writing a report.jpeg — With an increased number of grants expected to become available to support the recovery from COVID19, now is the perfect time to sharpen up your grant writing skills. While more grants are expected to be announced, the competition for them will also likely increase so any advantage you can get will help your cause.
**Below are five tips to avoid your application receiving a rejection stamp!**

Tip 1: Understand the Criteria

No one wants to allocate funds to businesses and projects destined to fail, or that are contrary the Grant Provider’s (funder) aims. To minimise the chance of that happening and only receiving relevant applications, funders go to great lengths to develop a criteria to guide both the applicant and the assessor. So the first key step is to be crystal clear on what you are eligible to apply for. Seek clarification from the funder if you need to and make sure you have an application that clearly articulates how your submission meets the criteria under which funding will be provided.

In addition to the total funding pool, there will usually be some sort of guide. Most grant criteria have upper and lower limits per application expressed in dollar terms or ratios of grant money relative to your own contribution (eg between $500 and $7000 or $ for $). Others put a cap on the percentage of grant funding towards the project cost (eg up to 50% of total cost).

So ensure the amount you seek is within the scope of the program, otherwise your application will go onto the “non-compliant’ pile.

Assessment of applications against the criteria take many forms, however criteria is always key.

Sometimes a basic compliant or non-compliant assessment is made of an application against the criteria, for others a weighted scoring system of all criteria is used.

Under the weighted scoring system, each stated criteria is assessed along a scale (say one to ten for each attribute) until a raw total score is produced for each application. Some attributes may be given higher importance and will be given a higher percentage value of the total score. (eg. 40% for budget).

The weighting indicates that you should spend the most time in showing how your application meets this attribute. Getting a high score on the highest weighted attribute is critical to success.

Under the weighted scoring system, the final scores are typically ranked from highest to lowest and funding allocated from the top down until the pool of funds are exhausted or reach a minimum benchmark.

In addition to the criteria, there will often be some other critical information affecting the validity of your application. The deadline and the process for receiving applications is absolutely critical to know.

It is no good writing a killer submission only for it to be rejected because you failed to submit it on time. So note the date and process of lodgement in your diary as soon as you decide to start an application and plan accordingly.

Tip 2: Alignment with the Grant Provider’s Goals

Ensure your project is a good fit and your business is eligible to apply. Some grants are tailored to the community, not-for-profits or social enterprise sectors. Be certain that your business is eligible. There is no point starting an application if your organisation is ineligible.

The closer your project aligns to the objectives of the grant program, the more likely you are to be chosen. So read the objectives carefully, understand them and demonstrate in your submission how you will meet them.

The projects aims, scope and eligibility criteria are usually very clearly articulated and easy to find, and all of them need to be adequately addressed.

A great way to maximise alignment is to repeat back the same phrasing that you find in the criteria and use it in your narrative. That way, it’s easier for the assessor to relate to your project and organisation – to see alignment between you and them.

Look at the organisation’s stated mission and goals online and incorporate the themes into your project.

Tell them that it aligns and how it aligns, as this will also show you understand the funder’s aspirations.

Another way to show alignment is to highlight similar projects they have previously funded and only include the reference if they had been successful, which brings us to the third tip.

Tip 3: Provide Certainty

Provide a reassuring narrative in your application will help to de-risk the proposal in the eyes of the decision makers. If you can be perceived as a sure bet, your application stands out for the right reasons. So provide the credibility that you can deliver. You may be able to reference a strong track record using case studies or facts and figures or reference your success and achievements as a business.

You may be able to include relevant third party endorsement, examples from similar places or sectors elsewhere where your concept has been proven, survey results or anecdotal feedback from your customers or new target market.

You will be surprised how much data you already have in your business that you can mine, analyse and use.

Tip 4: Demonstrate Your Commitment

Define the resources (directly and indirectly) you are allocating towards the project’s success.

This could include cash or an estimate of the hourly rate spent or to be allocated to the project if funding is successful.

By demonstrating you have “skin in the game” you show assessors you are just as committed as they are in making the project a success.

If you don’t have any resources to commit to the project, add in a sentence about any previous or future investment into the project. (eg prototype development, or the cost of hours spent devising and testing the concept so far).

Tip 5: Start early and Review your application

Don’t leave it to the last minute to draft your application. A good application will take a bit of time but having quality time to review your work is also important. So start early and even give yourself a break from the task – then come back to it and finish it.

Make sure you review the application to ensure all requirements are met before you submit it. It might pay to get someone else to review it for you to get a second set of eyes over it to make sure everything is in order. Be certain that the application you submit is the best it can be.

Where are grants available?

Grants are usually made available from the following organisations types:

Government (Commonwealth & State)
Community organisations
Private sector – e.g. Telstra (Grants vs Sponsorship)
Philanthropic foundations – e.g. Scanlon Foundation

For businesses, most grants will come from government, but there are sometimes opportunities that pop-up from non-government sources.

There are sites with a range of grants aggregated onto the one portal, others sites offer a fee for service to search and may even do your application for you. The websites below are a good start on where to find current business grants and it is worth subscribing to receive notifications of upcoming opportunities: