Writing Grant Proposals

Over the past 20 years, I've written or co-written 20+ grant proposals, some funded, some not. While the process can be challenging and rigorous, it also has some fantastic elements whether you are successful at achieving funding or not.

1) You learn to become organized in your thinking and documentation. -- As a grant writer you are forced to think through your project in ways that make your product much better. Additionally, when you write a grant propoal, your product serves as a fantastic artifact of a quality innovative program that could come to pass at a future date.

2) You create relationships with others as you build programmatic partnerships. --- Grantmakers like parterships and structured support systems. As a result of developing your program with others, you build relationships that can help your organization in the future as you become more familar with programming and how you can best leverage eachothers strengths.

3) You learn more about the needs of the demographic you have chosen to serve. -- Research is a major part of grant proposal writing. Because the grant writing process is aligned to the core work that your organization does, you have a powerful opportunity to find out more about your demographic and what the needs truly are.

4) You learn how much people around you love you. -- Grant writing is an arduous and time consuming process. Your support (husband, wife, kids, boss, best friend, dog) all sacrifice as you pour your heart and soul into the work. However, when that fresh cup of coffee lands at your right hand magically, or when the world moves on around you without demanding too much of your attention, you realize just how supportive and wonderful your "crew" is.

CEDAR, LLC has consultants on staff who contract to write grant proposals for various organizations. Please contact us if you need a grant proposal written. However, courtesy note, if the due date is less than three weeks away, you're too close to the deadline. We simply can't help at that point. Love to...but grant writing is tough...way tougher if under unreasonable time constraints.

Cheers!