Attention to Detail

Katherine and I have been hard at work marketing Advancement Ink and answering calls and advertisements for grant writers and consulting firms. In fact, we are currently writing a proposal on behalf of our company in response to a call. How very appropriate that a grant writing firm is writing a grant for themselves!

Anyway, Katherine and I had a conversation last week discussing the deadline of the aforementioned proposal and the necessity of hand-delivering it to the agency. We do not want to chance it getting lost or overlooked, or arriving late. Because if it arrives past the deadline, it will not be considered.

When I was working as a university grant writer, I attended lots of workshops where grantmakers would give presentations on successful fundraising and proposal writing. Time and time again they would reiterate the importance of paying attention to detail and following directions. An example might be staying within the space parameters allotted, or not asking for endowment money when the foundation clearly states that it does not fund endowments. This all sounded like logical advice to me. I was surprised to learn that there are quite a few people who don't take the time to cross their t's and dot their i's. I wasn't surprised to learn that the proposals of those people were the first to be thrown out.

It is a very large undertaking for staff to read all of the proposals submitted to a funding agency. A very easy way to narrow down the number of proposals read is to weed out the ones that have not met the deadline or who have not followed the basic directions. How frustrating would it be to have worked so hard preparing a proposal only to have it thrown out because you omitted a crucial component or turned it in late?

Taking the time to check and double check work, no matter what kind of work it is, will always pay off. Discovering potential mistakes before they become real mistakes can save time and headaches.
That extra moment spent will insure that you are putting your organization's best foot forward.