Stop Chasing the Money!

“Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment!”

I’m not sure where I first heard that saying, but it certainly is true. I share this idea at the outset because what I am about to tell you comes from experience, and that experience more often than not came from bad judgment.

When it comes to grants, or contract competitions, the second worst thing you can do is to fail to look for and compete for money that you could and should be awarded. But the first worst thing you can do is compete for money that you don’t really want, need, or deserve.

Over many years of grant and proposal writing, I would say I have gotten pretty good at it. One thing that has helped is the development of a sincere understanding of the Art, versus the Science, of Grant Writing. That simple act of discovery can make a world of difference in the quality of any proposal.

There is an additional level of discernment that should be brought to the table when considering any attempt to get more funding for your project or organization, and it is this: “If I could win this funding, would I really want it?” If you chase money just “because you can” you are likely to be disappointed in the end.

Among the most common things that happen when an organization chases money, here are the ones that usually end up harming, rather than helping:

• You underestimate the cost of delivering the services you promise

In an effort to compete on price, many applicants will unrealistically reduce their anticipated costs. This is often accompanied by a rationale (irrationale?) that “We’ll figure out how to do it cheaper if we win.” This rarely works, and the consequences are that you lose money overall because the funding you got was inadequate to compensate for the services you promised. In a worse-case scenario you under perform, which can seriously tarnish your reputation going forward, impair your ability to win funds in the future, or – in the extreme – lead to charges of mismanagement or worse.

• You win money to perform services that are not compatible with your mission

Like the dog that chases the car and then does not know what to do when he catches it, you might win a grant or a contract, and find that delivering on the agreement disrupts your entire organization. In trying to be something you are not, you become something you never intended. The worst consequence is that new programming or procedures you implement to fulfill a contract you should never have pursued drives away longtime supporters or valuable employees who conclude that you have lost your way.

• You fail to win the money because, in the end, you really weren’t the right fit

Trying to fit a round peg into a square hole is rarely a winning strategy. When your organization’s expertise and service arsenal is wrong for the purpose of the funding, trying to win the money by brute force won’t work.

• You fail to win the money because, in the end, you really could not compete

Sometimes the smartest thing to admit is that the competition for funding is just better than you are in a specific case, or that there are already those with an inside track and you aren’t one of them. This is often evident before you ever put pen to paper on an application or grant proposal.

One of the best ways to avoid any of these undesirable outcomes is to develop an internal pre-evaluation or “vetting” process that forces a fair and balanced evaluation of opportunities, and steers you away from money-chasing and towards investing your time and energy into finding legitimate sources of useful funding.

There is an amazing amount of funding available for the right people, and for the right purposes. A good evaluation strategy – one that is not only unafraid to but actually designed to return the analysis of “walk away from this one” – will save you immeasurable time and headaches down the road.