Friday, July 28, 2006

One Year Anniversary

It is hard to believe that I have been blogging for one year now on the topic of grants. I have enjoyed blogging so much that I began blogging for another organization several months ago. Those articles can be viewed at Families.com , and are written on the subjects of education and parenting. This assignment is more time intensive than this blog, as I have a minimum word count and must blog 5 days a week to meet the number of posts goal, but nonetheless it has helped me to write on a daily basis which is a good tool to practice in the profession of grant writing.

I was also recently published in an e-zine with an article called "Grant Writing-An Accidental Profession" describing grant writing as a profession and how I fell into it.

I am looking for ideas and reader suggestions for future blog articles. If there is a particular subject you would like to see written about please reply to this post or email me at Grantstuff@wowway.com.

As grant writers, we are often viewed as the red headed step-child (No offense to any red headed step-child) in the fundraising world. In the mix of writing professionals, I think we are not always taken as seriously as fiction or writers of other genres. In fact, I believe that grant-writing is another genre that needs to be practiced and developed like any other form of writing. We need to understand our audience and write to them utilizing personal stories intermingled with facts and driven by a need. We need to be able to convey a need to a potential funder in such a way that they are moved enough to provide funding to meet that need. Of course the grant proposal is not the only step in this process, but it needs to be written professionally while following the funder guidelines.