Introduction
The Ninja Guide to DIY Grant Writing
This course is for you if you’re looking for a do-it-yourself system for writing grant applications for your business or community group.
Which one are you?:
Scenario 1
So you want a grant. You’ve probably identified a funding source. You skim through the guidelines and
start the application form. You get past the organisational details and then you hit your first hurdle –
the questions. You start answering the questions and before you know it, you’re writing what you want
them to hear. Half way through you get to the budget and find what you want, they won’t fund. It all
becomes too hard.
Scenario 2
You’ve found a grant funder for something you want or need. You’ve written a successful grant
application before. This time, you’re looking for more money and things look a bit more complicated.
Where do you start?
Scenario 3
You do your homework. You know where to look and what to look for before you even put pen to
paper. You are clear you’ve got everything in place and are ready to go. You stand a chance of success,
even for the big ones, because you know what’s wanted, can deliver the solution to the clearly
articulated need, and have the expertise and track record for success. You have the grant writing
mindset.
Which of these do you want to be?
If you’ve already had a go at writing grant applications:
Do you dive head-first into writing an application, get so far and then realise it’s not for you?
Do you under-estimate how much work and information is needed to put an application
together?
Are you scratching your head because you’re not sure what the questions mean – so you write
ANYTHING and EVERYTHING you can think of?
Are you looking for a ‘fun’ way to cover the bases and give them what they are looking for?
The Ninja Guide to DIY Grant Writing is a unique approach to grant writing. We could
have put together a guide that goes from step 1 to step 2 to step 217, but wouldn’t that be boring? At
what step would you have switched off?
We developed the Ninja DIY Grant Writing System for people with imagination. People who approach
grant writing as a campaign; a Ninja campaign. Putting aside the unsavory characteristics of Ninjas, they
had a reputation for excellence in intelligence and espionage. They knew how to get inside the enemy
camp and were expert at counting numbers. They were feared because they worked in the shadows.
Your Trainer
Why should you listen to me?
I have over 25 years of experience working on both sides of the grant funding fence – and somewhere in between. For nearly ten years, I organized workshops and conferences on how to get grants out of the
European Union. To be ahead of the game meant scanning the daily news sheets coming out of Brussels to monitor the progress on new policy development which would inevitably lead to funding being made available to turn policies into success stories.
I left that job to find myself involved in setting up a multi-million-pound training fund. – from scratch. In six weeks we had set up a framework complete with guidelines, applications forms, reporting documents and policy documents. The training fund went on to fund over fifty projects whilst being accountable to a higher funding body. I escaped to Australia to find myself working for a funding body for another nine years. It was a great experience working at the coal face. It was a government entity and a good insight into policy context. During that time, I was able to apply for funding from outside sources to help build the capability of the organisations we funded. Some of the projects we designed and delivered were cutting edge trials at the time, and common place everyday use of technology today.
Since 2010, I have been working with not for profits and businesses to attract grand funding to make a
difference. I have seen clients obtain phenomenal success, putting grants to great use. It’s seeing this
success, especially smaller organisations that grow in confidence, that prompted me to set a grant
writing coaching school where I coach and mentor grant writers for a period of time, working together
to get their first grants over the line. No more half/one-day workshops and being left to their own
devises.
I still deliver one-day workshops as well as a self-paced training program, but I also discovered a gap in
mindset. People miss out on grants because they don’t really understand what drives them. It’s not
merely about what the applicant wants. So I designed the Ninja Grant Writing Workshop and found
that people were having great big ah ha moments. I guarantee that at least 75% of people who read this
guide, will also experience a significant mindset shift when the penny drops.
Enjoy.
Pat Grosse
The Community Entrepreneur
What people are saying about Pat:
“Pat has been a source of inspiration for our organisation in both mentoring and grant writing capacity.
Pat has been writing our major grants for the past three years and we have enjoyed great success in a
sector where competition for funds is hotly contested.”
“Pats ability to take our concept ideas and fit them with a suitable funding grant is exceptional. Pat’s
understanding of funding requirements is a credit to her.”
Guiding Principles
The primary principle with respect to grant writing is that there is a genuine need for a grant. A grant is
a contract between a legal entity with money and a result they want to achieve and another legal entity
that is well placed to help them get that result (or auspices another body such as a grass roots
community group that can).
Legal entity
Depending on the structure of the legal entity, funders can decide what kind(s) of entities they want to
work with. If a community group is not a legal entity, they may still access a grant providing there is
legal entity that can take responsibility for the funds on their behalf. This is called an auspicing
arrangement. A sole trader, partnerships and other business arrangements with a business registration
(ABN in Australia) are legal entities.
Policy Directions
Imagine you are a large and powerful organisation, such as government or a business with social
responsibility. If you’re government, you are answerable to the people and have committed to making
things happen. You’ve put together policy frameworks such as about the environment, or growing jobs,
or multiculturalism. These frameworks include a series of priorities and the results you want to achieve.
As a bureaucratic entity you don’t have the capacity (resources, skills and time) to achieve these results
on your own. But you know there are sectors of the economy that can. It’s cost effective to pay them to
get those results. A business with social responsibility also has objectives and priorities from which they
want to achieve improvements, usually in education, environment, youth, family and homelessness.
Same situation – others are better placed to get the results for them. The issues are large enough that it
will take multiple organisations to get the size of results anticipated. This is the premise for grants.
Grants are the funding instrument designed to achieve the outcomes of the objectives of a Policy
Framework.
Defining the Need
The funder isn’t going to give money to anybody who comes along and says “give it to us’ we’ll solve
your problem for you”. One of the first things you’ll have to do is to prove you know what the need is –
in detail, convincingly. Then it’s your responsibility to prove that you above all others can reach out and
engage those who would benefit from the intervention; not just that, but also you have the experience,
structure and resources to do the job properly.
This guide demonstrates the Ninja approach to gaining and using intelligence to make the right choices
about which grants to apply for. This is about the grant writing Ninja mindset.