We all learn best by example!   The next series of four Funding 101 columns will feature comparisons between novice and more experienced grant writing.  I will end each column with a “Structure Lesson” and a  “Language Lesson.” This novice manuscript was submitted to me within a Grant Writing Guide as part of my graduate level grant-writing course.  The course invites graduate students to identify an idea that would like to fund at their school.  They are then asked to find a suitable funding source.  Then they create the three pre-writing documents that I have referenced so many times in Funding 101.  They submit sections to me as they write them.  I edit them within the Grant Writing Guide and return it.  I will indicate which section of the Grant Writing Guide I am improving. 

Most novice grant writers write narratives or tell stories. More experienced grant writers use more technical text selection and organization.  Technical writing is a series of habits that help make creating a successful grant application easier to do. So, anticipate four columns of examples.  As you would expect, I have changed the names of the schools and the communities and I have the permission of the original authors to use their novice text. Below is an example of a novice text submission from the class.

Novice Submission for “Project Building Bridges”

1. Needs, Goal Statement and Objectives

Frontier Middle school is a 7th and 8th grade building comprised of a diverse student population located in Frontier, Ohio.  63% white, 25% African-American, 10% Hispanic, and 2% Asian.  It is an urban school ranging socio-economically from upper middle class to poor. There have been many more instances of fighting in recent years with the cause being lack of tolerance, lack of acceptance of differences and an increase in gang related violence.  Project building bridges is a program that attempts to create an acceptance and tolerance for differences. It also promotes mentoring between grade levels and acceptance between diverse student populations.  There will be character education issues addressed as well.   The grant will be used for implementation of these initiatives as well as occasional speakers on Character education and Tolerance.  
 
Dr. Brooks Edit

1. Needs, Goal Statement and Objectives

Need: Frontier Middle School in Frontier, Ohio is a typically urban school with a wide socio-economic range from upper middle class to poor. Frontier Middle School has a 7th and 8th grade student population that is 63% white, 25% African-American, 10% Hispanic, and 2% Asian.  A recent increase in gang-related violence and fighting has been stimulated by a climate of intolerance and has begun to negatively define the culture of the school. Project Building Bridges is a school-wide program designed to increase tolerance and acceptance between diverse student populations.   
 
Goal Statement:  Project Building Bridges has three major goals: 1) introduce character education; 2) promote mentoring between grade levels; 3) increase acceptance of diverse populations. 
Objectives: Project Building Bridges has six major goal related objectives. Goal 1: 1) introduce students to professional speakers on character education and tolerance; 2) provide teachers and administrators with online professional development resources on character education; Goal 2: 1) provide teachers with classroom materials to support character education; 2) schedule mixed grade level and classroom student sessions to reinforce character education; Goal 3:  1) integrate the language of tolerance into the culture of the school. 2) evaluate the impact of Project Building Bridges using disciplinary records, teacher reports, incident counts and student engagement.

Structure  Lesson: Note how I separated the Needs from Goals and organized Objectives within goals.  Goals are the hardest to write.  “I want to” goals never work.  “Because” goals never work.  Project goals carefully developed and sequenced set up the development of goal related objectives.  The objectives are the actions that require funding (Budget Plan). They are what will be implemented (Action Plan and Timeline) and evaluated (Evaluation Plan).  Well-organized goals and objectives practically write the rest of the grant application.  I often just copy and paste my goals and objectives section into the Action Plan, Budget Plan and Evaluation Plan sections of my draft application.  I use the structure organize the sections. The order and continuity of the sections is impressive to any grant evaluator.

Language Lesson: The author did not use any personal pronouns in her first draft. I pressed the author on what she wanted to achieve and what she thought needed to done to have a successful project.  We went back and forth on objectives, but finally settled on a sequence of goal related objectives that made some sense.  Compare this text: “ It also promotes mentoring between grade levels and acceptance between diverse student populations.  There will be character education issues addressed as well.   The grant will be used for implementation of these initiatives as well as occasional speakers on Character education and Tolerance” to the language of the edited goals and objectives text.

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