Assessing Our Grant Writing Skills

As the year ends, we are all reflecting on the past 11+ months and asking ourselves for evidence of our impact for our own consulting businesses and for our employers. These are the typical year-end review items for grant writers:

• Number of grant applications written in 2011?
• Number of grant applications funded in 2011?
• What is my WIN rate?
• Weaknesses in the rejected grant applications that can be corrected before resubmitting?
• Employer satisfaction with my performance?
• Clients’ satisfaction with my performance?
• Do I need professional development training to strengthen my skills?
• What is my plan for the New Year?

Now, let’s explore the reason to ask these questions.

 Number of Grant Applications Written in 2011

Typically grant writers measure their productivity level in 12-month calendar timeframes.  Your 12-months can start in January and end in December; start in July and end in June or even start in October and end in September.  It’s not the start/stop month that matters; it’s looking back at your grant writing productivity—the first component in determining our WIN rate.  Count every grant application (competitive and formula) that you had your hands on.  By this, I mean count any grant application where you participated in the planning, worked on a team, or worked on from start to finish.  Everything we’ve touched counts!

Number of Grant Applications Funded in 2011

Sometimes we write a grant application in one year and find out its fate in the New Year.  If that’s the case, count the funded month in the actual year that you receive the award notification.  Knowing how many grant applications we’ve touched (some level of participation) that are funded.  Know the number of applications funded in the second and final component in determining our WIN rate.

What is My WIN Rate?

First, count the number of grants written this past year.  Since I’ve been Vice President of Grants Professional Services for eCivis (April 2011), I’ve cut back on the number of grant applications that I can write for current and incoming clients. This year, I worked on the following grant applications:

Table 1: Dr. Bev Browning’s Roster of Grant Applications in 2011

2011 Grant Applications	Funded	Not Funded
Nassau County Non-Secure Detention Center (Awarded $208,000)	ü
OJJDP FY 11 Second Chance Act Juvenile Mentoring   Initiative (Awarded $609,289)	ü
Small Business Jobs Act (Awarded $837,632)	ü
Alternative Education Pathways ($1,000,000)	ü
Procurement Technical Assistance Center ($271,996)	ü
Civis Justice Corps		ü
Totals	5	1

I wrote five grant applications and four were funded.  That’s 4 out of 5 or 4/5ths.  This means that my WIN rate for 2011 was 80%.

Note: Profession-wide, anything over 70% is considered exemplary.  The more grant applications you write in a 12-month timeframe, the higher your success rate will be.  In the past, I’ve written upwards to 20-30 grant applications per year and my WIN rate has been a steady 80-90%.  Yes, I was very lucky!

Weaknesses in the Rejected Grant Applications That Can Be Corrected Before Resubmitting

When we don’t succeed, it’s important to request feedback from the grantmaking agency about why our grant application was not funded.  I write a Freedom of Information Act request to expedite the feedback process.  At the federal grantmaking level, the 26 agencies awarding grants are required to put grant applications through two review processes.  The first review, called the Technical Review looks for failure to comply with standard first level submission requirements.  For example, correct line spacing, font, font size, margins, table and graph formatting, forms signed, budgets that are correct, and submitted on time.  The second level of review, called Peer Review is where a team of three grant topic experts review the application and write extensive feedback on the application’s weaknesses and strengths.  You will want to request the peer review feedback to determine where your grant application fell short.  Once you know the weaknesses, you can work on rewriting your narrative sections or redoing your budget section so the application is ready for resubmission when the next funding cycle is announced.  Remember, if we don’t know our mistakes, we just keep making them and wondering why nothing we submit is getting funded!

Employer Satisfaction with My Performance

During your annual performance review, did you discuss the number of grant applications that submitted; the number funded, and the total dollars you helped to bring in to your employer?  These are important career progression points and should be noted in writing.  Is your employer satisfied with your performance?  If yes, keep doing what you’re doing.  If no, what can you do to improve your grant writing skills?  It’s important to set a self-improvement plan annually and stick to it!

Client Satisfaction with My Performance

If you’re a grant writing consultant like me, it’s important to obtain feedback from our clients on how they felt we performed their services. My consulting services include funding research, funder communications protocol, grant application planning facilitation, grant application team member assistance, grant writing, and grant-related training.  I continually ask my clients and workshop trainees for feedback on how the process worked; the project document quality, and funding outcome satisfaction.  We can’t improve our consulting businesses if we don’t know the impact of our work.  Our revenues depend on performing funding-related miracles!

What is My Plan for the New Year?

As we begin to plan for 2012, it’s important to examine our grant writing resources.  By this, I mean what grant research databases are we using and when are the renewal dates in 2012?  What rejected grant applications can I retool and resubmit in 2012?  What professional groups can I join or renew my membership in?  Don’t forget to look at the benefits of the Grant Professionals Association, I belong to this group and there are many win/win’s involved with membership. Also, they have a lot of professional development opportunities.  Do I need help with identifying grant funding opportunities?  Do I need grant writing technical assistance since my full-time job is not grant writing, but I am required to find funding opportunities and write grant applications on a regular basis?  Do I have a funding plan for 2012?

Here are some resources to help you to answer these questions:

Table 2 – 2012 Recommended Resources and Links

Resources	Links
Grant databases -Grant Research or   Nonprofit One-Stop	www.ecivis.com
Peer  review   feedback	http://ies.ed.gov/funding/webinars/pdf/May2applicationprocess_FY2012.pdf
Professional associations	www. http://grantprofessionals.org/
Technical Assistance	http://www.ecivis.com/products-services/grants-professional-services.html
Funding plan	http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-create-a-funding-plan-for-your-organization.html

Advertisement