Federal Grants: The Lure of the Mother Lode
Federal grant guidelines read like Harvard dissertations these days. Gone are the times when government bureaucrats pulled together RFP’s that typically were short on substance and long on ticky requirements, the expectation being, I believe, that people in the field would know best about how to address a particular problem. The result of this open door to program ideas was mixed — a lot of brilliant programs but as many true duds that burned up federal dollars and helped no one.
I plowed through two sets of federal grant guidelines (RFA’s – Request for Funding Applications) this week. Both of them for complex, high-impact programs and both with impressive, almost intimidating, levels of content sophistication. No bureaucrat hoping to get an RFA out the door in a hurry wrote these RFA’s. As substantial as the general content was, the programmatic requirements were even more impressive – what needed to be done, by whom, in partnership with which entities, and for what outcomes.
No place for amateurs. That’s the message running through all 50+ pages of these literary gems.
So what does this mean for you if you’re a grant writer? I know established grant writers – in business for many years – who have never broken out of the $25,000 foundation grant application. When I talk federal grants to them, they shudder and start backing up. Whoa, I’m not in that league.
Sure you are. But you need to be smart. Here are three things to consider:
1. Everything takes practice. Just because you can play Chopsticks on the piano does not mean you can play Chopin. I know this because I can barely play Chopsticks despite years of wishing. So in terms of writing federal grants, you need to get in on some group efforts so you can see how complex proposals are put together, get familiar with the strategy, and understand the language. You need to start practicing.
2. The competition is extraordinary. There are certain types of proposals, like the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) grants, where professional grantwriters have made careers and pretty dandy incomes from just writing those grants. That’s all they do, they know every teeny thing about how to win, and they make a lot of money. But these folks weren’t born with the Midas touch. They started out being nudniks like us.
3. Winning a federal grant is the same only different. This was one of my grandmother’s favorite sayings — always perplexing to me — but here’s how it applies in this case. Everything it takes to win a foundation grant – good program, sound outcomes, decent management – is necessary to win a federal grant and then some. Assume that every applicant has met the minimum standard and has a lot of then some. At first, you won’t know how to ratchet up your proposal to the next, the next, the next level. And then it will become clear what you need to do. This makes federal grant writing a lot of fun, especially if you’ve got a good strong competitive streak.
A federal grant can easily provide ten times the amount of funding provided by a local foundation grant. That’s a lot of good that can be done for your organization and the community. It is the mother lode. Now go find your pick axe and get going.
This summer’s Planners and Grantwriters Roundtable, sponsored by the Nonprofit Center of Milwaukee, will have a whole session devoted to federal grants. (July 18, 2012). Check out PGR on Facebook for more news.


