Читать книгу Grant Writing For Dummies - Stan Hutton, Beverly A. Browning - Страница 40

The Status/Results column of your funding plan (refer to Figure 2-1) must be updated continuously. After you meet with the funder and can assess their level of interest in supporting your organization, you’ll need to change the meeting status note to the feedback received and add the next step (for example, “Apply this cycle,” “Wait until next year,” or “Not interested in this project”). Here are some essential activities needed on your part to keep the funding plan a working document:

 Write it down. You need to officially document your funding plan ideas. Create funding plan templates and hand one to everyone at the meeting. This way, all parties are onboard and writing/talking about the same things in the same sequence.

 Use it. The funding plan must become a daily guide to help your organization decide what programs or services have funding priority and how to fund them most logically.

 Keep it up to date. Update your funding plan’s Status/Results column every time you apply for grant funding or receive the results of your efforts. Record whether you’re being funded, and if so, the funding amount. If you don’t secure the money, find out why your efforts failed.

 Review and revise it annually. Why? Both your needs and funders’ priorities change, sometimes as often as annually. For instance, just because a lot of money is available for programs for after-school academic programs this year doesn’t mean that this funding area will still be the focus next year. Your plan must change to reflect what funders want to fund. In other words, your funding plan isn’t just about what your organization wants or needs; it’s about what funders want to fund within the parameters of your organization’s mission.

Involve both your board of directors and your administrative staff in fleshing out the funding plan and updating it. Sit down and have a brainstorming session to determine your funding priorities. Ask administrative staff about unmet needs, waiting lists, or any feedback from frontline employees. Ask board members to assess programmatic weaknesses from their viewpoint as well. When the Status/Results column changes, update it immediately and get a copy of the modified plan document out to all who need it as their roadmap for assignments.

Keep your funding plan flexible. Funders change their priorities often, and your target population’s needs are likely to change as well. So be willing to review previous evaluation reports or results from funded programs and stay on top of newly released community needs assessments. Update the funding plan by removing and adding programs and services, and then incorporate these changes into your revised document.