Three reasons why you should learn and study government grants.

To the person who wants to become more valuable to the marketplace:

Grant fog plunges most Canadian businesses into an unproductive mess.

While all levels of government in Canada offer government grants for businesses and not-for-profit organizations, winning them takes work.

Small business grants can range from “façade improvement” for your storefront, hiring summer students, to covering research and development costs.

More businesses should be applying to this funding (aka free money), but excellent grant writing is hard work.

Common frustrations range widely:

Finding time to write
Commitment to track them
Skill to communicate a unique message

In the Advanced Grant Writing Course, students learn to overcome these obstacles in three ways.

#1. Learn how the government works, where grants come from, and why every political party needs and uses them.

Most people in business studied business, and they didn’t take even one political science class. Mistake.

Think about it for a minute. Governments create business regulations, tax rates, licence requirements, safety standards, and government grants.

Being in business without an adequate government understanding is often a blind spot.

The main point you need to know is that grants help the government achieve their goals – not yours.

Once someone understands their grant project needs to help the government achieve its goals, the grant fog begins to lift.

#2. Grants mostly fund projects. Read that sentence slowly once more. Does the team member responsible for grants have any project management training?

Most people don’t realize the relationship between grant writing and project management.

If someone doesn’t understand the basics of project management, how can we expect them to adequately answer the question on nearly every single grant application: “Describe your project.”

I used to “wing” these answers, but then I got obsessed with grant writing. I studied it from Leroy Banack, and now he is a guest speaker in the Advanced Grant Writing Course.

Grants begin to stand out when applications include a project scope statement, schedule, and budget. If the grant agency cannot see the key components of your project, the staff are less likely to believe you are accounting for everything.

First you get these skills, then you build trust and stand out.

#3. Finding your best government grant is more like putting in golf than driving.

I started building a grant database back in 2012.

It has over 1,800 grants in it today, which are totally open for the public. Most business owners or leaders think, “I just need a list of grants.”

That’s like saying, “If I just hit a big drive, I’m sure to get it into the hole faster.”

Well, if you played any golf in your life, you know the short game can ruin your score.

Yes, you are likely eligible for “a lot of grants,” but you need to narrow that list and align them with your key projects.

The art of winning a grant is project and grant alignment. Perfect alignment.

In the Advanced Grant Writing Course, students receive a custom list of grants. We spend four of the 12 classes clarifying project descriptions and matching them with grants.

It’s hard work but worth it.

If you don’t have perfect grant and project fit, you’re going to spend time in the woods looking for your ball.