PURSUING GRANT MONEY - HOW REALISTIC? HOW ATTAINABLE?

PURSUING GRANT MONEY

HOW REALISTIC?  HOW ATTAINABLE?

The short answer is easy: On your own, it's a nice pipe dream! 

At least if you are thinking about anything substantial, for anything a bit original.  If you want to launch some program to do something for inner-oity kids, City Hall will easily shell a grand or two.  But that's probably not what you had in mind.

In other words, if you are thinking small and very small grants, using local resources and totally forgetting the big names, perhaps.  Or if you find which program needs to spend funds quickly before some specific date, and come up with something that sounds just right, sure, you have a good chance.

But try to get substantial grant money for anything original and meaningful... good luck! ;)

Another possible avenue is maybe to find a retired person with some reasonable writing skills, who has lots of time on their hands, let's say a retired teacher pillar of the community type of person, and to persuade them to write grant proposals pro bono ("for the sake of goodness]. That is, for less than peanuts. If you find someone like that, you could always try your luck. If nothing else, you will have provided them with a great pass time type of endeavor, and one that should make them feel good about themselves,

I personally never found such a person, although I am sure many exist, somewhere out there...

I also tried many time to entice professional grant writers with the promise of high percentages in case of success.  Unfortunately, the average grant writer has enough experience to know how high the likeliness to see his or her pay any time soon is going to be. And since they too need to eat and pay their bill, so far, such offers never produced any results, regardless of the worthiness of the cause.
However, rest assured that with real persistence, and total dedication to the task, anything can be achieved. Even a fat, juicy government grant to study a perhaps less than truly useful subject. The wisdom of the ages has it that you better be a Department Chair at some land grant university for that, but it's a fact that regular schmucks sometime *do* wim the lottery. Even a lottery as skewed as the grant lottery.

And about fundraising in general, of which the pursuit of happiness through grant obtention is just a small sub-chapter, please remember that Col. Sanders, of 'Kentucky Fried Chicken' fame, got his funding after his 1,003rd presentation of his idea.  Or that Don Juan (the one of operatic fame), managed to seduce 1,003 women, before he encountered some displeased Commander. That too must have taken some persistence. Even if, obviously, it came with tangible rewards (actually, 1,003 small grants, one could look at it that way).

So, would you have that kind of persistence and put all the possible tools on your side, I am sure you will get that juicy grant somewhat quicker.  As long as you truly put all that could help on your side.

Giving you access to such tools is what this page is about.

Just remember what the great poet Dante saw written at the entrance of Hell: "Voi qu'entrate, lasciate ogni speranza". "Ye who here enter, abandon all hope!" 

Seems a good motto for the seeker of substantial grants to do something useful or of value. ;) 

However, according to many, the Lord is All-Knowing, All-Powerful and All-Merciful.
So, who knows???  It's all in the hands of the Lord!









...



[Coming...]



ALWAYS REMEMBER - A WORD TO THE WISE:  Advertising, promotional or marketing expenses are usually meant to bring in more than they cost to implement!  Unless you are doing missionary work on the Congregation's penny; or are spending government grant money; or have a large trust fund, and money is truly no object; never, NEVER spend your money on anything (and particularly NOT on methods that promise you instant wealth!), UNLESS you feel reasonably certain that the product or service will PAY FOR ITSELF IN A REASONABLY SHORT TIMESPAN!

Permalink -- The permanent link for the present page is:
http://cinfopro.blogspot.com/2010/11/pursuing-grant-money-how-realistic-how.html