I had never really thought about the process of making a grant, nor did it really dawn on me that so many people are involved and that there were different kinds of grants. You could potentially risk your entire grant by asking for more than what’s needed (as deemed by the one giving the grant). You can put all this time and effort into a grant you truly believe is worth every penny for all the right reasons, but if the people you’ve applied to don’t agree, your entire organization could be no more. You’re essentially at the mercy of those with the money, no matter how you feel about your grant. It must be hard to determine how much financial assistance you need, who you’re going to submit the proposal to, and how you’re going to write it. When you write a grant, you have to find the perfect balance between being compelling with your cause and backing it up with facts and data. You have to find the most professional way to say “please give us money, I promise you it’ll be worth it” within a specified word count. With the added challenge of word counts, every sentence is precious and must be absolutely necessary information for the people reviewing your grant to know and read. Although, researching funders is also a crucial part. Finding a corporation or individual that has values that seem to align with your nonprofit organization’s is the third step in the process, and an extremely important one. Though, it doesn’t necessarily mean that if the funder you’re applying to believes in your cause that they’ll automatically be more inclined to approve your grant. There’s a lot you have to put on the line to write a grant: time, people, and possibly the entire organization. I would imagine now with the internet, the grant writing process has gotten a lot easier. It’s easy to investigate people and organizations online in order to determine who you want to submit your grant application to. Their records and annual reports (I think) have to be publicly available, so you don’t have to go through any awkward process of requesting documents, as then you would establish yourself as an applicant. The funder could then further investigate your organization, and may develop a subconscious bias which could make or break your grant application when it comes time to submit it to them.
