Grant Writing |

I live in Delaware, roughly midway between New York City and Washington, DC. Average rainfall in this part of the country is around 45″ (114cm).

Unless you’re a meteorologist, that probably doesn’t mean all that much to you. Heck, I live here and it doesn’t really mean much to me.

What I do know is that it’s very green here. I couldn’t even begin to guess how many different varieties of trees grow within 100 miles of me. Surely it’s in the thousands. I have ten different kinds in my back yard alone. There are at least twenty more among the other yards on my block.

I’ve read that Delaware is the 16th wettest state in the U.S. So I guess 45″ is quite a bit.

The thing is, how different do you suppose that would be if all 45″ came in a single day and we had no precipitation whatsoever for the remaining 364 days of the year?

It would be a very different place. Likely little or nothing could grow.

Same amount of rain… vastly different results.

The Tie-in

This actually does have something to do with marketing. At least in the roundabout way that I frequently approach things.

Or more precisely, it has to do with grant writing.

If you didn’t know, most non-profit organizations subsist on small individual donations and on large grants given by wealthy donors, philanthropic foundations and government agencies.

Grants aren’t exactly easy to get. You have to apply, go through a rigorous screening process and then even if you get grant money, it often comes with restrictions on how or when it can be used.

Still, the amounts make grants necessary for the survival of most non-profit organizations.

The application process is complex enough that there are professional grant writers to help guide organizations in applying for grant money and increasing their odds of actually getting approved for funding.

The tie-in is that few organizations get more than one or two grants per year. That’s a bit like a tree getting rain only one or two days of the year.

It becomes incumbent on those non-profits to manage their finances in such a way as to make those few infusions of funds last throughout the year. (Hence the reason so many ask for individual donations, which come with fewer strings and can be spread more evenly throughout the year.)

A Cottage Industry

Professional Grant Writing is a small, cottage industry. I suppose it should come as a surprise to no one that I offer grant writing as part of my menu of services offered.

In my mind, it just makes sense. As a professional writer trained in the art of persuasive writing, and as an avowed do-gooder hell-bent on saving the world, helping non-profit organizations get the funds they need to survive is just a natural fit.

Do you belong to or know of a non-profit organization that needs funds? Help me on my mission to save the world by putting us in contact with each other!

(You didn’t really think this article was going to be about rainfall, did you?)

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Same amount of rain… vastly different results.