It’s exciting to take on a grant application that will solve challenges in our schools. It’s always a learning process to get down into the weeds of an application and analyze data that points to weaknesses in your academic achievement (who knew?).

However, the devil in the details can obscure your vision. Minutiae creates myopia and we can lose track of what we want to do; the big picture. One way to keep your hand on the success throttle is to look up occasionally and think like a grantor.

Ask yourself these questions:

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I usually approach my articles with titles like “How Your Grant Can Succeed”. This time, I’m going to highlight a couple of reasons why a proposal might fail. There are many reasons, the biggest is your application is about the things you need, instead of how the funds can be used to solve a problem. There are a couple of reasons that many grant writers overlook when they submit their proposals.

1.    The Proposal Deviates from the Formatting Requirements.

This one comes from personal experience. I was writing a big federal application for funds for the libraries in our district. If I do say so myself, it was an elegant appeal. It was related to reading scores, the objectives were clear and achievable, and the narrative was readable. At the time the proposal was submitted, it was required to be mailed by a certain time, be less than a certain number of words, and formatted double spaced.

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