Holiday Grant Writing

I cannot recall a holiday season that has not been hijacked by the deadline of a grant proposal. This year is no different. Many state and federal agencies recently released major funding RFPs all due right after the holidays. With many people off gift giving, traveling and spending time with family this makes for a very difficult time to collaborate, develop strategic partnerships and pull together proposal components.

Knowing all of this I try hard to impart upon those that I work with the importance of developing those relationships early on; connecting with partners, identifying demonstration sites, contacting agency staffers, all of these elements are critical to the success of your project and all become much more difficult this time of the year.

The lesson here is to add a calendar reminder in early November that you need to get these elements in place soon. October-November is also the time to check with your key funding agencies to see what grant applications they are likely to be releasing.

After the first of the year there is tremendous activity preparing for the late winter/early spring RFPs. Start making your Agency staff connections early in January.

For those with holiday deadlines.... HO, Ho, ho