How Mistakes Can Help You Win Grants

Grants in Australia are highly competitive.

Searching for and applying for grants takes time and savvy. To be successful, you need to know how to assess grant opportunities and what goes into a competitive grant application.

Some organisations use professional grant writers and/or have career grants fundraisers who have been in the grants game for a long time. Relying on this expertise enables these organisations to spend their time and resources very efficiently.

But here’s the thing - experience doesn’t necessarily guarantee success with grants.

Some funding providers we’ve spoken to say they receive strong applications from people who had no previous experience in grants, who simply read the grant program guidelines, answered questions succinctly, and included the right information.

And we’ve also heard that there are a few mistakes that even experienced grant applicants make.

All. The. Time.

In fact so often, regardless of experience, that the applicants who don’t make these mistakes stand out and really shine.

Avoiding common grant mistakes can help you get ahead of the competition.

Impress assessors with your next grant application by proactively steering clear of these common blunders.

Mistake #1: People try for grants they're not eligible for

When we feel passionately about a cause, we often want to bring other people on board and we believe that if we tell our story well - they just might bend their rules for us.

Unfortunately, no matter what your initiative is, if you do not meet the eligibility requirements for a grant program - you will not be successful with an application. Full stop.

Funding providers don’t make grants to ineligible applicants because:

- Their legal structure may prohibit them from making grants to certain types of entities
- Making grants to ineligible applicants wouldn’t be fair to eligible applicants
- Breaking guidelines would reflect poorly on the funding provider and cause negative ripples, both internally and externally.

Applying for a grant that you are not eligible for will only waste your time - and the funding provider’s time, too.

Here are our tips to make sure you find and apply for the right grants:

- Read grant program guidelines thoroughly and if you are not eligible, move on to the next grant
- If you’re not eligible but feel the funding provider’s objectives align with your own, consider contacting them outside the grant program for an exploratory conversation.

 

We know - this seems pretty obvious, right?

Yet … anyone who’s submitted a grant application may be guilty of not following instructions, either deliberately or accidentally, if they’re not careful.

Here are a few real-life examples:

- The organisation wasn’t invited to an invitation-only round but submitted an application anyway
- The organisation needed to contact a grants manager before making a submission, but didn’t
- The applicant didn’t use the format required (e.g. they submitted a Word document instead of pasting responses into the online portal)
- The applicant consistently exceeded the required or recommended word count for their responses
- The applicant’s responses were difficult to read quickly, e.g. used too much jargon, had run-on sentences, or there were no breaks between paragraphs
- The applicant exaggerated their objectives or potential impact in an attempt to align with the grant guidelines
- The applicant left responses/some questions blank
- The applicant included a response but failed to answer the question
- The applicant didn’t include required attachments
- The applicant used old or outdated information in their responses or supplementary information (e.g. financial statements, letters of support)
- Numbers in the project budget didn’t ‘add up’ or a budget line item didn’t make sense
- Numbers elsewhere in the application didn’t ‘add up’ or make sense (e.g. project outputs, audience / reach figures, project timeline etc)
- The applicant requested more money than the maximum grant available
- The applicant submitted multiple applications for the same project in an attempt get around the maximum grant limit
- The applicant was given the opportunity to provide supplementary, optional information that would have helped assessors understand them better - but failed to utilise this opportunity
- The individual or organisation wasn’t eligible to apply (... as per mistake #1 above.)

Ok - that’s a long list!

And yes, some of these mistakes could be eliminated by better grant making practices - but that’s a whole other topic…

Thankfully, most of these trip-ups are easy to avoid once you know what they are.

Here are our tips to ensure you submit a complete (and strong) grant application:

- Read grant guidelines before you start an application
- Submit a response to every question - and write at a minimum “N/A” if you have nothing to include
- Answer each question in the first sentence of your response - then elaborate (but be succinct)
- Use bullet points, CAPITALS, and spacing to make headings and to break up paragraphs (make your application easy to read)
- Use evidence, numbers and detail to support your responses - e.g. how many, how much, who, where, when
- Don’t answer a question until you understand it - especially if it involves terms like evidence, outputs, outcomes, and impact
- Only request funding up to the maximum grant available (but be honest about the total project cost and confirmed co-contributions)
- Don’t submit your application after the deadline unless you have a REALLY good explanation
- Only apply if you’re up-to-date with any reporting for existing grants with the funding provider
- Consider your application from a funding provider’s perspective - they’re going to conduct due diligence, so what else do they need to know upfront that you can address within the application
- Proof-read your application, or better yet, ask a peer or colleague to read it as well.

Mistake #3: The grant applicant underestimated their competition

There’s no doubt about it - most grant opportunities you come across will be competitive, and very rarely if ever will every applicant get a grant.

You may spend at least hours, if not days and possibly weeks (in some cases) on a single grant application. Yet the funding provider will not spend near as much time assessing your application as you did compiling it.

Funding providers will likely skim and/or read all of the applications they received: 1. To confirm that they’re eligible; and 2. To look for highlights that set a few apart from others.

The depth and method of assessment will vary depending on the funding provider.

Here are our tips for making a competitive grant application:

- Explore potential collaboration opportunities - is there another organisation you could work with on your project to make it even stronger and impactful, or how can you ensure you’re not duplicating with someone else
- Consider what your application will look like when compared with others (for example, when exported to a spreadsheet) - make your responses skimmable and highlight what you want to stand out
- Investigate how the funding provider will be assessing applications (e.g. their assessment criteria, who’s on the assessment panel, any tips from the program manager, etc)
- Cater to your audience - make your case for support interesting and include information that will help them to make an informed decision about your application.

After you hit SUBMIT

If you find that you’ve made a mistake on your application, even after you’ve submitted it, don’t hesitate to reach out to the funding provider to fix the error by providing corrected information.

They will likely look favourably on you taking this initiative, and - it can’t hurt to ask!

Finally, try to take time to reflect on each application to note what worked well and what you could do differently in the future to make sure you find and invest in the right grants.