Grant Writing Capacity Building & Innovation | White Paper by La Juana (LJ) Chambers Lawson
As you read this whitepaper, grant seeking entities are responding to a global coronavirus pandemic with no clear end in sight. Earlier this year, Candid and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP) published Philanthropy and COVID-19: Measuring one year of giving. Key findings from the report included: Candid tracked some $20.2 billion in funding from corporations, foundations, public charities, and high-net-worth individuals in 2020. Corporations accounted for 44 percent of the $20.2 billion that was awarded in 2020. Community foundations awarded more grants than any other grant-maker type, accounting for 54 percent of total awards. The destabilizing impact of COVID-19 has…
ETF Wrap: Putting your money where your mouth is, and we have a winner(s)!
What just happened? What a world: after four years of teasing, it’s finally Infrastructure Week! And after months of preparations — inflation scares, ETF positioning, sector rotations — the market largely yawned through the White House’s proposal. MarketWatch and ETF Wrap will, of course, continue to track all the developments with the spending package, and keep you updated on the best ideas on how to play it all (here’s a Wednesday round-up of ETF suggestions.) In the meantime, please enjoy a very special edition of ETF Wrap. The cover art is the only April Fool’s Day joke, we promise. What could be more serious than our big…
3 Lessons Learned: Grant Auditing
Preparing for a grant audit can be quite intimidating. I can recall spending countless hours at work, sometimes even staying the night, creating new report templates, performing data quality checks, reading last minute updates to the Federal Register, finalizing budget narratives, and updating performance measures. Grant writing professionals are generally regarded as first-line technical assistance providers in preparing for audits, both internal and external, because of (a) their first-hand knowledge of the grant i.e. it’s scope or performance of work, budget, management plan, deliverable schedule, etc. and (b) their stewardship of internal and external auditing controls, protocols, and procedures i.e.…
3 Tips For Developing a Grant or Project Budget
Here are some tips to help you develop a competitive and creative grant or project budget. Many of these tips apply to nonprofit organizations, to include those organized as charities, membership or trade associations and chambers of commerce, and private businesses alike. This list is published, in part, to provide a fresh perspective and to inspire greater collaboration for active grant and proposal writers, their enthusiasts, and avid supporters.
The Impossibility of Grant Project Success
Here are some tips to help you prevent common elements of breach to most grant contract awards. Often, the environment that may have once fostered the innovation of a grant project changes and instead works against that innovation and jeopardizes a grant project’s success. The reality of the impossibility of grant project success comes when plans do not have the likelihood of meeting actuals. Picture a simple x- and y- axis with a couple of running lines. One running line charts your grant project’s actuals while the other running line charts your grant project’s budget (i.e. this can be represented in dollars,…
San Antonio Black Entrepreneurs, Experts Who Can Speak at Your Next Event
What will it take to improve diversity at conferences? We know diversity in teams is the key to innovation and makes us smarter. This panel with Tiffany Haddish discussed ways to incorporate diversity into conferences and other public events. We must acknowledge the systematic barriers holding back people of color from being recognized as experts. It has long been evident that we are not doing everything we can to ensure that discussion panels, keystone speakers, and conference sessions reflect the full spectrum of talent in our communities. Too many events lack racial diversity, so we’re taking steps to help change that.
Agile SM(A)RT Goal-Setting
SMART goal-setting is attributed to George T. Doran, a consultant and author of “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives” (1981). In the paper, he offered SMART in the following way: Specific – target a specific area for improvement. Measurable – quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress. Assignable – specify who will do it. Realistic – state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources. Time-related – specify when the result(s) can be achieved. Doran went on to provide that SMART can and will have many meanings that may lead to the creation…