Winning+Strategies

=Key Ideas to Help Your School WIN! Here are some Key Ideas to keep in mind when developing your grant proposal: =

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**Develop a Winning Attitude: Your Ideas Deserve the Money** ====== Believe that your ideas are winners. Good ideas will be funded! This is no time to be shy or to hold back.

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**Write the Grant and Get It Out the Door** ====== Many folks have good ideas. But, a lot of folks may not realize how really good their ideas are. Do not worry about being rejected. In fact, look forward to it in the beginning. Good honest rejection can teach you a lot if you follow up with inquiries to the source about what you can do next time. Celebrate rejection in a professional way and you dramatically increase your chances of success next time.

**Do Your Homework**
Understand the audience’s point of view – the grant reader. Many grant writers find it helpful to write in the third person. In this way, you are not asking for the money for yourself but for others. Go to the library and pull the annual report of the corporation or foundation where you are applying and understand their philosophy and pattern of giving grants.

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**Do Not Worry About Being Profound or Original** ====== Borrow and adapt ideas early and often. Magazines, conference, books and journals can have wonderful ideas about innovations. Some of the best sources of ideas are often found in journals and magazines outside of your field. For example, educators can often find powerful ideas about learning technologies by reading business magazines. What is unique about your grant may not be the core idea but how you are applying the idea.

-1991, November, Alan C., //Writing Winning Grants,// Educational Renaissance Planners.