{"id":246,"date":"2016-05-13T12:12:39","date_gmt":"2016-05-13T17:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lightfellow.com\/?p=246"},"modified":"2016-05-13T12:12:39","modified_gmt":"2016-05-13T17:12:39","slug":"featured-expert-batya-hernandez-on-writing-grants-that-get-funders-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lightfellow.com\/?p=246","title":{"rendered":"Featured Expert: Batya Hernandez on Writing Grants That Get Funders’ Attention"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BatyaHeadshot\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Batya Hernandez is currently the Assistant Director of Grants and Contracts for WYCC PBS in Chicago. She has specialized in grants management and writing at several social service agencies in the Chicagoland area. She is also an artist and creative writer, and President of the art gallery Blue Line Studio.<\/p>\n

\n

I knew Batya as a creative writer, but wasn\u2019t surprised to find out her day job was writing grants, because there really is an art to it. She gave me great tips on writing grants that stand out to funders.<\/p>\n

The first thing Batya does is research who funds organizations like hers. Once she narrows it down to several foundations, she drills down. \u201cI take a forensic approach to it. I really breakdown a foundation, I look at their financials, I look at their website. And if they don\u2019t have a website, you have to look at their 990s,\u201d she says. The 990, which is a foundation\u2019s tax return, lists the assets of the foundation, who they funded and at what amount. \u201cAnd if you look at two or three years of 990s, you can see are they trending up in income or are they trending down,\u201d she says. That trend will help you set a realistic amount for your ask.<\/p>\n

Once she determines the foundations she will apply to, she writes the grants, which usually include a summary of what her organization does, a needs statement, and budgetary numbers. When writing grants, Batya uses a story-based approach, making the executive summary and the need statement a pleasure to read. \u201cI try to make it as interesting as possible because I know [the funder] is going to read a hundred proposals on the same subject,\u201d she says. To weave a story in with the facts and numbers required in a grant application, she goes to a service site and watches what happens. For a program that prepares students for kindergarten, she wrote about watching kids cutting and pasting with actual scissors, because cutting helps kids develop the fine motor skills needed to grip a pencil, which is a key activity in Kindergarten.<\/p>\n

Batya also incorporates the organization\u2019s strategic plan into the grant. \u201cI\u2019ll do a sustainability paragraph which a lot of grant writers don\u2019t do. For example, my sustainability statement might look like, \u2018The program [requiring funding] has been sustained at [the organization] for over 25 years. The current budget is $X. We have committed funders for next year that gets us to 70%. Your contribution would mean a lot to us and it would also help us attract other funders.\u2019 So the strategic plan will talk about programs and program vision and you even have the fundraising goals. That is your roadmap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once the content is finished, she concentrates on the visual style of the grant. She stands firm on using blocked paragraphs, a 12-point font and 1-inch margins. \u201cThe page needs to breathe. It needs to look like an article. Those are the things that catch the eye of a funder,\u201d Batya says. Once the application is formatted, she lays it out and looks it over. \u201cI stand up [because] I like to be able to look at the pages spread out. And then I always look for what I can cut out. I know it sounds ridiculous. I\u2019ll take my scissors and I\u2019ll tape how it should go for a better flow.\u201d<\/p>\n

And although this should be a given, she stresses how important it is to have someone else proofread the proposal before sending it out. \u201cThe devil is in the details.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to get into a rut of writing dry grant applications, especially if your organization doesn\u2019t do \u201cvisual\u201d things. But to write a grant that stands out from the crowd, she says, \u201cKeep in mind your reader, and that\u2019s something I learned in fiction writing. Always think about the reader, the audience. You\u2019re taking the audience on a ride.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Batya Hernandez is currently the Assistant Director of Grants and Contracts for WYCC PBS in Chicago. She has specialized in grants management and writing at several social service agencies in the Chicagoland area. She is also an artist and creative writer, and President of the art gallery Blue Line Studio. I knew Batya as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-experts-series"],"yoast_head":"\nFeatured Expert: Batya Hernandez on Writing Grants That Get Funders' Attention - Lightfellow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/lightfellow.com\/?p=246\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Featured Expert: Batya Hernandez on Writing Grants That Get Funders' Attention - Lightfellow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Batya Hernandez is currently the Assistant Director of Grants and Contracts for WYCC PBS in Chicago. 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