The Grant Writing Process: Gathering Your Data and Information (Second in a Series of Articles)

As with any other endeavor, writing a grant requires preparation. Too often, people see a grant application and start to write while trying to gather data. Often this approach is ineffective and results in the use of inappropriate, old, or just plain inaccurate data. For example, I cannot count the times in the past 10 years that clients have given me basic data from the 2000 census… in 2008. Think of the message such data sends to a reviewer, especially when census data is often updated. The proper use of information tells a funder that 1) your organization has clearly identified a need; 2) used that data to design a response the need; and 3) kept track of the effectiveness of that response.

This information can come from a variety of sources. They can include such things as the number of people served, demographics of those served, outcomes (i.e. did the target population achieve the expected results?). Your data should also be presented in a way that is both honest and advantageous. Non-profits doing energy audits can often give a collective figure on the amount of energy their work has saved. One of my old clients was a county court that was implementing a mental health court. When my firm was hired to write the large federal grant, they could show that their diversion protocol markedly reduced recidivism during the demonstration phase. This data pointed to the effectiveness of what they did and made the reader want to find out why they were effective.

In retrospect, almost all of my clients had this kind of data available. The problem was that no one was collecting it or keeping it in a centralized place. Very often, my clients would write a report to a funder that had all kinds of data to prove the effectiveness of their program. Unfortunately, rather than share this data and keep it available, it often ends up in a filing cabinet or a computer file archive. Beyond grants, such data have wonderful marketing possibilities. (Yes, cities, schools and non-profits are brands unlike any other- more on that in a future article). At a minimum, they could be used to show residents that a city agency or non-profit is leveraging existing resources in a tight economy to good effect. I cannot stress enough the power of this data and need to collect it, update it, and have it available. The City of Springfield, Massachusetts even has an office, CitiStat, dedicated to data collection and management to measure effectiveness Other places that do a good job with data management include the Denver Office of Strategic Partnerships and Denver’s Road Home -10 Year Plan to End Homelessness.

Sources of this data can include annual reports, old grant applications, other city or state agencies that keep this information, chambers of commerce etc. What is important is to have a process to develop and maintain this data. It is one of the most overlooked steps in preparing a grant.

By: John M Izzo