Puget Sound Grantwriters
October 29, 2004
Prepared Remarks by Greg Shaw, former director, Pacific Northwest
Thank you for inviting me to speak.
I have three goals for today:
- I hope to encourage you in your work.
- I want to share with you some thoughts on what our foundation believes to be essential elements in the grants we review.
- Finally, I will spend a few moments at the end updating your knowledge of our foundation.
I also will be happy to take your questions.
If you’ll indulge me for a few minutes I want to concentrate first on the first goal – providing a little encouragement.
I thought about this speech during my vacation this summer, and could not help but concentrate on the word ‘writer’ as opposed to the word ‘grant.’ Imagine that: a funder who would prefer to focus on writing rather than grants.
But it’s true. Think about it. You are all grantwriters. You are not grants. You are writers. Grants are the reward of doing what you do so well. One is a means and the other is an end.
Well, sort of.
Very often the reward of a grant is more writing – writing of progress reports and writing of new grants to complete a challenge grant or a matching grant. Sound familiar? It can become circular. Grantwriters are rewarded with grants, which in turn rewards you with the ability to write some more.
When people ask you what you do, I wonder what you tell them? Perhaps you say that you work for a nonprofit. Or you may say that you are in development or marketing or fundraising. But for purposes of argument today, I am going to think of you as writers. What you write is every bit as important as the author working on the Great American Novel, a journalist chronicling our times, the copy writer in advertising that will change our way of thinking about a product or a candidate. You are like the speechwriter who gives voice to an elected leader. The legal writer who compiles an argument for a client. You are writers; writers of important topics; writers of ideas, concepts.
For many centuries now, writers have changed our world, our community and our conditions. To prepare for this talk today, I read about some important grantwriters. Andrew Young, for example, wrote a grant proposal as a young man that enabled him to be with Martin Luther King when King wrote his famous letter from the Birmingham Jail. Andrew Young went on to become our nation’s Ambassador to the United Nations and the Mayor of Atlanta. In an essay, Young recounted his experience with King in Birmingham. He wrote that King sat all night in the jail writing his letter on the only paper he had – in the margins of an old New York Times newspaper. King’s passion for equality and justice was scrawled in every spare column and white space on the newspaper – nearly 7,000 words.
Wilma Mankiller, before she was the first woman ever elected principal chief of a major U.S. Indian tribe, was a grantwriter. She managed to turn prejudice and stereotypes on their head by doing something very simple. She trusted poor people. Through the grants she wrote, she spearheaded the tribe’s most ambitious and lauded experiment…the Bell Community Revitalization Project. With hundreds of thousands in federal and private funds and with their own labor, the residents of a poverty-stricken community remodeled dilapidated housing, constructed new homes, and laid a sixteen-mile pipeline that brought running water to many homes for the first time. Wilma and her grantwriting demonstrated that self-determination for Native Americans can be a reality.
A friend of ours at the foundation, Billy Shore, founded the anti-hunger and anti-poverty nonprofit called Share our Strength. Billy is also a wonderful writer and reminds us in his book, The Light of Conscience, that often solitary acts of conscience have echoes louder than the original sound; that individual acts have the potential to trigger large public consequences and continue to inspire others from generation to generation.
Those solitary acts begin with you as grantwriters in quiet moments at a computer screen every day. Typing words.
An African proverb says this: “Words have no legs, yet they walk." Confucius tells us that: "Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know men."
Words do matter. Grants matter. And grantwriters matter!
Now, what does it take to be a great grantwriter? How can grantwriters perfect their trade? After all, our Pacific Northwest Program alone receives more than 700 grant inquiries per year. Seventy-seven percent of those grant inquiries are declined. As a foundation we receive 35,000 requests and must decline more than 95 percent. The same is no doubt true for the many foundations in Seattle. The odds are against you…just like for so many writers.
The Supreme Court receives 7,000 requests each year to hear appeals. They hear just 80 of those requests.
The New York Times receives 1,000 letters per day but prints just 2 percent of those letters in the newspaper.
Of 10 book proposals that reach the desks of book editors, eight or nine will go no further.
Turns out that being a great grantwriter is a little like being a great writer. Think about that. Many of the same factors that make a great writer successful may well make you a successful grantwriter.
I took an informal poll of our grant reviewers at the foundation. Like grizzled editors, they handed out these morsels of guidance:
1. Have a good story. One program officer told me, “I want to be moved first by the need and then very quickly by the proven work that the organization does to solve the need.” In the book Thinking Like Your Editor, the author instructs us that every work of serious non-fiction should begin with a question. I believe every great grant begins with a question. It may be a very broad question or it may be a very limited, focused question:
- How do we end family homelessness in our region?
- Why do we need to expand capacity at our center and what will be the impact of that expansion?
What follows those questions must be a compelling story, supported by data and analysis.
2. Alignment. Has the grantwriter done his or her homework to really understand if the program being recommended for funding is in alignment with our areas of focus and desired impact?
Another program officer told me that they want to see a document that demonstrates a clear understanding of what the foundation's priorities are. She wants to see that a compelling case is made as to why the proposal fits with BOTH foundation priorities AND METHODS -- without over-reaching, overstating or drawing connections that aren't there.
3. Get the facts right. Program officers want the facts. A staff member told me recently, “I want to see the data, the science, the need and the proven interventions or programs. I don’t want to read BS. Documents that overstate uniqueness ("we're the only org in X county offering blah...") when it is questionable, or overstate or mis-state need, tend to be judged with some suspicion, which is not your best foot forward.”
4. Clarity. The Economist magazine publishes a terrific style guide. One of its chief tenets is that “clarity of writing usually follows clarity of thought.” Clear statements at the very beginning of your grant document, that succinctly describe the whole 'project' and the amount of funding requested is really critical to our program officers.
5. Don’t forget the basics. I’ve talked a lot about the nobility of writing, but a lot of good grant writing is just making sure you cover the basics:
• Mission
• Need
• Sustainability
• Capacity
• Community support
• The budget -- the budget should not tell a different story than the narratives, or raise questions that are not addressed in the narratives.
Earlier I cited the book Thinking Like Your Editor. The author had several additional pieces of advice that I think are important:
- All of your conclusions must come from facts made available to the reader. If you are telling us something in your grant proposal, try to support it with facts that you either include in the document or point us to the right sources.
- Your research is trying to tell you where your argument lies. You just have to listen to it. There is an old adage in medicine, or so I am told, that your patient is trying to tell you what is wrong. You just have to listen. Please tie your proposals to the research. We are listening closely to that part of the grant.
- Anticipate other interpretations and arguments. Chances are that we are familiar with alternative points of view and so anticipate that and let us know why you believe you are right or at least merit further consideration.
To conclude, I thought it might be helpful to spend a few minutes on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and how you can best align your thinking with ours. We begin with the principles that Bill and Melinda Gates believe drive their foundation’s work:
• All lives—no matter where they are lived—have equal value.
• To whom much has been given, much is expected.
These values have led the foundation to focus on a single goal: giving all people, wherever they live, the opportunity to lead healthy, productive lives. We believe that this goal can be achieved—but only if advances in science and learning reach those who need them the most. To that end, we work to increase equity in four areas: global health; education; public libraries; and support for at-risk families in our local region.
- Global Health: Closing the health gap between rich and poor countries by creating new health solutions and ensuring that existing solutions reach those in greatest need.
- Education: Ensuring that all students graduate from high school ready for college, work, and citizenship by supporting great high schools.
- Global Libraries: Making sure that everyone has access to digital information via free public access computers in public libraries.
- Pacific Northwest: Helping at-risk families in our region improve their lives by supporting a variety of human services.
We have chosen these well-defined issues and limit our work to these areas. We are optimistic that the problems in those areas can be solved. We also recognize that philanthropy plays a relatively small role, compared to governments and markets, in finding those solutions. For that reason, we prefer to partner rather than go it alone.
We are funders and shapers, not actors; we believe that the most powerful work comes from passionate, committed individuals and groups. Our chief contribution is a willingness to take risks, focus on the biggest, most neglected problems, and move with urgency. We focus on prevention, preferring to tackle problems before they become intractable. We advocate strongly, and we help others make a difference over the long term. Finally, we measure the impact of our grantmaking and share the results.
That’s a very brief summary of who we are and what we aspire to be. In the end, we are a reflection of the grants we fund, and thereby, the grants you and your colleagues write. We rely on each other, really.
Thank you.