Grant Writing – Advice and Tips

By Red Tape Busters

Grant Writing – Advice and Tips

Grant Writing – Advice and Tips

Grant writing can be challenging even for the experienced grant writer.

Every year thousands of grant opportunities open and close, resulting in millions and probably billions of dollars becoming available to non profit organisations and businesses across Australia.

Competition for available grant money is immense and only the best submissions are successful in winning funding.

There are many hints and tricks that can help give you an improved chance of success.

Grant Writing – Advice and Tips

Here Are Just a few:-

(1) Get your Local Politicians Onside:-

This is a forgotten strategy that most non profit organisations or businesses would rarely consider.

But your local Councillor and local state and federal members of parliament move in powerful circles and a word of support to the right person could give your project an inside edge.

Grant Writing – Advice and Tips

I always suggest that my clients engage with their local politicians every say three months to update them on what the organisation/business is up to, how you are travelling and what your achievements are.

Keeping them informed can help you in many different ways but it certainly wont go against you when it comes to funding.

Remember politicians love to get media attention and if your project is in their electorate or their Council area and it wins funding then there is the prospect of media coverage and the local politician will jump at the chance to be involved.

Grant Writing – Advice and Tips

Make them work for you and seek their support and actually ask them if they can actively support your organisation/business by having a word with key players.

Also get them to agree to be a referee for your organisation and project. Any support they can give you is better than none at all.

(2) Think laterally about your project or business concept:-

If your project or business concept is the same as the organisation or business down the road – the chances of you being successful in winning funding obviously diminishes.

Grant Writing – Advice and Tips

You need to think laterally and try and identify parts of your project or concept that are different, ground breaking or unique; try and incorporate ideas that target what I call marginalised stakeholders; or incorporate aspects to your project or business concept that might bring funding from alternate funding streams.

For instance if your project can focus on some of the following stakeholders or initiatives you might be able to access a variety of different funding streams:-

Grant Writing – Advice and Tips

arts/culture, sport/recreation, women, children, youth, health/wellbeing, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, multicultural, disadvantaged, disabilities, remote, rural, isolated, and homelessness.

These are some of the main foci of Government agencies and therefore there is funding generally available to support these initiatives.

(3) Proper planning prevents poor results:-

Most organisations fail to plan which essentially means they could be planning to fail.

Grant Writing – Advice and Tips

The more ground work you can do in the planning stage to develop organisational/business goals and objectives the better chance you will be seen as a professional organisation or business worth funding.

We always encourage our clients to have a Strategic/Business Plan in place which is supported by a yearly Operational Plan and Project Plans for significant projects.

As mentioned above your projects or business concepts need to be well thought out, innovative and different to the run of the mill humdrum that organisations and businesses generally offer.

Grant Writing – Advice and Tips

These are just a few tricks that might help those chasing funding. Grant writing is not rocket science but it is also not easy. Grant writers who implement strategies that improve the chances of success while reducing the prospects of failure are the grant writers that are worth their money and worth their weight in gold. At Red Tape Busters we have a team of those highly skilled grant writers!

Grant Writing – Advice and Tips

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!

Grant Writing – Advice and Tips

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Lobbying Tender Writing Grant Writing Resumes/Job Applications

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