Funders proliferate mission and vision statements across their communications, which should, in theory, make it easy for grant seekers to strategically align their applications with funders’ expectations. Often, however, mission and vision statements can be too broad to help individual grant seekers determine the goodness of fit for individual projects, resulting in a waste of time and effort.
Web sites can be useful resources if they are kept current, but they, too, are often formal and fairly general, and research highlighted on web sites provides a glance in the rearview mirror—that research was funded years ago, which doesn’t help you necessarily understand what’s winning awards now.
Here at Strategic Grantsmanship, it’s all about efficiency and how to win more grant money in less time. Time unnecessarily spent on the grants treadmill indiscriminately pursuing every opportunity that comes your way and might be a fit for your project keeps you away from what you really want to be doing, whether that’s working in the field or lab, running your business, or running with your dog. So here are six easy online tools I use to efficiently achieve insight into the current wants, needs, and interests of potential funders and accurately gauge if a funding opportunity is worth pursuing. Continue reading “Six Easy Online Tools Every Grant Seeker Should Use”
