first 12-month grant period, the Johnson County Health Center will increase the total number of clients served annually by 30 percent, from 300 to 390. 2. During the 12-month grant period, clients enrolled in the Mpowerment Program will engage in safer sex practices. During the 12-month grant period, 80% of clients completing the intervention will increase the score on their post-test evaluation by 20%.

Your Turn!

1. The Williamson County Health Center will increase the number of people in the county accessing HIV/STD testing services.

2. During the 12-month grant period, the Valley Clinic will decrease the number of people sharing needles in Webb County by 20%.



3. During the 12-month grant period, the agency’s Know Your Status Testing Project will ensure that people in the identified high-risk zip code of 90210 will be tested for HIV and STDs.

BONUS EXERCISE! Write a SMART objective specific to your program:

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