12.11.2007

What the funder wants

All the grant-writing books and grant-writing workshop coaches tell you the same thing: Organize your proposal the way the funder wants.

Use their words for your headings. Put them in the order they request the sections.

Makes sense, right, to do everything in your power to make it easy for the funder to find the parts of your proposal that they are really interested in. Sure, ok, I buy that.

Except for right now. That advice makes me want to scream. I'm in the middle of a grant application -- nevermind for whom --- and their sections seem completely illogical to me. Illogical. (If you hear Leonard Nimoy in your head when you read "illogical" that's exactly the tone I'm going for here.)

Why do I put the goals section before describing the project and the needs? And why do they ask for goals and objectives? (If anybody can clue me into the difference with goals and objectives, I will be very grateful).

Obviously, the proposal will get done in the order the funder wants it, but I just needed to vent.

3 comments:

Stacie Penney said...

A goal is "I want to raise $500K for the year" or "I want to assist 50 students in graduating from high school and enroll in college." An objective is "We match students with adult mentors to make sure they stay on the the road to college."

In my head, there's a difference.

Bethany K. Warner said...

See. I knew somebody could explain this in a way that makes sense. Or at least, in this case, give examples that I understand. Guess I wrote the right things in the right areas after all.

Stacie Penney said...

Glad I could help!

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