I've written a lot of advancement project award submissions over the past five years and I've had a measure of success: 100% win rate, and multiple medals for single projects. If you're curious, you can find a list of the awards my submissions have won in the About Me section to the left.
There are many factors that contribute to the success of my submissions, not the least of which is the subject matter. Many of these projects have truly been industry game changers. However, I also think that my way of creating these submissions has a lot to do with it, too.
I developed my approach when I created my first-ever project submission. By looking at the award submission guidelines and checking out some of the winning submissions, I crafted a sort of submission outline that has turned into a standardized format. (And it has not changed much over the years.)
Having a pre-established format helps in many ways. But probably the biggest benefit is that I already know how to start and where to lead my readers. This is a huge time saver, which is important because I write these submissions in my spare time. Since good academics always share their results (and old habits die hard), I decided to create a series of blog posts about my award submission format so that you, too, may save some time. Maybe enough to solve the mystery once and for all about whether or not the anonymous speaker on that sound clip is saying Laurel or Yanny. (But I dream...)
I also hope that by sharing my process I can help other development offices submit more often, with greater ease and confidence.
When one of us wins, we all win. A high tide of industry best practice can raise all boats (and more money in support of higher education.)
Before I continue, some things...
I'm not a professional writer. Well, scratch that. I wrote as a profession for 8 years. (Yes, I count grad school as a profession.) But I've never been formally trained to be a grant writer, or any other kind of writer, for that matter. I just have a lot of experience with academic research and writing. And I thank two immensely talented and kind graduate school professors for those opportunities: Dr. Beverley Diamond and Dr. Kati Szego.
Also, I can't promise that if you use my format that you will absolutely win every single time you submit, cross my heart, hope to hear that Laurel or Yanny sound clip for all eternity. As I'm sure you know, there's much more to writing than just putting words on a page.
Finally, I wouldn't want you see my method as prescriptive. Everyone has a different style of writing, and the sections I created may not fit well with certain types of projects (donor events might need different section headers in the project summary, for instance.) All of my submissions were for data-driven advancement services and stewardship projects. So that's my bias. But I do think that most of my formula can be applied across many categories, with a bit of nudging here and there.
In part 2 of this series I start getting into particulars.
(BTW, it's totally Laurel. Right?)
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Kelly