Grant writing – do you need qualifications to be a great grant writer

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By Red Tape Busters

Grant Writing – Do you need qualifications to be a great grant

writer?

Grant Writing – Do you need qualifications to be a great grant writer?

Many people think you need to be a qualified writer or have some formal

qualifications to be a great grant writer. It is a common misnomer that many in the

non profit world and especially micro non profits believe that they can’t compete

with grant writers from larger organisations because the grant writers are more

skilled, more experienced or have tertiary qualifications which will give them the

edge in the grant writing process. I will give you a real life example of how this

misnomer was reinforced to me as a total falsehood.

This actually happened when I first started as a grant writer 16 years ago and it

is something I am very proud of but also clearly proved to me that you don’t need a

qualification to be a great grant writer.


I was contracted as a grant writer to a medium sized non profit organisation in

the disability sector when I first started this business 16 years ago. The State

Government had released funding for the purpose of building accommodation

specifically for those in the community with a disability.

The funding was open to non profit organisations and property developers and

really was encouraging innovative proposals to address the issue of disabled

homelessness. I was very concerned when approaching this task that other bigger

organisations and especially the property developers would be able to hire more

skilled, more experienced, better qualified grant writers than me.


Remember this was in my very first year of business specialising in the grant

writing world. I was convinced that our competitors would craft a better story and

have a glossier production that what we would offer.

After my initial thoughts I decided to develop a strategy for our project that

would set us aside from the opposition. In part my strategy encompassed an

accommodation project that incorporated accommodation that met the needs of

those with different physical disabilities but also addressed the differing

accommodation needs of those with a mental illness.


I felt that our competitors might just focus their project on homeless people in

the community with a physical disability. To me the funding was available for the

building of purpose built accommodation for homeless people with a disability –

the specification documents were not specific if this meant only those with a

physical disability so to me we needed to build a project which addressed the

needs of all people with a disability – physical and mental.

This in fact complicated our project significantly. To build our case I needed to

undertake extensive research to prove that there was a real lack of purpose built

accommodation in our catchment area for people with a physical disability OR

mental illness or suffering from both.


I then had to detail how our accommodation would meet the divergent needs

of people with different physical disabilities and different mental illnesses. Again

I was able to undertake research to demonstrate different initiatives we would

incorporate into our accommodation units which would address these vastly

different needs.

This proved a very challenging and complex submission and while the

organisation I was working for was small in comparison to some of the bigger

players we produced a high quality document which set ourselves apart from the

competition.


Suffice to say my strategy and the quality of my proposal ensured my client won

funding in the amount of $4.9 million. Not a bad result at all! This proved to me

that you don’t need a degree – I have no degree – you don’t need to be massively

experienced – you need to write with passion and clearly demonstrate your project

and your organisation stands out from the rest.

We achieved that by adopting a completely different and innovative approach.

Grant writing really is about being creative and proving how your project will

deliver above and beyond the outcomes the funding program is aiming to realize.


We are specialists in providing the following services:-

Lobbying

Tender Writing

Grant Writing

Resumes/Job Applications

Organisational/Business Development.


Contact us at Red Tape Busters – http://www.redtapebusters.com/ should you require more

information about this article or if you require specialist grant, tender or job application writing experience. We can

assist you to achieve your goals and objectives!

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